Getting real {healthy} Week 4

Has it already been this long? When I typed “Week 4″ into the title I gasped a little.

Probably because I feel like I’m right back at square one. Again.

photo credit: johnhope14

Isn’t it ironic, how just last week I reported how much better I felt once I started eating clean? Yet here I am a week later, sitting here dreading sharing with you how this past week was for me.

Here’s the weekly review of my goals to be a healthier me.

{eat clean, move more, refresh daily}

• Eat clean (reduce sugar, eat more fresh produce, drink 40 oz water daily)
• Move more (park farther away from shopping centers, play Xbox 360 twice weekly, walk outdoors 2-3 times a week)
• Refresh daily (morning devotions, purposeful prayer daily, Bible study)

What I did GOOD

I am still drinking 40+ ounces of water nearly every day. (Sunday was the only day I didn’t.) So this is good. I’m also still working on my morning devotions and Bible study. Sugar? That’s a whole other story.

Where I flopped

My kids’ school had their quarterly fundraiser this week. They sold Krispy Kreme donuts. Need I say more?

photo credit: osseous

I’m too ashamed to tell you how many I ate, but let’s just say I’m regretting that bad choice. Big time.

Something else I’ve noticed about those sugar-laden treats: my entire house went nuts eating them, too. Yesterday evening I was alarmed when I realized how many donuts the four of us have eaten in as many days. Not good at all. And that thought led me to this one…

If I expect myself and my family to start eating healthier, it is up to me to make that change.

This isn’t going to be easy. In fact, it will probably cause some arguments and grumpy children. But I have to do this. For all our sake.

• Stop buying and bringing junk food into our home.
• Start spending our money on fresh fruit for snacks instead of junk.
• Start offering new/different produce to my children.

And those three points above means the following list of junk must go and not come back in this house (at least for a while):

• Little Debbie snack cakes
• DONUTS!
• box cake mixes & icing (just as easy to make the junk, as it is to buy it pre-packaged)
• ice cream
• chips (this is going to be challenging, too)
• any other junk food I might be forgetting about at this moment

And the following list will have to replace the junk food:

• apples (both kids love them)
• bananas
• grapes (another fave of my kids)
• melon
• pineapple
• cucumbers
• carrots
• peanut butter
• Flat outs (for healthier sandwich wraps and/or individual pizzas)
• lettuce (Elijah loves iceberg lettuce)

I will still buy animal crackers for snacks because those are a lot better than all the other sugary stuff. And because I know the backlash I’m going to face with my kids when all the sugary junk is gone from this house. It won’t be pretty, folks!

Keeping my perspective

I could really beat myself up right now for my failure this past week. I didn’t gain, but I certainly didn’t lose anything. (I weighed in this morning exactly at the same from last week.) But I won’t do that to myself.

I choose to keep perspective on all this.

Rather than focus on how awful I feel and the terrible choices I made last week, I’m going to keep my eyes ahead. And with that in mind, here’s what I’ll be working on this week:

• Prayer & fasting
• Cleansing my body from all the junk I’ve eaten this past week
• Taking it one day–one meal–at a time