Short-Term Goals & Food Issues

I went back to work last week. I miss being home with my family, but it’s nice to get back into the normal routine, too. But, I will only be here for three weeks before I go back for my second hip surgery.  Since I have a short time span to work with, I made a goal for myself: To bring my lunch to work every single day - - and actually eat it. It probably sounds silly to make this goal but over the past 10 years since I started working here, it has been a struggle for me. Here’s a snapshot of a typical morning for me.


Plan:

Wake up at 6AM, shower, get dressed, do hair, minimal makeup, pack lunch, grab milk/tea and breakfast bar/fruit, and head out the door at 6:30.

What actually happens:

Alarm goes off at 6:00, I snooze it.

Alarm goes off at 6:07, I snooze it.

Alarm goes off at 6:14, I fly out of the bed in a frenzy and go to the mirror to look at my hair.

I then determine whether my hair is good enough to skip washing it. Either way, I don’t have enough time to wash it, so I just throw it into a ponytail.

Then, I stand in my closet for a good four to five minutes. I finally find something that’s not stained or wrinkled and still actually fits me, so I throw that on.

Next, I put on my face moisturizer and skip the makeup (except my brow liner – I “can’t” leave the house without my eyebrows filled in – thanks Shari Braendel!).

Brush my teeth, grab my shoes, and head to the kitchen.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

I think to myself, I need breakfast and lunch. I will grab leftovers for lunch and a Fiber One bar with milk for breakfast.

I go to the fridge and open it. It lights up and I can feel the cold come sweeping out onto my face. I’m feeling good. I have a plan. I start my search. After what feels like forever (translation: 10 seconds), scrrrreeeeeeeeeeech! All my optimism about finding a lunch worthy of my palette is out the window.

I look at the clock. It’s anywhere between 6:31 and 6:37 usually.

Oh, shoot, I gotta go! I’ll just grab breakfast on the way (because that SAVES time??) and I’ll go out for lunch.

Hmm…I’ll give 500 points to the person that can point out all 57 things that are wrong with this scenario.

On the days that I DO find a lunch to bring, only 50% ends up with me actually EATING it. I somehow justify to myself that I need something I don’t have here in the work fridge and that constitutes why I had to buy a whole meal at (trying to hold back the vomit) McDonalds.

But I AM trying to lose weight and I AM trying to save money. Just how hard am I “trying”?

So, this leads me to my short-term goal of bringing a lunch and eating it for the 14 work days I have before my next surgery. I originally started working on this post last week but got distracted with work, lesson plans for church, paying bills, and catching up on my blog reading.

Goal: To not buy lunch out while at work

Timeframe: August 26th through September 16th

Plan: Pack a lunch the night before and bring it to work and eat it

I love goals that are simple and straight-forward, don’t you? The real challenge is my brain. I need to whip it into shape so that it looks like an adult’s brain and not a stomping-in-the-aisle-because-mommy-won’t-buy-me-a-toy child’s brain. I think it’s time. I have spent too much of my adult life wishing and wanting things to be different; watching my friends and family having and doing things that I could only dream about in someday-land. Fact is, they’ve worked hard for those opportunities and have had to say NO to get there. I don’t say no to myself often enough by any stretch.

Since I took over a week to finish this post, I can actually give you an update on this goal (wow, procrastination is good for something after all!):

Monday, 8/26 – Leftover Rosati’s pizza & fruit

Tuesday 8/27 – Leftover whole wheat spaghetti & meatballs & yogurt

Wednesday 8/28 – Leftover whole wheat spaghetti & meatballs & yogurt

Thursday 8/29 – Leftover grilled chicken breast & animal crackers

Friday 8/30 – Leftover Italian Sausage Rigatoni & veggies (my fav recipe!!)

Tuesday 9/3 – FREE Culver’s chicken tenders meal; I had saved up 10 Scoopie tokens from the kid’s meals so I got a free kid’s meal. I felt full half way through, wow.

Wednesday 9/4 – Leftover grilled chicken breast & Italian Sausage Rigatoni from last week

So far so good! It has felt great to stick to the plan and not fill myself with fast food. This is one step of many that I need to take to get to better eating habits.

Also, I’ve started eating every three hours as suggested by Chris Powell. I haven’t done the carb cycling yet because I needed to first get used to the idea of eating every three hours instead of sporadically or going on snack binges when I’m at home. It’s been almost a week now and it seems to work. I’m not hungry in between meals. Carb cycling requires a lot more thought and planning, especially when cooking for a family of five, with one of those being extremely, extremely picky.

My third quarter goals update is coming at the end of this month, so I’d better go check up on our progress so I can actually do some work on them!

What are your goals this year and how have you done with them so far?