A Challenge! Can You Do It for a Month?

 

wine

this whole project is making me crazy…

Now that I’ve passed the cap of the last 100 days before leaving for my one year RV trip, I’m starting to get seriously excited! It has been quite a challenging journey with my wife and children over the past 18 months and we haven’t even left yet!

Organizing such a trip is not only about setting up an itinerary and getting your gear ready for the big adventure. It’s not like packing your suitcase for a week in a five star hotel either. Organizing this trip starts with a journey within yourself. Over the past 18 months, I have changed my vision of several things. I gave more thought on how I live and how I really want to live. I have had to confront several of my fears and most of my beliefs.

Do I need all this stuff to be happy? I know I don’t, so why do I keep them?

More recently, I’ve discovered an enlightening truth; I’m working too hard keeping myself healthy all to destroy the work over the weekend.

It sounds a bit controversial but as hard as I workout every morning, 5 days a week, I also tend to enjoy drinking wine and having great meals on the weekends. It kinds of defeat the purpose. This is how I can run 6 km in 30 minutes, and still sport a good cushion hiding a potential six pack.

I took the first week of March off for our kids’ spring break. It was the perfect occasion to give some more thought about the way I live. Over the past couple of months, we have made several efforts to keep our budget low looking forward to travelling a complete year abroad. But there is one major expense that keeps rising on the top of our budget and this is food and wine. Our grocery budget has been a concern for a while as it is very important for us to eat healthy throughout the week. Therefore, our grocery bill includes mainly fruit, vegetables and fish. Three items that are not very cheap to say the least. We don’t eat prepared food, but eating fresh has its price. There is no way for us to cut on our health for the sake of financial freedom or saving more money. Still, we face this money management issue.

But now that I’ve had more time to think, I realized something; I eat way too much. Actually this is not true; I didn’t realize this just a few weeks ago. But for many years, I was hiding behind the fact that I’m working out. By working out 4-5 days a week, I always gave myself the right to eat and drink whatever I wanted over weekends. As I really enjoy cooking and eating, this was my way to reward myself for my weekday efforts. But as you probably know, if I want to burn my plate of red curry duck with a bottle of wine, I will have to run four hours just for this meal. Then, if I eat 2-3 meals like this over the weekend, I completely annihilate my weekdays’ effort. This is where I had to step up and take some serious decisions.

Here’s my Challenge; no wine (or anything else) for the next 30 days

I decided to cut out my wine consumption to a big zero for the next 30 days. My challenge actually started on March 4th (so I’m halfway there!). The point of cutting wine so drastically wasn’t the fact that I felt like I’m becoming an alcoholic (far from it), but a good meal comes with a good bottle of wine. Therefore, if I can’t cut the wine, I’ll cut some good meals (or at least, I won’t serve myself twice!).

I’m doing this challenge to prove to myself I can change my life habits. My goal is not to stop eating or drinking over the weekends, but I have the feeling that if I can cut everything down to zero, it will be easier to bring back a more acceptable level afterwards (such as one decadent meal per week).

I’m highly motivated to achieve my challenge because I have several reasons to do it:

It will help me keep a low budget before I leave for my trip;

It will create new life habits that will make my trip even more fun;

I’m working lots of hours right now, healthy food will keep my energy level very high;

I will spend 10 months out of 12 in T-shirt by the beach, I would rather look fit if I want to be in the pictures!

I think this is the main key to achieve any challenge: you need to focus on the benefits and the benefits must be bigger than the effort you make.

I’ve always worked out with the goal of being fit at one point in my life. When I was a kid, I was the chubby loner and I want to get rid of this picture. Due to my love relationship with food, this dream has always slipped through my fingers. I’m now giving myself the next three months to change my life habits in order to start my journey with a fresh new body.

What would be difficult for you to avoid in the next 30 days?

I think we become greater people when we learn to control our impulses. We all have our little demons. I’m curious to know what is yours?

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