How Your Friends Make It Easy To Be Healthy: Wine & Sweets
Cutting Down on Wine and Sweets
This is a diary of the healthy lifestyle goals that my son, Chris, and I are making together each month.
Since it takes 21-30 days to develop a new habit, making a goal for the month ahead is an effective strategy.
Chris and I agree that making these monthly goals together and posting our results here for you to see helps us to improve our health. I’ve always found that if I say out loud to someone what I plan on doing, I’m more likely to do it. Because if I said I would, I feel responsible to follow through.
Age doesn’t matter. It’s never too late. You can always make progress and actually reverse the signs of aging!
In April, my goal was to cut down wine and sweets to every other day. Chris couldn’t think of a new goal, so he decided to maintain the progress he had already made on his healthy lifestyle.
My Experience:
If you have looked at my previous diary entries, you would know that I make slow and steady progress like a turtle. Lol! My original rule for myself was that I could have one glass of wine and one sweet thing each day. Then, I chose to have either wine or sweets each day but not both. Last month, I decided to have one of them every other day instead of every day.
That sure was hard for me! On my days when I was supposed to have neither, I ended up allowing myself just one bite of chocolate. There were events when the people I was with had a couple of drinks so I did, too. Then I made up for it by just having my bite of chocolate when I could have had a glass of wine.
The good thing is that one bite of chocolate is a lot less calories than having a whole candy bar or one serving of something sweet. (Rationalization?)
I continued going to the gym and, in fact, have been working out harder than I used to. What inspired me was one of the personal trainers who asked me if he could make me continue with the weights until I could no longer do any more. I agreed. So I was using a pulley with 70 lbs. of weight and after awhile I asked him, “What if I can go on forever?” He was surprised and so was I. I felt like I could have gone on and on, so after awhile he said, “Oh,well, just stop now.” Since then, I just get in the groove with heavier weights and go on for a much longer time before stopping.
Anyway, I think I slimmed a bit around the waist. I have always seen improvement from exercise, but this time I think it could be cutting down on the alcohol and sugar that is helping…or maybe the combination of dietary changes and exercise.
In May, my new goal will be to count calories. I am going to limit myself to 1200 calories a day.
Chris’s Experience:
Since Chris couldn’t think of a new goal, he decided to just maintain the healthy lifestyle habits he had already worked on such as:
- regular exercise at the gym and running outdoors
- boxing training
- eating a low-carb, low-fat diet
- avoiding pop and chips
However, it was a super busy month for Chris. He simply worked too hard. So he ended up eating whatever he wanted and failed to get to the gym as often as usual. He feels exhausted by now.
So his new goal for May is to get enough sleep. He has inherited insomnia, so he has a hard time falling asleep at night and then he wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. On top of working late every day, this is going to be a challenge. Hopefully, he’s so tired by now that he’ll get his zzz’s. 😉
What are your health goals? Are we inspiring you to grab a buddy and make goals together? Let us know in the comments box below. While you’re at it, sign up for emails to receive new blog posts every Thursday and Saturday. And please follow YourTrueSelfBlog on Instagram and Facebook.
See you next time,
Angie
XO
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