Day 21...and Counting

As with most things in my life, a healthier lifestyle is not without it's bumps and bruises.  I do well some weeks but somehow sneak in some not-so-well days in between.  You all know I try to be active, eat well, pull happiness from the tightest spots and fight the negative with all I've got. That does not mean I succeed all the time.  Life changing events tend to take time to adapt to and right now, I'm in the adaptation stage.  All this time I have available has re-introduced some traits into my life that I thought I had said goodbye to long ago. What are those traits? The nastiest ones are uncertainty, laziness and boredom.  On this 21st day of my Conquering mission, they are giving me quite the fight.

A while back I worked on the uncertainty by telling myself that I have to live in the present and not worry about what's going to happen 5 minutes, 5 hours or even 5 years from now. I created mantras, posted quotes and journaled....anything to teach myself how to change.   I was pretty successful. For laziness I made goals that I had to work on. For each goal achieved, I rewarded myself.  The rewards included 30 minute massages, a new teacup, new tea, etc.   Small treats but they worked and it was good. Boredom was easily conquered once I took care of laziness. When you fill your time with goal related activity, you don't have a lot of time for laziness.  So I'm back to those with this shift in my daily routine. 

It's a big shift this jobless life.  With it those little nasty traits have wormed their way back into my life.  Every now and again as I'm doing a job search, or trying to decide what my next move will be, I start thinking about the future and asking myself 'What if?'  Grrrr!!! This is not a good feeling. If I have no answer and start creating all sorts of worst case scenarios, somewhere inside I decide the effort is too great and I would rather just sit here and do nothing because it's just easier. I would normally go workout to get my head back to a better place.  But uncertainty is a strong one so I do nothing and begin welcoming the lazy in. 

When I do nothing, I get bored. With boredom other things start to happen.  I start to eat. I was searching the fridge every hour on the hour with the same results. I kept leaving with nothing.  What I wanted was something comforting and offering instant gratification.  Not necessarily to fill the hunger. Most times I was not even hungry.  Now the good thing is that I don't typically have a lot of sweets, salty or greasy food in the house.  This always keeps the bad snacking to a minimum. 

Well folks, I did something a few days ago that I'm not proud of.  I had one of those days. No point in going into detail about how I got there, but I was feeling down about my progress, didn't want to do a thing about it and got bored with sitting there.  When I did decide to do something, it was a disaster.  I went to the store to get groceries and broke a few of my shopping rules.  My first rule is to never go shopping hungry. Two is never purchase it just because it looks healthy without first reading the label. The third is to stick to the list...always!  I broke most all of those rules within the first 5 minutes.

I walked into that store equipped with a list, rumbling stomach, and sugar on my mind.  Unfortunately,  I chose the entrance that led straight to the cookie aisle. Upon entering, something caught my eye. It looked healthy and made promises.  It said green tea and cranberries so I took it.  It was all downhill from there. I stayed in the middle of the store a little too long. So long that I also purchased other sweets including ice cream.  I eventually did fill the list but spent more than I had budgeted for and came home to nosh on my sweet finds. 

Feel Good About...?

What I have to say next is shameful...so very shameful (picture my hanging head).  I sat down, got caught up in a movie and ate three quarters of a sleeve of cookies. Yes I sure did!  Add to that they made me a little light-headed. I'm almost sure there was caffeine in those. But who knew? Not me because I didn't bother reading the label.  Oye! Well, it was then and there that I decided I need a swift kick in the booty to rid myself of this funky state.  So, I've made myself a schedule outlining what I need to get done and how I'm going to do it.  I re-posted the menus on the refrigerator to reduce the work in deciding what to eat for dinner.  To help with the motivation I have feel good notes tacked above my monitor.

Did I get rid of the cookies?  Of course not! I don't waste money and I do allow myself a treat every now and again. I'm still realistic about my limits and cutting out full food groups or occasional treats is not realistic to me.  I didn't get rid of them but they are not as available as they once were.  They have all been divided into the serving size, wrapped in plastic and shoved in the deepest part of the freezer.  Just in case....

So yes, day 21 of Conquering the Negative Ninnies mission should be the final day but after the above confession, I think it's going to take more than 21 days. I'm not disappointed though.  I've learned some important tactics and just have to practice them a bit more.  So, I'm good!

Quote of the day: 

If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.