Day 2

Ok, so day 1 was interesting. Spent about half of my $100 weekly budget on groceries, which brings me to my dilemma. Are groceries to be counted as fixed expenses? I mean, we have to eat no? In any event some of the stuff I bought will probably last longer than a week, hence making it cheaper next time I go. Hypothetically.

We ended up doing really well on our eating, following the meal plan as closely as possible. And crushed 1 hour at the gym no problem.

Today is day 2 - the challenge continues.


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Day 2
***update***

Breakfast

6 oz juice - done
1 egg (hard boiled or scrambled) - done
1 tortilla/slice of toast - done
2 slices canadian bacon or turkey bacon - done
Decaf coffee/tea - done

Snack

Turkey Rollups - done
2tbsp cilantro mayo

Lunch

Tuna chopped salad - Grilled chipotle chicken chopped salad
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - done


Snack

Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - cheese stick

Dinner

Baked Chicken breast - grilled veracruz salmon tacos
1 small whole wheat roll or wheat pita (if bread wanted)
Steamed broccoli
Tossed salad (mixed greens/cucumbers/green peppers/cherry tomatoes)
Olive oil and vinegar dressing



Dessert

Jello cup

Day 1

I've transferred all my money out of my ING Checking account and into savings., leaving only a little over a $100 (to avoid any inadvertent overages). These $100 will have to go until Sunday night. !!!

For the mealplans, I borrowed the SBD format and modified it to fit my needs. I will track progress by adding an update to this post at the end of the day.

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**UPDATE**
Here's how the eating actually turned out -

Today's meal plan:

Day 1

Breakfast

6 oz juice - Mango Juice
1 scrambled egg w/ 1 tortilla - 1 poached egg w/ 1 tortilla
Decaf coffee/tea - coffee

Snack

1 Part skim mozz cheese stick - check

Lunch

Grilled chicken breast salad - Rotisserie chicken salad w/
w/ low sugar balsamic vinaigrette - oil & vinegar
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - none

Snack

Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - cheese stick

Dinner

Grilled fish (salmon/tilaps/mahi mahi) lemon and rosemary - baked lemon salmon
1 small whole wheat roll or wheat pita (if bread wanted)
Steamed asparragus - check
Tossed salad (mixed greens/cucumbers/green peppers/cherry tomatoes) - steamed brocc and cauliflower
Olive oil and vinegar dressing - none


Dessert

Sugar free jello/pudding - OMG YES!

Gym:

1 hour of cardio at the gym. - Done

the 66 day challenge

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit. Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. Seriously — try to find the evidence from a scientific study for this. A more recent study shows that 66 days is a better number (read more). But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum. [66 days Habit Changing = via: zenhabits]

Discipline has never really been one of my strong points. It takes a while, but I have proven before that sticking to something, even if I don't see results right away, can, in fact, serve a purpose and feel really great once a goal is reached.

In an effort to control things in my life, which seem to be spiraling downhill, I (along with some people) will be attempting a challenge in hopes of feeling better, saving money, and getting back in shape. For the next 66 days, beginning today, Monday, October 12 I will be undergoing the following:

1. Money

In an effort to save money and discipline myself into not being a sucker for consumerism, which I am, I will attempt at curving my behavior and training myself to be more minimalist in the material goods department. Do not buy if I do not need. Limiting myself, for the next 66 days to $100.00 per week as spending cash. This is not to include fixed expenses (ie. utilities, rent, etc...) but to include things I need to be better about (ie. work lunch/breakfast, nightlife, weekend entertainment, etc...) This should theoretically begin to change my behavior and train me into being better about money and the way I spend it.

2. Time

I feel like I spend a lot of my time idling around online on incredible time-wasters such as facebook, twitter, and worst of all pages like hulu and netflix. I say worst of all because I got rid of my television so I could be more productive and now instead TV has found me and it sucks the living life out of me. Yes there are some shows I watch continuously and religiously, but having a set time to watch these can potentially reduce the time I spend with my head sucked into the monitor. Coupled with the goal of blogging and writing more in general, if I'm on the computer, I shouldn't just be clicking around. So, I;m trying to track my progress on this challenge and in this blog to give me a push forward in my blogging and my writing, and hopefully assist in the behavior change.

3. Food

OH. EM. GEE.!!!! This is going to be one of the 2 worst and most difficult goals. Why with me trying to be a chef and all, and here I am trying to limit my intake. For a few good reasons, however, I need to. My health is something that worries me continuously. I seem to come from a line of health issues and I seriously do not want to propagate my ending up in the hospital for reasons that could have been prevented, and especially don't want to reach old age not being able to care for myself. So I'm devising a bit of a "diet" portion and foods controlled and this plan is to be followed as closely as possible in search of results at the end of the deadline, not only of how I feel, but also of how I look (size 32 is only a hop and a skip away). I will try and blog my progress on this as well by posting what day meal plan is, and how close I came to eating what I'm supposed to.

4. Health

Also trying to get back on track on the gym thing. It's an ongoing battle, especially with as little time as one seems to have in this DC metro area. I seem to spend 40% of my time commuting, along with work, school, family life, and the 5-15 minutes of sleep I get per night (which will lead into point #5). To start myself off correctly and start getting back in shape, I'm going to set smaller short-term goals in hopes of reaching the ultimate long-term goal of being in shape and having normal persons sleep schedule. I'm setting also an exercise plan that I will track progress on as well to see where I'm at when day 66 comes. Heading to the gym in the morning at times trying to be tired enough when I come home from work as to not stay up until 3am fiddling around online and such. (hopefully this will also start helping push away the smoking habit)

5. Sleep

As before mentioned, I'm not the best sleeper. I have a tendency to get home and stay up and just be awake. forever. making me extra tired the next day. I'm setting myself to be in bed by 11pm on weeknights for the next 66 days. hopefully my sleep patterns will adjust to normality.

6. Weekend activities

Another one I'm very guilty off and serves as a precursor to set off my whole week. I need to keep weekend activities as such. FOR THE WEEKEND. I'm hoping this also allows me to be sharper at work, school, and at home.

I'm really bad at limiting myself on things I enjoy. I let myself indulge too much, to the point where it affects me physically, financially, and inter-personally and this needs to stop and change. 66 days doesn't seem like much and it seems like the world at the same time. Reaching the deadline accomplished will feel good. Reaching the deadline incomplete, will really suck. So part of my publicizing this is not so much for myself, but rather a way of having people witness what I'm saying I'm going to do and hoping to keep up in order to not embarrass myself by not reaching this short deadline.

Here we go.

Bacon dogs may be going extinct. [Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!]

This saddens me, not because I know how delicious they are, but because I haven't had a chance to try them and find out how delicious they are! In my somewhat recent visit to LA, I wanted to try one so bad, but the only time I passed near a vendor, I was feeling so ill from overdrinking and overeating and undersleeping, that I didn't get a chance to try it.

Perhaps next time I make it out to a BBQ I'll have to make these and chronicle their success.

Drew Carrey comments through this investigative report:

Let's drink to your health!

Yet another article underlines and highlights that really the best answer to all your (health) problems may be inside that daily 12-pack you kill at night. At home. Alone.

People who neither drink nor exercise have a 30 to 49 percent higher risk of heart disease than people who do one or both of the activities, the researchers said in the European Heart Journal. [Yahoo News]

I've basically eradicated all risk of heart disease at this point, and may just start developing a new heart by 2009.

Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking -- up to two drinks a day on a regular basis -- is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and some have also found this leads to a lower risk of some cancers. [Yahoo News]

I'm just pretty excited I'm not going to be the first one to go out of my friends. Sorry guys.

People who had the lowest risk of dying from any cause were physically active, moderate drinkers while those at highest risk were the physically inactive, heavy drinkers [?], the study found.[Yahoo News]

Battling heart disease with all my might

Pepsi thinks video games will help Mexican fat kids lose weight, drink more Pepsi

This is almost as retarded as the parents who got Wii's for their kids to improve their physical activity. In a country where the average family can barely afford to live, and a Pepsi is worht about as much as the minimum wage for a days work, how exactly will the kids be able to afford these electronic toys? Will it be by collecting Pepsi bottle caps?

Drink more pepsi, get fat, the collect a toy to help you lose weight!

The company's answer - called Live Healthily - aims to teach a million children in primary schools around the country that they should match the calories they consume with the calories they use up doing exercise.

The centrepiece is a tamagotchi-like computer game in which a child called a nutrin must be guided through everyday decisions about what to buy, what to eat and what sports to play. Periodic visits to the doctor provide health checks. [The Guardian]

If DDR couldn't do it, what hopes does Pepsi have?

Wegman's jumps on the nicotine-free bandwagon...

Wegman's, the cult compund-like, soccer mom zombie-ridden, mega-grocery store, is going smoke free in 2008!!

As of February 10 there will be no more cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco at any of Wegmans 70 stores that stretch across five states.

The company said it, "Respects a person's right to smoke but also understands the destructive role smoking plays in health." [WNEP]

Good thing I quit smoking when I did.

Deceive your taste buds

A new freeze-drying technique is being used to trade flavors and nutrients in fruits. Labs in Japan work hard every day to make our taste buds happy and our bodies healthier. Dorito flavored turnips?!

In the future, no natural food will taste as you remember it now. Because face it: fruits and vegetables are great. But if turnips tasted like Doritos, America wouldn't be so fat that our continent occasionally dips into the ocean, like arm floaties on a grown man. Tokyo company FCOM is learning how change food as we know it. Instead of using genetic modification, they're utilizing techniques from other industrial processes. Through freeze-drying fruit, FCOM is then able to replace with water with flavor (or in the case of strawberries, water with white chocolate) [Gizmodo]

Wait. Dorito's make you fat?!! Who knew?!

Apparently I wasn't the only drunk one this New Year's Eve

Just a quick note on this I found with all about hangover cures.

With hangover cures, an online blood alcohol content calculator, drink recipes and other wasted fun. A little late for the New Year's hangover, but still a good site. [YesButNoButYes]

The site includes a breathalyzer test?

Hedonistic Approach to Better Health

I'm always up for quality of life improvements through indulgence.
It appears as though it has been found (for the umpteenth time) that delicious= healthy,

...like drinking red wine, eating dark chocolate, smiling (even when you don't want to), sleeping enough, and having more sex. [Lifehacker]

Sounds like this whole time I'd thought I was shaving years off my life, I've actually been adding to it!