The Health Chronicles: Another Small Win!
"Tricking" My Brain One Day at a Time...
First of all, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a safe but fun time bringing in 2025.
In accordance with one of my 9 goals for 2025, I was asleep by 12:03 AM EST. Perhaps there will be a time where I go out and bring in the New Year in more robust fashion, but I wanted to start the year off with a good night's sleep.
I did end up weighing myself at the beginning of the year as well. Let’s just say…not great haha. I am not surprised. I have been under a lot of stress lately, my sleep has been sporadic, and I haven’t been eating the greatest. So in reality, I am glad it wasn’t worse. While I did not state losing weight as one of my goals for 2025, many of the things listed make it so that is an implied side effect of some of the life changes.
I also talked about my unhealthy relationship with food, and yesterday I had a small win on that front. While in the previously mentioned article I talked about not feeling guilty when I went all out on a cheat day, I was presented with a real challenge of wanting to reward myself after making it through a short, but absurdly stressful work week.
Making time adjustments in my head as I was commuting back home from the Metro (as I always do), I wondered if I could run across the street to 7-11 and grab some terribly unhealthy things before I needed to catch my bus home. I deserved it after all. My work week was terribly stressful! It’s better than spending money on booze and drowning in those sorrows, right? Lesser of two evils and all that jazz.
Well, thankfully the time crunch would have added to the stress of catching the bus so I decided that was illogical. Furthermore, I reminded myself that I had previously purchased some healthier, but savory snack foods on my grocery trip last week. As a result, I decided it was best to just hop on the bus and make myself a nice little plate of “treats” rather than buy what was just going to be tons of sugar and sodium. I went home and had an early dinner along with this plate of treats.
And I felt great afterwards.
This may seem like an insignificant win for some. But I know my tendencies when it comes to being impulsive in terms of buying, especially when it comes to unhealthy foods. Rather than get myself two doughnuts, I had some peanut butter and a mint dark chocolate bar. I also had some tangerines. Instead of cheez-its, I had some pistachio nuts. A small adjustment, but absolutely one that the little microbes in my gut noticed and appreciated.
I’ll make another grocery store trip later today. Hopefully it is not terribly crazy in the early morning given the impending winter weather we are expecting in this area. Thankfully I am not going there for the items that tend to go quickly in these times, like bread and milk. But I am going to bolster my array of healthy options. It seems to be the case, especially for me, that when I do have healthier substitutes that can still give that slight brain “oh yeah” feeling that unhealthy food can give, I will lean towards those options because my overly logical brain will logic me into that corner. It’s a good problem to have, and I am thankful that I have at least enough pennies to be able to make these healthier choices.
So, celebrate those small wins, and build on them. It’s a part of healthy habit building, and eventually the results you’re looking for will follow. I hope everyone has a wonderful week, and I will see you next week! Hoping that by the time the next couple of weeks are done, I will find myself some more time to write about more topics on this publication, and on my sports page as well.
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