Monthly Challenge: January Edition

Each month, I’m going to be committing to a new 30 day challenge. That’s roughly the amount of time it takes to settle into a habit. For this month, I may have gotten a little overzealous in my goals–but nevertheless committed! In January, I’m going to be saying “no” to alcohol, sugar, spending money, and checking my weight. For some background, parameters, and “the why” of it all, keep reading.

Alcohol

We already know that excessive drinking isn’t great for us and our livers. I’m not a heavy drinker by any means. I would probably have like 3-4 drinks on a night out, but that would only be once every 2-3 weeks, if that. Moreover, I want to start developing / growing my friendships with people that don’t circle around drinking. I want alcohol to stop being a defining factor in some of the relationships I have with people.

Sugar

I might have scared myself straight but there is documentary after documentary about how terrible sugar is for our bodies. It’s been compared to cocaine in the way it fires up parts of our brain. I know for a fact that I consume far more than the dietary guidelines, and that’s even before I talk about my juice obsession. But as anyone can tell you, doughnuts are my absolute weakness. I’d like to refine my palate so that I don’t need things to be AS sweet to be able to enjoy them.

Spending Money

I want to be more conscious of when / how I’m using my money. So this month I’m committing to just doing essential spending and nothing else. So on December 31 I kind of went wild and did a bunch of shopping but for the rest of the month, I’ll just be spending on bills and my food service. I told myself when I graduated college that I’d have my student loans paid off by the end of this year. This is looking less and less possible, unfortunately. However, I would still like to make a solid dent in paying off my student loans. And curbing the frivolous spending will definitely help. I think the hardest part will be the Ubers I’m so wont to order on mornings when I’d rather hit snooze than get ready for work. I found this TEDTalk of someone who did this for a full year and saved over $22,000 in the process! How inspiring is that?!

Checking My Weight

This one is going to be the hardest of all them. I check my weight at least once per day but usually twice. At face value, this is a pretty harmless obsession, but with my storied history with food/self-image/disordered eating this has a way of messing with my head a bit. I want to break this habit of checking my weight so often and drastically changing my daily decisions based on what I see.

So that’s that! I hope that on Jan 31 I can come back and say that I’ve done well on all of these, or at least learned something new about myself! I’ll be updating with Periodic Posts about my Progress [I can’t let that alliteration go] so stay tuned!