Much Better Monday

As you may have guessed, last week wasn't one of my best. Everything came to a head on Friday: feeling bored, frustrated, lost, and alone in these feelings. Of course this didn't sit well with my other half, most likely because I wasn't expressing these feelings in a productive way. This, of course, led to a meltdown on Friday evening. These things happen periodically and sometimes I even think of them as necessary to a healthy life. It's like your brain/body is a computer in desperate need of a restart, so it locks up or totally spazzes out until an external factor steps in to press the power button, wait 5 minutes, then reboot. That's exactly what happened on Friday evening.

Realizing that sometimes we all just need to melt down, be listened to, pointed in a new direction and given some fresh goals, the two of us started anew. The weekend was spent cleaning (thank God, our place was a disaster) and running errands. I know, I know, this is hardly what I would normally call a satisfying weekend, but the errands we ran were part of the process. After much gentle pushing by a local friend, I bought the Eat-Clean book. Rather than trying to do a crash diet (which I'm sure was a catalyst to my own emotional "crash" on Friday) to regain some self-confidence and keep my clothes fitting, Leigh and I are going to give this new lifestyle a shot. The whole idea is to pair healthy carbs with healthy proteins in several small meals every day, plus some exercise, to make your body function at its peak.

Leigh and I already enjoy eating whole foods and tend to make healthy choices, but we also riddle our healthy diets with unhealthy choices more often than we should. We also didn't know how to pair our healthy foods together to keep our metabolisms are their peaks or about eating more often to keep the calories burning and avoiding a crash. I was especially excited to learn about natural substitutes for our cooking. My first big discoveries: rolled oats (instead of cereal or instant oats) and agave nectar (instead of sweeteners for baking, etc).

We all hate fads, especially giving into them, and the fact that a book is associated with this idea is pretty challenging for me on that level. However, the range of recipes and ideas associated with this lifestyle is very promising. It basically tells me that one hardly needs to give up anything to stick with it (not even desserts or baked goods), but might have to make some substitutions to stay on track. Portion sizes will require some adjustment, of course, but this is America and we typically eat 150% or more of what we need in a meal anyway, so no loss there.

So anyway, we spent the weekend making some adjustments and pillaging the bulk foods section of Fred Meyer. I also discovered some great finds at Costco, which always makes me happy, and did a lot of cooking (baked snacks and soup for the week plus a yummy fish and veggie dinner for Sunday night). This morning I had a good breakfast and I already feel better and more hopeful about the week. I know I'll have energy to get my work done today and to hit the gym this evening. Hopefully this feeling will last all week so that I can enjoy my weekend to the fullest instead of sitting around feeling depressed about the weather and lack of good programs on TV.

So now it's Monday (again) and time to get to work. I have a small stack of files on my desk, which is awesome so I'll be busy for at least 2 days, and a full day planned. This coming weekend is a 3 day weekend (yay!) so hopefully I'll get creative and come up with something fun for Leigh and I so we don't feel like we're wasting our personal time. These long winters can be so challenging in that way, so hopefully we can pull ourselves out of this funk altogether and make the most of these next few months.... then, it's SPRING and HAWAII!