30 Day Experiment - Voluntary Simplicity

A week or two ago I wrote a post about sinful indulgence and how good it feels to indulge only rarely instead of every day.  Writing that post got me thinking about my lifestyle and what would it be like to not indulge at all, EVER.  I’ve always believed that a healthy life does not necessarily mean giving up the occasional unhealthy pleasure, but is this true?  Do I hold on to these unhealthy indulgences as a way of rewarding myself with true pleasure or are there better things in life that I could be rewarding myself with?  Would I miss these occasional pleasures or would I eventually get used to their absence and move on with my life?  That is, does even an occasional indulgence count as a habit?  Would I really miss chocolate if it was gone from my life or can I simply not conceive of that possibility right now because I’m so used to it?

So for my 30 day experiment for this month I have decided to cut out my two occasional indulgences.

No More Soda - I occasionally indulge myself with a diet coke as opposed to the water I usually drink.  That’s not going to happen this month.  No more diet coke, coke zero or whatever vehicle it is that I use to get caffeine into my body.

No More Candy - Chocolate or otherwise.  No candy at all for a month.

I’m curious to see if this will cause me to feel deprived or if, after a month, I will simply forget about these things and adjust to doing without them.  By the way, please note that I am NOT a believer in a life lived without pleasure.  That is, I am not trying to deprive myself of everything that is good about life.  I wholeheartedly believe in a life lived to the fullest.  I want to live a life filled with happiness, joy and pleasure.  I just want to know if these two habits are truly pleasurable or if they are simply things I have become accustomed to.  In other words, are they a worthwhile indulgence or are they a distracting habit keeping me from better enjoyment of life’s other pleasures.

What about you?  What’s one unhealthy habit you’ve told yourself you simply cannot do without?  Are you sure about that?  Have you tried?  Why not give it a whirl for just 30 days and see how you do?  That’s what I’m planning to do and I’ll give you all updates as the month goes along.

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Thank you to Body and Fitness blog for including a 60 in 3 article in their latest carnival of all things weight loss. And thank you to Fitbuff for doing the same in the latest Total Mind and Body carnival.

Week 2 of No Soda or Candy

It’s been a week now since I stopped drinking any soda or eating candy and I got to say, I feel GOOD!  Some of that could be due to the fact that I’ve been getting more sleep lately.  However, I got very little sleep last night and I still felt good this morning.  Usually, even after a night with a decent amount of sleep, I would get to work and feel like taking a nap.  I would keep feeling this way until well into the afternoon or at least until I had my first diet coke.

I had the same experience while at school this weekend.  I used to be unable to make it through a class without at least one diet coke.  This weekend I was able to make it through all of my classes without feeling sleepy even once.  Well, actually, I did feel sleepy once but hey, you try paying attention to a three hour lecture about stock option pricing formulas and we’ll see how awake you are!

Regardless, I think I underestimated how much I had grown dependent on caffeine.  I picked it up again towards the end of last year as a way of treating myself when I felt down or depressed, but I always thought it was just a casual habit.  Turns out I had become a caffeine addict without even noticing it to the point where I was unable to stay awake through many parts of my life without a shot of caffeine.

Which is why I’m incredibly happy now to say that I’m done with caffeine.  I think this is one part of the 30 day promise that I will have no problem maintaining long term.  I feel better without it and I no longer need the artificial pick me up to feel better about my day.

Ahh Candy, My Old Friend!

The candy part, that’s a different story.  I love candy.  Actually, let me correct that, I love sugar, especially processed sugar in all its glory.  Sure, I can enjoy an apple or an orange but there’s something about candy, especially good chocolate, that drives me a little crazy.  It’s an incredible pleasure for me, as you can see in some of my previous posts.

In the past, I was able to control my consumption of chocolate to a reasonable amount.  However, I also recognize that there were time when I binged on sugar in a way that was extremely unhealthy.  So I was looking forward to trying out this 30 day experiment and seeing how I felt.  Unfortunately, temptation has proven a worthy foe.  While I have cut out nearly all processed sugar from my diet last week, I have fallen victim to the occasional brownie at lunch.  I know I shouldn’t eat them, I’ve told myself not to and yet, I still do.

At the same time, I’m not going to beat myself up over this occasional lapse.  I have decreased my processed sugar consumption by an amazing amount last week and I would rather focus on this accomplishment rather than my slightly less than perfect success rate.  The decrease in sugar is not having as big of an impact on my body as the removal of caffeine but I do find myself craving sugar less and less, so perhaps there is something going on here.

So Far So Good

Either way, I am exceedingly happy with how this 30 day experiment is going so far.  It’s had a very positive effect within a week of starting out and I feel like this is going to have a long term impact on my eating habits and health.

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Thank you to Fitbuff for including a recent 60 in 3 article in their latest Total Mind and Body Carnival.