Work In Progress

Last week at counseling, April and I started talking about my food issues. I have always struggled with food. I grew up drinking soda and eating sugar and processed foods and avoiding vegetables. I wasn't aware of my bad habits, as ridiculous as that sounds. I mean, I knew I probably shouldn't drink as much soda as I did, but it never really sunk in. When I was teaching, I would go through several cans of Cherry Coke each day. At least two, usually three or four. And that was just during the work day! I spent so much money on soda.. oh, to have that money back. I used to stop at the gas station near my house for 2 for $2.00 20 oz. bottles of either Cherry Coke or Mello Yello. Anyways, back to the point. I never drank water. NEVER. If I went running, I'd take a bottle, but that was usually it. I still struggle to get to 64 ounces most days, and according to the "rule of thumb," I should be drinking 100+ ounces. But it's better than the 0 ounces I used to drink each day.

It's also not unusual for me to go an entire week without a single veggie. For a long time, I thought I was eating vegetables. I've always thought that potatoes were vegetables. Corn, too. And rice. Now I know that they aren't. I'm also starting to like new vegetables. I used to only like green beans, but now I like zucchini, squash, cauliflower, asparagus, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and raw spinach. I'll eat raw carrots or celery too.

I tried 21 Day Fix a few times, but I couldn't seem to stick with it. I realize now that I was setting myself up for failure. As a perfectionist, anything less than perfect is unacceptable, so one mistake would completely derail me. So as I'm learning in all areas of my life, I need to take baby steps. Small, attainable goals. I can't go from eating zero veggies per day to eating five veggies per day for 21 days. That's just not reasonable for me. Other people can make it work, but not me.

So here are some of my small goals:

• at least 64 ounces of water per day
• at least one serving of veggies per day
• don't miss a scheduled run (MWF + S walk)
• water with each meal
• focus on one healthy meal each day --> try to focus on either healthy lunches or healthy dinners for the week
• meal plan, grocery shop, meal prep, and EAT THE PREPPED FOOD

This last one is so much harder than it should be. I never knew why I would always get fast food for dinner. I mean, I'd understand that it was the ease of things if it were just on my way home from work because I didn't have anything at home to cook... but that's not the case, if I'm being honest. There have been times when I had food at home, that only needed to be reheated, and I left the house to go get fast food. On the way home yesterday, I was talking with Victoria about dinner. She's been keeping me accountable with my food. I admitted that I was thinking about McDonalds on the way home. Literally every second, my mind went there. I was planning out what I was going to order. Rationalizing it to myself. Victoria kept reminding me that I had delicious, healthy food at home to eat and that I would feel better after eating my food than after eating McDonalds. And I did it. I had to take some different turns so that I wouldn't pass a McDonalds and give in to temptation, but I did it. I ate delicious meatballs, brown rice, and zucchini and squash for dinner. I also had that for lunch today.

This is going to be a lifelong battle. I will always have to eat food. I will always have to choose what food to eat: the food I want to eat or the food that is good for me to eat. There will always be certain foods that I have to completely avoid because one bite could send me in the wrong direction. There will always be days that I don't want to run. There will always be days when I'd rather have a Cherry Coke than water with dinner. There will always be days when I'd rather just stop at McDonalds. But I'm not going to worry about tomorrow anymore. I'm not even going to worry about an entire day. One meal at a time. Baby steps. GRACE, not perfection. I'm a work in progress. There is no finish line. I'm starting to accept that.