Week 4: No Processed Snacks

The last few days have been all over the place, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do well on any of the habits over the weekend. I can barely remember last week or how I did with this habit.

I do remember saying at one point, "It's easier to not eat at all than go to the bother of eating fruits and veggies that require washing and cutting." I suppose not eating between meals is just as good, if not for my bad habit of making up for it at mealtime.

Unfortunately, this one is really hard to stick when I'm stressed or haven't had an actual meal at lunchtime, like today. So here I am munching on leftover Moe's tortilla chips. At least it's not sugar or wheat and didn't come wrapped in plastic...? Excuses, excuses, I know.

After a family birthday party celebration on Sunday, I decided I wasn't going to get anywhere without cutting out sugar. I'm sure I'd go a whole lot further if I cut out gluten and starch as well, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. I know I can do it as I did so for about 3-4 months the first summer of the pandemic and lost 10-12 pounds. It helped that the get-togethers were more rare back then. And at home, despite the sourdough bread and endless hours in the kitchen everyday, it had gotten easier to resist most days, because without the constant influx of carbs, the cravings for them had almost disappeared.

But then Diwali came, followed by Thanksgiving, birthdays, etc. As I said before, our culture revolves around food when it comes to social gatherings and there's no getting away from it. Not everyone is trying to lose weight or be healthier and most don't want to do it at the expense of delicious foods.

For the other habits, I ranged from 50% to 80% success. The physical therapy exercises are still difficult to pin down into a routine. I had the excuse to toss the exercises I had planned, because my PT said I should do more stretching rather than strengthening. Eh, who am I kidding? I usually just forgot, otherwise I would have done those stretches.

That's the thing about habits. If you do something at the same time everyday and in the same way, you can do it without even thinking about it. Until then, it's a conscious effort to remember and then throw off the inertia to get started.

I need to put reminders up of what my habits are. There are getting to be too many of them now. Sticky notes on my bathroom mirror for when I wake up, at the fridge for when I go into the kitchen, and at my computer where I spend most of my day should help to remind me and make more conscious choices.

And oh! I just realized it's February 1st. I've been seeing an ad on Facebook about doing pushups for a cause for the month of February. It reminded me of the challenges I wanted to do (or did start and failed to complete). This won't be an official habit but I'd like to see how far I get with holding a plank by the end of the month. I did one the other day but didn't time it...probably about 30 seconds.

Let me go do that now before I forget...and then get those stickies up so I can do better on my official habits.

How are your habits going?