Think Healthy Not Thin— Update on Month 3 and 4

Success.

There are many, many ways to measure success. Heck, there are as many ways to measure success as there are Facebook memes about the topic and motivational posters hanging on office walls. But really, how do you measure success, especially when you fail?

Yeah, it’s confession time.

If you’ve been wondering where this blog series has been the last couple weeks, well you’re not alone. I’ve been wondering as well.

I ended my last post talking about making a food menu board. I’ll get to that update in a moment. First, I need to fess up. I’ve actually been writing these blog posts a month after I complete each goal. I did this in order to have ample time to write a quality article with reflection and give myself time to massage the post, get it scheduled and what not. Typical blogger stuff. That being said, I easily could’ve skipped over my failure of month four.

And I really thought about doing just that.

I mean, here I am writing this article about learning how to Think Healthy Not Thin, laying out the groundwork for 18 goals before I turn 40. And now I am supposed to admit that I failed so early on? I’m five months into this journey, but technically I’m only on month four. Maybe I should just keep that to myself, and pick up in real time so no one knows I skipped a beat. It’s the perfect cover….

But isn’t it disingenuous to not say what really happened? How does pretending help me or my readers?

Ok, so I’ll tell the truth. After all, chronicling this journey was my way to create accountability.

So here I am being accountable.
Before I begin to tell you what I messed up and what I didn’t do, let’s have a recap.

Month One: Drinking a gallon of water every day

I started doing this on December first, and now, just shy of five months, there has been only a few days where I’ve been a glass or two short. Which means 95% of the time I’ve been spot on.

I am sooo proud of that! To know I’m doing something good for my body, my skin, and everything else? #awesome.

Month Two: A sleep schedule

When I did this month in review, I didn’t really feel as successful as I could have or should have been. But now that we’re going on almost 4 months of trying to go to bed and get up at the same time, I realize that I have changed something dramatically in my life. Yes, I am still one of those people that will read a book until 3 AM, but I’ve only done that like once or twice in four months. That’s huge progress! LOL

My DVR might have a few more shows on it that I would like, but last night instead of watching another episode of Reign, I went to bed. Not because I was supposed to, but because my body was telling me to and I listened. While life does get in the way and I stay up later than I should sometimes, overall I have changed my sleeping pattern. For someone like me that is astronomical.

Month Three: Making a food menu board.

Well, if you remember my hubby suggested I just write it on paper, but I quickly learned after a week that his lovely idea was not gonna work. So, I got my butt down to Hobby Lobby for a few supplies and then I got my glue gun out. Now, I’m no Martha Stewart—ain’t nobody got time for that!—but I managed to make a dry erase board that works pretty good.

Isn’t it cute?

Now this board is not a hard fast rule, but several beneficial things happened with its introduction.

First and foremost, I haven’t been wasting food like I usually do. Having a household with just two people, it’s very easy to throw away leftovers or worse, throwaway meat because you never got a chance to use it. Writing out my meal ideas for the week has managed to save lots produce and meat from ending up in the garbage. Plus the hubby is asking “what’s for dinner?” a whole lot less because all he has to do is look at the board.

That’s success.

Occasionally we do cheat and go out to eat or decide to do something else, but the menu board has proven to be a guideline to make life a little easier. Was it the raging success that I hoped? Did it prevent me from making bad food choices? Yes and no. I definitely stopped doing the “I don’t know what’s for dinner, let’s just make a pizza,” so in that sense, it was successful, and that was what I really wanted. To nip the impulsive bad dinners in the bud. I still managed to make fattening Indian food and pizza on my list, LOL, but at least I knew what I was eating that night and was able to make healthier food choices throughout the day. The best part is that the food board has become a routine in my household.

Month Four: Exercise

Oh yeah, the big E.

Now, I didn’t set the goal too unrealistically. I was going to do three 30 minute workouts a week, 20 minutes on the treadmill then some sit-ups and push-ups.

For years I had a personal trainer, and I used to run 2 miles a day and take kickboxing. Exercise has always been a part of my life except for the last two years when my priorities have shifted to other things. I figured March would be a great month to start exercising because spring was arriving and I would have more energy.

How did I do?

EPIC FAIL

I did not work out once!

Why?

Well, there are a lot of reasons.

First, I didn’t prepare like I did the other months. The other months I spent the week before practicing and getting ready so I was raring to go. I had this plan that I was gonna buy new tennis shoes. I would get a little basket of socks and sports bras to put down by my treadmill. Then I was gonna sleep in my workout clothes, get up, grab a banana and a water bottle, and wham bam thank you ma’am, I’d be working out!!

Easy-peazy lemon squeezy, right?

Wrong! I didn’t prepare like I’d intended to. I got the socks and cleared all the junk off the treadmill….but that was it. I set myself up for failure to from the get-go.

But there was another contributing factor I hadn’t planned for.

Life.

But three 30 minute workouts a week is pretty realistic for 90% of people. So why didn’t it work? Why didn’t I have even a little bit of success?

More importantly, was my failure truly a failure?

Please tune in tomorrow for the second half of this post because, somehow, in the middle of that failure, and after I thought long and hard about it, I realized that there was more success in my failure than I ever imagined.

~Deanna

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