Week 2 Recap: No Fast Food
It hasn't even been two full weeks, and I've already surprised myself. I thought for sure this would have been a very difficult task to accomplish, but I breezed right through it. The only day I had an urge to cheat was the first day, and that was only because it was -40 outside. After I had my fridge and cupboards overflowing with delicious food, I had absolutely no urge to go out to eat. It certainly helps that my workplace has a cafeteria with chefs, but I opted for the salad bar most days. I have already had one person say I look skinnier, so I'm not going to stop this one, and I'll see how long I can go without eating fast food!
Week 3: No Pop
I never realized how divided the country is when it comes to calling it pop, soda, coke, or anything else. Here's a fun website that breaks down the usage in the United States all the way to the county level: http://www.popvssoda.com/ When I was originally planning out my tasks weeks ago, I figured this could be one of the toughest challenges since I enjoy fizzy beverages quite a lot. Thankfully, I've been weening myself off of it the past few weeks. I figured with the health kick I'm on, I could certainly do without drinking so much. But now is the true challenge since I do not think I've gone a week without pop ever. I'm also limiting myself from having energy drinks, but I am allowing sweet tea.
If I had to guess why I enjoy pop so much, I can come up with a few reasons. My body loves sweets and carbs, so I naturally get lots of cravings for something of the sort. Mix in my desire to find the path of least resistance, and the answer is right in the fridge. Pop is self-contained, easy to buy and consume, and easy to dispose of. If I want water, I have to find a clean glass, turn on the faucet and wait for the coldest of cold water to flow, avoid putting it in a position where my curious cat can have a go at it and spilling it everywhere, and then when I'm finished, the glass needs to be cleaned. Trust me, I'm aware at how lazy and pathetic that sounds, welcome to my life. Fortunately, I've found something that works very well for me. I bought a Camelbak water bottle that is easy to drink out of without having to worry about spills. Also, I tried some water flavoring - my favorite being the Mio Fruit Punch. This combination allows me to drink plenty of water, and the flavor helps make it less bland, and I'm sure the sucralose is helping trick my brain into thinking it's getting something sweet.
Week 3 Bonus Challenge: 7 Hours of Sleep A Night
I figured since I've been doing the challenges successfully for 12 days so far, now would be a good time to mix in a bonus challenge. Also, the lack of caffeine might make this one easier to accomplish, so it seemed like the right time. I have absolutely no problems sleeping, which is awesome. I hear horror stories of some people who absolutely cannot fall asleep, and that sounds terrible. My problem is I get such an inconsistent amount of sleep throughout the week, that it probably isn't good from a health standpoint. I know that I'm a night owl, this fact cannot be denied. Back in college during holiday breaks, my body would ALWAYS go to a night schedule. I would go to bed at 8 AM (yes, that's right, AM), and I would wake up at 4 PM. This happened every break, and if I found myself without a job right now, I guarantee it would happen again.
With that in mind, my typical weekday sleep time averages between 5-6 hours of sleep. My typical weekend sleep time averages between 10-12 hours. This usually results in waking up at 12-3pm on the weekends. I always hear people say "well you just wasted your whole day!" and I say good, because I prefer night. I don't try to get such a small amount of hours in on the weekdays, but I don't ever get tired before 11:30pm, and usually it's 12:30 and I reluctantly force myself to go to bed. I really am surprised that I don't have sleeping troubles due to the odd hours, but as my roommate puts it, he can hear the train within minutes of saying good night (I snore so loud that it sounds like a train, and he moved his bed as far from our shared wall as possible).
I'm making this a bonus challenge because it's quite possible I'll cheat on this one, and I don't want it to officially count if I don't complete it successfully. It's easy to make wide sweeping decisions when you're wide awake and rational, but I can just imagine this Saturday I'll hear my alarm go off sometime well before noon, I'll look at the clock and grumble "this is stupid" or something of the sort, and then probably just knock the alarm on the ground. I was originally going to make it 8 hours, but that'd mean I would have to be in bed already (seeing as it's 10:38pm right this minute, and my alarm is set for 6:30am), but I absolutely cannot see myself being in bed at 10:30 every night, so 7 hours a night seemed to be a reasonable compromise. This could be an interesting week as it'll be the healthiest of them all so far since I'm still being striving to be active for 30 minutes, I will continue to avoid fast food, and now I'll be mixing in no pop and 7 hours of sleep. Here's to a successful week and a healthier me!
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