I’m on vacation this weekend, so I’m going to keep this short, but I just wanted to pop in and jot down a few notes. Before leaving for vacation, I made an agreement with myself that this trip would be kind of a last hurrah. When I get back, I’m going to have a lot of work to get done, and to do it, I’ll need to stick to a schedule and really keep my eye on the prize (since apparently I’m all about speaking in idioms today).

You may have guessed it from my posts, but I have a bit of an addictive personality. Luckily, the bad habits that I can’t break aren’t illegal, or immediately health threatening. But maybe that’s unlucky, too, because if a friend or family member sees that you’re addicted to a drug, they start to worry, and hopefully talk to you about your problem, maybe even help you seek help. When you’re addicted to something the rest of unhealthy America is addicted to, like animal products, cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, television, internet, physical inactivity, (insert unhealthy norm here), the only time you hear a peep out of anyone else is when you decide to quit and they try to dissuade you to make themselves feel better. As a result, I went years without seeing anything wrong, and then once I did, it’s been more years of me not knowing how to stop. In the mean time, things have gotten worse.

Most of you don’t know me in person, but if you do, you’ll know that I’m the girl who gets the large popcorn and large soda at the movie theater – and eat/drink every drop, all by myself if necessary. I know I don’t need to, because sometimes I buy the large sizes and share both, and it’s just fine. But somehow in my mind, bigger became better, and now I gravitate towards that in my food decisions. Why buy a slice of pizza when you can buy an entire pizza? Once full, why save that pizza for later when you can just shove the entire thing down right now and feel awesome about “taking care” of it? It’s hard to explain if you’re not part of what one of my friends calls the “clean plate club,” but I feel like the rules my family had for cleaning your plate when I was little have slowly morphed into this monster for me. I can’t cook bulk meals and put stuff in the fridge for later, because there is no later. If I cook a huge casserole, I’ll sit and eat the entire thing. Maybe sometimes I’ll have the willpower to put half away, but not always, not reliably. Except…

Except when the dish doesn’t contain meat, dairy, bread or pasta. When the drink doesn’t contain caffeine, sugar, or alcohol. Without fail, if the food substance isn’t processed, and only contains whole food, vegetarian ingredients (and sometimes fish works, too), my self control works just fine.

So I’m going to go on a little cleanse for the month of September. Starting Monday, I’m cutting out alcohol, coffee, land animal meat (I’m still going to eat fish), dairy, and wheat, just to see if I can kickstart my brain and body into a new norm. I’m also going to get 8 hours of sleep a night, go to the gym at least three times a week (I’m not trying to win any awards, here, I just want to get in the habit of trying harder), and look into taking yoga classes at the studio down the street – maybe just one class a week for now.

I’m also going to eat lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, drink green tea and plenty of water, dry brush in the mornings, take epsom salt baths weekly, and get a weekly massage. Then we’ll see where we’re at at the end of the month, as far as anxiety levels, sleep efficiency, work habits, and hopefully some weight loss, as well.

But now it’s time for me to get going – Chicago’s been so fun so far; I want to really squeeze the rest of the fun out of my next 24 hours here 🙂