Goals 2019 -- October Update

The fridge (and freezer) are clean!

And from K:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, I really wanted to use the month of October to try to return to clean eating. Writing this post is quite stressful as M has shared with me that T reads the blog only to find the ways in which we have failed at our monthly goals. And, this month, I think an objective viewer would say that I failed, but I believe that in that failure, I’ve also learned a few important things.

The failing started early on when work was really stressful and having a glass of wine at night sounded really good. But, I wasn’t supposed to drink. So, I adopted our grandma’s Lenten sacrifice and decided that I would only drink when I was with friends, which I was able to stick to. But, when I needed to skirt around my clean eating, I would just call my friend and neighbor, K, and we would have wine together.

Then, and I don’t know why I picked October for this goal, there was the advent of Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew at Starbucks. And, boy are those things good. So good, in fact, that if I were not trying to eat cleanly, I probably would have had one every day, but I think I made it through the month only having five. So, on this one, I was somewhere between a win and a loss.

And along came Halloween and our annual pumpkin carving party where we serve delicious varieties of chips and dips (a very personal weakness) and, of course, the requisite Halloween candy. On that night, and for several days after, I failed miserably. And then came Halloween when our neighbors had their annual chili and cinnamon roll Halloween pre-game. Well, I think you see where this is going…

So, what were my moments of victory this month? There were a few.

1.     I had very few cups of regular coffee (cold brews aside), and when I did, I used half and half instead of creamer, but by the end of the month, coffee didn’t even taste good to me anymore. So maybe I’ve finally broken that habit!

2.     Mom tried to derail me with Trader Joe’s pumpkin ice cream, and I gave in one night. But, I made myself a tiny ramekin and halfway through I had to throw in the towel because it was…too sweet? Something must have been wrong with me. Or, maybe I have managed to successfully alter my taste buds, which was the goal of the clean eating anyway.

3.     Even when I made a bad food choice, I made it after deciding that I was okay with making it. This feels like a victory to me because I don’t usually think too much about what I eat EVER. I don’t meal plan. I can’t think of what I want for lunch right after I’ve had breakfast. And, when I come home from work starving, I just follow my taste buds wherever they lead me without a second thought. I think the process of making conscious choices about my food, good or bad, marks something of a turning point.

Now that we’re in a new month and I’ve been working on trying to identify a meaningful goal for November, what I’ve learned about myself is that food-related goals are typically not a place where I will find great success. Baby steps, yes. Wholesale life change? Definitively, no. This may not get me anywhere, but I feel like it’s an important thing to have learned about myself. So, while I didn’t meet the goal that I first established for myself, I still got something out of it, and I’m going to call that a win.