30-day holiday challenge

I’ve hinted a little bit at the fact that I really needed to get my eating back on track.  Quite honestly, how I’ve been eating lately has been an absolute disaster and I’m sort of embarrassed to even share with you how terrible my eating has been.  Thankfully, I’m no longer eating M&M’s for breakfast, but that hasn’t stopped me from eating them multiple handfuls at a time the rest of the day.

It took a few wake up calls for me to realize that I needed to make a huge change that couldn’t wait until the new year.  Not only is my digestive system completely screwed up, but I also have absolutely no energy, despite the fact that I have been getting more sleep recently.  In addition to that, I have had a massive headache for the past week (literally since Monday) that even a trip to my beloved chiropractor couldn’t fix.  The only thing that I could figure out that was probably causing all this was my poor nutrition.

I needed a plan, and I knew that I absolutely could not wait until the new year to implement it.  I couldn’t keep feeling drained of energy and just plain awful, inside and out.  So, I came up with a 30-day challenge to help me combat my nutritional deficiencies.  It’s not a “diet” and I am absolutely NOT restricting or depriving myself of anything, especially with multiple Christmas parties that will be occurring in the next month.  It’s more a way for me to “fix” the way I’ve been eating and keep me accountable.

I have no intention of following this to the letter (number?) every single day.  It’s just not practical for me to think I will turn down dessert or a beer at Christmas parties, or that I won’t eat after 8 o’clock if I get home late from something.  But, it is something I know I can implement most of every single day.  I absolutely need to cut back on sugar (it’s been the major part of my diet for the past 2 months) and I really need to start eating more fruits and vegetables instead of just carbs and sweets. 

While most of it is nutrition based, I also added in doing abs exercises 5 days a week because I honestly have not done any formal abdominal work since about the time I got pregnant with MacKenna.  After pulling my abs a few weeks ago and knowing that there is the possibility of pregnancy within the next year (not possible right now, but it’s on the front of our minds), I need to get back in the habit of doing something the strengthen my core again.  I’m still working on a more formal plan for that and I will of course share it with you when I develop it, but for now, just getting back in the habit of doing something after my runs will help.

Again, this isn’t about restricting or even weight loss.  It’s all about getting myself back on track and feeling good again!  I will do some WIAWs to show some progress and of course will update with how it all went at the end.  Feel free to join in with me now or the 1st of the year!  Right now, I’m going to have some Fritz’s as a “last meal” before I really get started, Ha!