This post was written on Tuesday but Skanky Tuesday and Weigh-In Wednesday took precedent, so it appears today. Funny how I went from having absolutely nothing to talk about to having to schedule posts ahead of time.
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This year I decided to hijack a sacred religious tradition for my own personal gain.
I’m going to participate in Lent!
Though my Lenten hijacking overlaps with my sugar-free existence, I like the idea of taking the opportunity to use a preset period of time to observe a discipline above and beyond no sugar. So, I’m going to take these forty days to make myself abide by certain rules with absolutely no spiritual growth as a side effect.
Sounds good to me.
Here’s the deal: For the next forty days, I’m not going to eat or drink anything from restaurants, any processed food (with a few exceptions), or anything that doesn’t contain 100% real food ingredients. I’m also going to continue to abstain from alcohol. A small part of me just died a little bit while typing that.
Last year I said that I was going to give up sobriety for Lent.
That was probably a better idea.
Ahem.
My Lent plan is not actually that different from what I do now. It’s just a more disciplined version of what I currently intend to do but sometimes fail.
I’m for it.
So, I’m going to be doing a lot of cooking.
The limited exceptions to the no processed food that I mentioned above are cheeses, Greek Yogurt (yup, I finally jumped on that bandwagon), sausage, and other things that I really can’t make myself but that I can purchase from PCC (a natural foods market I shop at) and know that it will come in pretty much pure form.
The hardest part of this whole thing will be not eating from restaurants and not being able to go to Starbucks. Once or twice a week I go out for lunch at this charming little café that I’m pretty sure fits perfectly in my eating plan. Unfortunately, it’s expensive and I don’t know for sure that they aren’t lacing their lamb with preservatives, trace amounts of sugar, or crack.
They’re pretty much all the same thing, right?
I also won’t be able to order in when I don’t have time to leave work for lunch, which usually happens once or twice a week. I’ll have to make a few meals ahead to bring to work as a contingency plan. It shouldn’t be a problem since I actually like to eat at my desk and then take my hour lunch for other more important things like staring off into space, napping, or a lunch time quickie with the guy I’m seeing.
Just kidding.
But not.
So, this is to be my next little adventure. I can do this until April 5th. But wait, you might say if you are looking at your calendar, marking off the days with me (which I KNOW you will), April 5th is more than 40 days away!
I know! Apparently our church fathers decided that Sundays didn’t count as part of the 40 days. Well, fine, if they didn’t count Sundays, neither will I. No point in being holier than the Pope… especially when I don’t get to carry the big stick thing and wear the cool hat.
Sundays will be my free day for going out (as long as it doesn’t violate my regular eating plan) and having something to drink. I mean, I’m much happier now that I’m not using alcohol to hide from the stuff I needed to work though, but not drinking all the time is kind of boring. I’m still going to avoid sugary mixed drinks but an Irish Car Bomb here and there never did anyone any harm.
Kidding!
This time I really am.
Part of figuring out my healthy lifestyle involves figuring out how to indulge in healthy ways as well. While I’ll be restricting myself more for Lent, I’m also going to use the time period to ease myself back into an allowance of certain types of indulgences.
I’m pretty excited to do this and see what happens with how I feel and with my weight loss.
So, are you giving anything up for Lent?
