I think it’s safe to say we all like instant gratification. I can’t imagine someone not liking their hard work immediately praised. It’s the reason I love mowing or cutting hay; immediate results! You know what doesn’t provide instant results? Exercising! I would be far more likely to enjoy exercising if, after one workout, I could see a difference. Unfortunately, for reasons I’ll never understand, this is not how it works.
After the brutal reality check a couple of weeks ago, I’ve gone full force into working out. I’m pushing myself harder than I had planned to. At this time I’m still keeping it to twice a week, but I may add a third work out day soon. Last week, I did some soul searching and really tried to think about small changes I’d be willing to make in my life to be healthier. I find it easier to cope with a few small changes than one big change. Some of the changes I’ve decided to make are: cooking more, eating more vegetables, and eating less sugar.
Cooking with Lacie
I’m not a cook. Like, not even a little bit. I come from a family of really great cooks, but I am not one of them. The only way I can cook is if I follow a recipe, and it has to be very specific. I remind myself of Amelia Bedelia trying to cook. If you don’t understand that reference we can’t be friends…kidding…kind of. For those of you who don’t know, Amelia Bedelia is a beloved character in children’s books of the same name. To put it simply, she takes everything literally. You have to be very careful what you say to Amelia Bedelia.
I am the exact same way when it comes to cooking. All common sense goes out the window and I will follow the instructions word for word. It’s gotten to the point where I just ask Michael or Michelle for step by step instructions. They know me well enough to know that they need to say things like “melt the butter”, “thaw the meat”, “don’t use a dozen eggs to make tuna salad”. That last one is a whole story in and of itself. It’s a classic tale of me not asking for help and making more tuna salad than anyone should ever eat.
Anyway, as you can see, I struggle with cooking. I’ve called my nana before to ask how to boil an egg. True story. So yeah, this whole deciding to cook thing is a big step for me. I started the other day by looking through one of Kris’ cookbooks. I found some recipes that seemed simple enough, then off to Miss Mary’s Market I went. If you want to know how that outing went, just watch this video. Again, common sense just doesn’t exist in the same realm as me when it comes to cooking.
After getting all of the ingredients (and extremely specific instructions from Michael) I went home that evening and prepared this delicious meal for my family. It turned out much better than I expected. The process was all over the place and pretty much the exact opposite of every cooking show I’ve ever watched, but the end result was good.
The Betrayal
In addition to cooking and eating more veggies, I’ve been limiting my sugar intake. Let me make this clear: I’m not cutting out sugar entirely! I’m simply eating less sweets. I’m not obsessing over how much sugar is in every little thing I eat, I’m just being smarter about how often I eat desserts/sweets. For instance, I went to my niece’s birthday party over the weekend and I didn’t eat a piece of ice cream cake. Yay, me!
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been being careful about my sugar intake. Last night, we had my dad’s birthday party. My sister makes the BEST banana pudding. It’s seriously amazing. I decided that I’d go ahead and have some. Man, oh man, did I feel lousy afterwards. I almost immediately got bloated and just felt generally terrible. What the heck?! That was not at all what I was expecting! Apparently, my body does not like it when I fill it with processed sugar now.
This was a frustrating development for me. On the one hand, this encourages me to not eat a lot of sweets, but on the other hand I want to be able to indulge occasionally and not feel like garbage afterwards! After ranting to Kris about this tragedy, she told me I can still indulge every once in awhile, but to just eat less. Basically, my body has been detoxing and then I overloaded it. That makes sense. I guess it’s actually a good thing.
If I’m being honest though, I didn’t want this whole “eating better” thing to actually affect anything. I was hoping I’d give it a try, nothing would be different, and then I could go back to eating junk. Now I know that if I go back to that, I’m going to feel miserable and it’s going to be no one’s fault but mine.
Updates
Although changes don’t come immediately, I have noticed some things over these last few weeks. I’ve already mentioned that I have more energy. Well, my clothes are now fitting better. My pants aren’t as tight as they were before. We will retake my measurements in a couple of weeks. I don’t know what those results will show, but I know I definitely feel better! So, I’ll keep eating my veggies and avoiding sweets. …I never thought I’d say that.
“Pour some sugar on me.” – Def Leppard
– Lacie