Thursday was our eleventh wedding anniversary. Since we weren't able to do anything to celebrate then and we unexpectedly ended up kid-free on Friday, I decided we should enjoy a date night. Dan agreed so we saw Furious 7 and enjoyed dinner at LongHorns--thanks to Dan's momma. We were still in bed by midnight, which is pretty late for us early risers, but I forgot my meds before bed. This left me in a bit of a funk on Saturday, and Dan has a sore on his hand that was paining him and left him in a funk on Saturday, also. Not so much fun chillin' on a Saturday when you're in pain or just emotionally empty.
So, today, we had to make up for things we didn't get around to yesterday. We've spent a month at the UgL now, and I've already noticed that I'm stronger. When I got to drive for Livi's field trip just over a week ago, I was on my feet any time I wasn't in the bus and my back wasn't killing me all day. Yay! It was pretty sore last Saturday, but I'll take any progress I can get. Dan decided that we needed to make some serious changes to our eating habits if we're really going to lose weight and be healthy, and I couldn't disagree. The UgL did a 42 day weight loss challenge for folks to start off the New Year with and one of the ladies at the Lab told Dan about it. I haven't gotten into how strict the rest is, but week one is intense. It's your basic concept of cutting the carb cravings and rebooting your metabolism, which is far harder than it sounds. We'll do six days of 20 grams or fewer carbs, switch to eating smaller meals five times a day, and and then we get a cheat/re-fuel meal on Sunday evening. They recommend that we journal daily and track our emotional and physical feel, so I'll try. If you're going to be reading all of these, it could be ugly by Wednesday or Thursday. Caffeine is not disallowed in moderation, however, I generally have my caffeine with a nice serving of sugar, whether in coffee, tea or soda. Detox is not going to be fun, but hopefully, by Friday, I'll be feeling the perks of the purge. Wish us lots of luck! :) Dan thinks that the caffeine won't be a problem for him because he doesn't think it's really an issue for him, but we shall see...
Oh, yeah, the things we got to do today since we didn't do then yesterday... We sat down and about halfway mapped out our meals for the first three days. The challenge recommends prepping on Sunday and Wednesday. I cooked up four pounds of chicken and cut it into bite sized pieces and weighed it out into Dan sized and Eeka sized portions. It took us forever figuring out what to buy and how much, so that's all we got done tonight. Tomorrow, we'll have scrambled eggs (one whole egg each plus extra whites) with green peppers and mushrooms for breakfast before work. I finally bought a pill fob for my key chain so I can take my metformin with breakfast like I'm supposed to, even if we have to take the eggs to go and eat them in the break room at work. After we get home from our first shift, we'll eat again. Probably a nice salad with chicken since it's ready already and then we'll get Dan to the doc to check out his hand, I'll hit the gym and we'll try to prep the rest of the veggies. We've got a busy day planned but a lot will depend on when we can get Dan to the doc. I'm thinking we might just pack a couple containers of broccoli and chicken that we can zap in the microwave at work and eat before we head out. Dan and I will discuss that in the morning and see if we have time for it. I feel like we didn't do much prep at all, but it already feels better knowing we have something halfway ready to eat. Maybe I could get used to this.
The hardest parts of this challenge are not about the eating. They are mental and financial. Dan and I spent over forty dollars for three days of food for just us. I'm hoping the stuff after the first week will be much cheaper or we won't make it through the whole challenge simply because we won't have the budget to allow the healthier foods. I hate that this is a drawback to being healthier, but it is. I'm praying for ways to get through this from the financial standpoint to see if we can maintain healthier habits. Dan's wanting to get another job that will get us some room for financial growth, but I don't want to have to go back to cheap carbs until then. Even budget cooks I find online are budgeting on a whole lot more than we have to spend. My friend, Edye, always says how our Daddy in heaven has deep pockets. Here's hoping He wants to pick up the grocery tab this month.
The mental part of this challenge is two fold for me. First of all, it's really easy for me to see all the ways that this won't work, i.e. finances. Pastor Matt said this morning that we need to make a decision and take a step forward even if we're only 51% sure, just to get started. He said we often don't make decisions because we only see one way to go and a hundred reasons it won't work so we quit before we even start. He said we need to have a hundred ideas of where to go and just pick the best one. I've got the whole system backwards, so I'm trying to move forward positively. Today's message was justa knockin' on the door of my brain and I couldn't ignore it, so I'm trying.
Secondly, we have to change the way we look at food. That's what this challenge is really about. Changing from living to eat to eating to live. Seeing food as fuel, not comfort. Man, that's hard for me to even type out. I just looks so wrong to me. I've known food as love my whole life. Part of me doesn't want to change that. I know I need to change that. I know if I can't change that, I'll never truly be able to lose this weight and be healthy. I KNOW that. I don't doubt it. I can't deny it. It's in caps so it's gotta be true. ;) But I don't like it. We're going all in on this. I'm gonna give it my best shot because I don't want to be diabetic when I'm 45. I don't want a heart attack before I'm 50. I want to see all of my kids graduate and find their special someone and make me a grandma (years from now, not too soon on that!) I want to be there for them like Momma and Daddy have always been there for me. So I KNOW I have to change the way I look at food. I HAVE to get better or I won't be here for my kiddos. But I still don't like it. And it's a big change and it scares me. Diabetes and heart attacks scare me too, but I think change scares me more.
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