I didn’t prep any complicated recipes today requiring lots of veggie chopping, but I still managed to have a little fun with my new cleaver. It is a little strange that I am starting to look forward to eating vegetables, given my long reluctance to incorporate more vegetables into my diet. I am particularly excited to integrate vegetables of many different colors. Today was my first time eating purple cauliflower. The taste wasn’t any different from regular white cauliflower, as far as I could tell, but the color was beautiful. The purple color comes from the antioxidant anthocyanin. I did a quick blanching before briefly stir-frying it with garlic, and the boiling water instantly turned a deep royal purple color.

I’m glad today’s food was healthy because the bathroom scale was not kind to me this morning. I guess I was not on my best behavior in terms of diet and exercise this weekend. Instead of getting discouraged, I needed to be proactive about mitigating the slight weight increase. So I finally decided to try out Apple Fitness+’s other workouts besides the “time to walk” ones I’ve been doing. I was tempted to browse through the many exercises but instead opted to start with beginner ones since (let’s be honest) it’s been a long time since I’ve been physically active. The first workout I did was 10 minutes and made me break a sweat. I enjoyed it, and with the weight measurement from this morning still on my mind, I decided to try the next one on the list. The following 20 minutes had me breathing a little heavier and my heart rate going up. I was impressed with this part of Fitness+, and I will be living in beginner land for the time being while I get my body used to being active again.