Lessons Learned (And Re-Learned)

I successfully made it through one week with out going out to eat and drinking nothing but water.  I did celebrate last night by making a stop at Moe's on the way home, though. I savored every bite.

Here's what I was learning this week.

1) There is always food at home.
Do you ever stand in front of your pantry or your fridge and think "There's nothing to eat in this house?" I do. But get this - there is always something to eat in my pantry.  There's never like a piece of tumbleweed blowing across the pantry when I open the cupboard door. There are cans of soup that I bought years ago still in my cupboard.  There's always a little bit of left over pasta waiting to be cooked.  And always peanut butter and jelly and almost always bread.  And usually a frozen meal or two, sitting there from when I last had the brilliant idea to save time on cooking and just starting eating frozen meals.* I do not ever have to eat out.

2) I don't have to have a diet coke** to start the day.  I also don't have to have a diet coke mid-afternoon. I also don't have to have a diet coke when I eat salty foods or quesadillas.
I actually can survive a whole week without it. While I wouldn't say I felt a marked difference in general health or skin glow this week, it did feel really good to drink only water.  And my lips stopped being chapped, which I think is related. I did have a diet coke last night to celebrate the end of the week, but I'm gonna try not to drink them very often any more. We'll see.

3) Abwork does matter.
Sometimes, I start thinking that ab work (crunches, planks and the like) is silly and not worth the time.  After all, it's not like I'm going to do a few crunches every day and one day wake up with washboard abs.  But this week I've had an ab-wakening.  I went to a CrunchTime class at the gym this week and barely made it through this 20 minute ab-intensive class.  I couldn't even do more than half of the moves at all because my abs weren't strong enough.  But today, two days later,*** I can feel a difference that class made. Every time I move. Or cough. I like being sore in the abdominals. It makes me feel like I'm doing something.  And even if developing ab muscles does not give me a mid-riff baring stomach, I remember what it felt like to be ab-ulous, and I'd like to get back there again.

Sometimes I feel like I'm learning and relearning the same lessons over and over.  Seems a bit repetitive, but it is a bit easier to accept the 2nd (or 3rd) time around. Do you ever do that?

*I get this brilliant idea every few months and then I buy several frozen meals, eat one or two and realize that if they are the tasty kind then they are way high in calories and if they are the healthy kind they are usually not very tasty AND also not very filling. Then the remaining meals sit in my freezer for months.
**I realize diet coke is a proper noun and should be capitalized, but I like to think that by not capitalizing it, I'm stealing back a little of its power over me.
***You are always the most sore two days after exercise and not the day after.  Scientific fact.