30 Days of Perfection: Day 1 ~ What Am I Doing?

How is this going to work? Maybe I should have figured out more of the details before my start date. Oh well, here I am. Day one of my 30 perfect days.  I’m a little overwhelmed.  The idea for this experiment came to me in a mini-breakdown. Maybe not the best place to make life changing decisions. 

When I’m stressed, my first impulse is to hide in a giant gluten-free chocolate cupcake. Unfortunately, those can be hard to come by. My second impulse is to completely change my life. To find control in the chaos. My mind spun with “should do’s” to make my life more structured, more productive...more in control. I frantically started a list of all the random thoughts. “Eat fruit and veggies, practice self hypnosis, walk, take fish oil, throw a party...”  The more I wrote, the calmer I felt. I stopped listing everything that popped into my head, and came up with the pieces of my life that each thing fit into. The ideas seemed doable. These are the little things that I know I should do, but don't.  I’d already decided that I was going to experiment with being sugar free for 30 days. What if I just added some of the things from the list? 

“Isn’t the sugar thing enough?”

“Aren’t you setting yourself up for failure?” 

“What if you don’t meet your goals? Are you going to beat yourself up about it?” 

“Do you need a giant cupcake?” 

These concerns were valid and from people that know me well.  But once I’d settled down and went back over my lists, I still felt like I wanted to do this, and more importantly, that I could do it.

The sugar thing is actually huge. It's part of the daily goals, but also its own experiment. I went sugar free for a month a couple of years ago and declared I would never subject myself to that torture again. I was hoping being sugar free would help with some health issues. It didn’t. But I'd also had a habit of pretzels, crackers, and a nightly cosmo. So even though I wasn’t eating cookies and candy for that month, I wasn’t really sugar free. I’ve been gluten free for two years (I gave up gluten for the same health reasons, and it did help enough that I didn’t go back) and maybe have a cosmo once a month. My health still isn’t what I’d like it to be, so I decided to try the sugar thing again. I’m starting after Easter, because I have a weakness for jelly beans that would have surely been my downfall. 

I’m not worried about failing in this experiment, because I’m viewing it as a learning experience. However it turns out at least I’ll know I tried.  As a life long procrastinator, this is huge.  The frustration of knowing I should do something, but not making myself do it, is crazy making. If nothing else, I will have gotten past that. I can’t lose. 

It’s not forever.  It’s just a month. I’ve had my last cupcake, M&M, and jelly bean and am ready to do this!

Day One

Family: make dinner before taking Ben to class; no take-out

Friends: schedule a coffee date

Work: (I’m a stay-at-home-mom) check in with my 9th grader’s special ed case manager (my older son has autism)

Writing: write for one hour 

Habits: don’t let the computer be a time-suck. do what you need to do on it and walk away

Whole Health: eat one fruit and vegetable today (umm, yeah, this is an actual goal)