Confessions Of A Real Life Cookie Monster

If you've been following me along this journey (50 days so far!) I've mentioned Shakeology to you a few times, and I told you I'd explain more on a later post, and that post is HERE!  Now, before I get started, I do want to go ahead and tell you right away, that I AM a Team Beachbody Coach and I DO SELL this stuff.  Don't stop reading!  This is no ad. Don't like this sort of stuff?  To each his own! Never gonna buy it?  Cool with me! Have a friend who's a coach, so IF you bought it, you'd buy it from him/her?  Awesome! This blog has been a journey through MY failures and successes - and I'm just sharing my story. So, one of my best, best friends is a Beachbody Coach, and she convinced me to try this stuff.  And I was COMPLETELY skeptical.  I've had it all - Slim Fast shakes back in college (hello, chalky texture!), Carnation instant breakfast (shook a whole bottle of that stuff into a brand new laptop and ruined it - there's some memo...

I didn't mean for today's post title to sound so morbid.  I guess, I mean in some way, the food choices I make today should be in consideration of what I want my ultimate long game, until death, to be - true, but I was thinking a little more short-term than that. Through these last 45 days, I feel that I've been able to make a bunch more healthy choices that are going to be little steps toward the goals that I've set out.  I've learned enough about myself to know that I can't make big, drastic, permanent changes and stick with them. I need to just do better today than I did yesterday, last week, last month, last year. Today, I gave in to a diet soda, and I even ended the day with a donut.  How can that be healthy choices that I'm proud of?  Because I said "no" to a hell of a lot more.  I said no to many things from which I used to say yes, yes, yes, yes, and STILL have the diet soda and a donut.  So while my weight, going down slowly as it is, ...

UGH.  I am in a complete funk.  It took a few day of sinus congestion, which I self medicated with chocolate (I'm no doctor, but at the moment it felt like the perfect prescription) and then my days of low energy started to include more soda, cookies, chocolate, aaaaaaaand....  McDonalds.  And Taco Bell.  And a little Burger King.  BLAH BLAH BLAH.  Forget being caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I feel like they should haul me away to cookie jail for abuse of self-control power.  And my brain says, "But Stacey, you know better!   Why do you allow yourself to do it?" LEAVE ME ALONE. HERE, EAT THIS  AND WE'LL FEEL BETTER... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND  Here I am - sick, new medicine in hand, no energy, coffee at 5pm just so I can stay awake long enough to get the kids to bed, no exercise, and feel like utter CRAP. This is called being in a funk.  This is where everything feels hopeless, I know I've gained ...

 On my quest to give up all other beverages but water for a short period, I quickly discovered what caffeine deprivation was (Hint = WITHDRAWAL) and also learned how much it sucked to experience it. I quickly figured out that I needed SOMETHING to boost my energy without soda or coffee, or anything else fun that had caffeine in it, such as chocolate!  At the same time, I noticed that I missed my HABIT of having a cup of coffee, and the effects of the coffee, more than I missed the taste itself.  That was a big discovery for me.  As I've been reading this book about habits (more on that in another post) I've learned to pay more attention to my own habits.  Further investigation showed me that what I really crave is the feeling of warmth as I'm drinking (plus I really do like the boost in energy).  I had heard before that it was healthy to have warm water with lemon in it, first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, but I didn't know why OR if it...

It has been about a week now that I have been only allowed to drink WATER, so obviously my body has had much more of it than it's used to.  That's a pretty big change for this girl, who normally has a day of beverages consisting of (in this order) - coffee, diet soda, diet soda, coffee, diet soda, wine.  Oh yeah maybe there was a glass of crystal light in there somewhere... After a few days of drinking ONLY WATER (gasp!), I actually started feeling thirsty , often, and instead of only feeling like a soda could quench that thirst I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy drinking water, for the first time.  I guess that's what depriving yourself of all other options will do... I'm starting a challenge group at work where we all log our exercise and I post weekly challenges, and since I've gotten a jump on this water thing, I thought that would be a good overall theme for this week - DRINK MORE WATER.  I'm sure it's pretty obvious to you that drinking water...

In combination with my New Year's Resolution, my church has entered its theme of "Reset 2017," and in church this past Sunday, our pastor spoke about the Daniel Fast.  This is more than just a "cleanse" or a "detox" because it's not only for physical health, but for mental and spiritual health as well. The Bible mentions two fasts in the Book of Daniel - Chapter 1 speaks of a fast that is a period of 10 days, and Chapter 10 speaks of a 21 day fast, BOTH in which diet should consist mainly of just vegetables and water (other things are allowed: "pulse" references food from seed, but no meats, no dairy, etc).  The second main component of the Daniel Fast is that it must be done in combination with regular prayer.  The outcome one should expect is to make big, powerful change in your life and that you will receive great blessings from God. These fasts are mentioned in the Book of Daniel, but didn't have a specific name.  Over ...

Happy New Year!  The slate is wiped clean, all is new and fresh, right?  Well, no...  If the slate were wiped clean, my body should have returned to a pre-birthing-children, maybe age 21 version of myself BEFORE I start talking about weight loss goals.  The truth is, January 1st just sounds like a really nice day to start trying again, so we make this fancy term "resolution" come to life. Yesterday, I told you that the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term "resolution" as "the act or process of resolving" and breaks it down further into seven sub-categories.  I also promised that we would take a closer look into those first three sub-categories in order to actually structure a resolution into one that has a good possibility, with structure and support, to be one that lasts. I don't think that it will be a surprise to you that my 2017 resolution will involve weight loss.  That is my biggest struggle, and it is one that is super important to ...