I did it! Ha.

Below the 252 mark. And, this was after going-through my cycle-slumps. I am excited because I see so much progress in my mindset and my capability to get-through the rough patches with less damage to my health and well-being.

I have entered another 4 week challenge. This time there is $$ involved, so a little extra incentive to meet my goals.

Having said that, after 1 week of having “Pop” as my bad habit I was trying to break, I have decided to switch to another bad habit. If I did fail and have a pop I  found myself saying “well, I’ve already lost the points, I may as well drink as much pop as possible to make it worth my while”.

Not helpful.

This way, if I decide to have a pop on a Friday evening as a treat at the end of the week, I can just have one and will not have to ‘make it worthwhile’ by drinking a lot more than I would have without that mentality of making the loss of points worth it.

Diet pop.

Ugh. It’s totally my arch nemesis.

Some of you may be wondering why I make such a big deal out of it. I mean, it’s not like I even drink it every day. Even if I did, it was just one can/day. So, what’s the big deal?

3 things:

• It really seems to kill my gut
• There are certain foods I like to eat with the pop. I don’t like drinking pop on its own. To me, it goes with certain things. Thinking about it right now, I would LOVE to sit down with 4 pieces of toast and a nice, cold, diet pop. Toast with marg&Nutella, toast with marg&Jam, Toast with marg&honey and either toast with pb&j or toast with just marg…That’s a lot of calories to consume just to enjoy a pop.
• The artificial sweetener, etc. in pop makes me crave more sweets. Sugar consumption breeds sugar consumption and since artificial sweeteners not only taste sweeter than refined sugar, but have added chemicals that cause reactions in the brain, they breed even MORE sugar cravings. What starts off as an innocent diet pop craving once, leads to one/day, leads to a couple plus a small bag of chips, which leads to a few more, a big bag of chips and a bag of aero bubbles…..you get the picture.

I want to become a person who does not drink pop at all. Full stop.

If I declare, here and now, to the world that I don’t drink pop, do you think it will stick?

Can the random, weirdness, of the internet keep me accountable to never again consuming pop?

Is that an unrealistic goal at this point?

It can be tough to know which ‘demons’ to work on at any given time. I have found that the best way to do this is to really listen to my instincts and trust myself.

And, if I’ve learned anything, it is that the very fact that I’m asking those questions is a signal that I’m just not ready to make that much of a commitment to ditch the soda.

Because, at the end of the day, I am doing a great job and taking that 100% away feels like a punishment right now. When I make the decision, I want it to come from a positive place of empowerment, not weakness, just like all the other changes that have stuck have been. I think that’s why they have been successful.

So, I’ll have a Diet Pepsi, please.

At the moment I’m focusing on the following:

Exercise Daily: 7 minute workout, 10, 0000 steps, and either: extra walk, yoga/stretch or stair climbing

3 Servs Veggies/Day

3L water/daily

@ least 10 minutes of meditation time before bed. This can be writing, reading, yoga, stretching, playing guitar, walking…anything that makes me slow down, unplug and breathe.

Sticking to my calorie goals

And decreasing negativity.