Eating Intentionally

So recently I came across the blog When At Home, and fell in love with it. Kristen writes some GREAT posts about paying off debts, loneliness and motherhood, and living intentionally… and I love all of these things. Especially that last one.

Lately, I have been trying and failing to do another Whole30. I loved doing it the first time, I felt awesome afterwards, and my eating habits improved vastly. But life happened (hello, baby), and while I have been eating much healthier than I ever did pre Whole30… y’know… there’s just… okay, can we talk about how addicting Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bars are? Because seriously. Diet. Ruined. I would eat those things every day if I could.

But back to the point on hand: I have tried and failed to do another Whole30 like… five times now since last April when we completed the other one. Reasons being: my husband prefers his old diet and I’m not one to force him to eat my way; I now live in a house full of people who have no issues with dairy; I have this baby who wakes me up in the middle of the night, occasionally has fits, and thus causes me to emotionally need. chocolate. right. now.; basically… I have no self-control, no plan to follow, lots of temptations, and no goals or rewards set.

And I want to change that. Today, because of Kristen, I decided to eat intentionally, and here’s what I’m going to do.

First off, I need to meal plan. Like, seriously meal plan, and not just go to the store with a random grocery list in hand that I made based on the foods we ran out of that week. I made up these quick little daily meal sheets to use every week, and I will plan each week out on Saturdays or Sundays.

Secondly, I’m making some goals.

The first goal is to eat 100% Paleo for 30 days. I’m not doing the Whole30, which is a much stricter version of Paleo, because as you can see I have “desserts” listed on my meal plans. But I won’t be eating any dairy, grains, legumes, or cane sugar (I’ll use honey and maple syrup sparingly) for 30 days.

My second goal is to drink at least two full bottles of water (I have a 16oz bottle I carry around) a day. This will help me realize when I’m actually hungry and when I’m just craving.

My third goal is to actually eat meals at specific times a day, to keep me from graze-eating — so breakfast at 8, lunch at 12, dinner at 5, dessert somewhere between then and bedtime.

My fourth goal is to quit eating food at 8pm, to be lights-out by 10pm, and be up by 7am. Having a good night of rest will help immensely with my emotional-ness and self-control.

My fifth goal is to have no more than two cups of coffee a day. Because lately, I’ve had like… three, or on extreme days, four cups in a row. When babies wake you up at midnight and you haven’t been eating well, coffee becomes the crutch.

Thirdly, and this isn’t exactly eating but rather about health, I’ll be taking walks or bike rides daily. Exercise does actually motivate me to eat well, because it feels so good to push and work out, and then I think “well, I just did so well doing that, I can’t undo it with bad eating!” So in a way it is directly related.

And lastly, I’m going to create some rewards for reaching goals; I’ll be making up a little list of goals and rewards, but I don’t have time today.

So those are the things I’ll be doing to eat (and pay attention to my health) intentionally. I’m not going to let myself say “we’ll see how it goes” because that right there is a setup to allow myself to slip. I am going to eat Paleo for 30 days. I am going to meet my daily fitness goals. I am going to plan my meals.

I am going to eat intentionally.

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