Week 20 will be the last phase of changing over my liquid diet by cutting out alcohol all together. I plan to be more productive and happy for the rest of the year by rekindling my passion for the outdoors. Rather than spending my nights at the bars, I will spend my mornings gardening, hiking, running or volunteering. I coordinated this goal to fall in line one week before I cut back from working 60-70 hours a week at two jobs to just working one job. While imposing a tax on your overall health, alcohol can also be quite expensive.
My birthday got me thinking a lot about time. Looking back now, I feel pretty silly now for working as hard as I did to fund a bad habit. It's a bit ironic that some of the most unhealthy things for us cost so much money. Why spend the precious time I have working hard to buy things that will only reduce the amount of time I get to enjoy this life? Here is one of my favorite videos to put time into perspective.
My birthday got me thinking a lot about time. Looking back now, I feel pretty silly now for working as hard as I did to fund a bad habit. It's a bit ironic that some of the most unhealthy things for us cost so much money. Why spend the precious time I have working hard to buy things that will only reduce the amount of time I get to enjoy this life? Here is one of my favorite videos to put time into perspective.
Whenever I watch that video it leaves me with the question, "how can I get more beans in my question mark pile?" This year I will be reshuffling and reorganizing my piles of beans multiple times. Most recently I took 1 bean per week from my work pile and placed it into my question mark pile. By putting in my two weeks notice at one job, I have given my self access to 24 more hours of daylight each week. This time won't be spent drinking. It won't be spent at fast food restaurants or malls. Rather it will be spent in places that make me happy with people that make me happy. So here is to the good red ants of soda, liquor, beer and wine for the rest of 2014!
End of Week 20 Update
The sign to the left sort of explains how this week went. It was the end of having a drink after work. The end of a mimosa on my day off. The end of a glass of cool white wine on a hot summer day. Yet it was the start to training for my fall races without alcohol involved. The start to achieving goals that I've been meaning to accomplish for years. The start to a more productive and healthy rest of the year. The start to my goal to run the Appalachian Trail next year.
Giving up alcohol isn't so hard if you take a look at the things you will be doing instead. Besides we have already spent the majority of our life so far without it and those years were pretty fun so I don't think I'll have any trouble having a completely wild, exciting and adventurous rest of the year. Rather than finding my credit card statement full of charges from bars it is now beginning to fill with charges from grocery stores and fundraising websites. This goal has been a long time coming and I believe that it will still have its challenges throughout the year but in the end it is just the breaking of a bad habit and just as any of the other things I have given up the idea of drinking alone will soon begin to fade away.
End of Week 20 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 71.20 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 238 cups
Trips to unhappy places - Jimmy Johns (1)
$ to support neighbors = $351.39
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips
Breakfasts eaten - 91
Pushups - 1060 Crunches - 980
Days Flossed - 76 (missed one day)
Coffee - 0 cups
Sunrises attended - 9
Beers drunk - 0
Gallons of Trash Collected - 165
Items planted - 12 jalapenos, 12 bell peppers, 8 yellow pear tomatoes, 30 canna bulbs, 1 chinese pistache, 30 sensitive plants, 24 carolina reaper peppers, 12 ghost peppers, 31 scorpion peppers, 5 brussel sprouts, 12 tyria hybrid cucumbers, 14 congo watermelons, 6 hybrid prizewinner pumpkins, 45 devils tongue peppers, 14 black sea man tomatoes, 33 peruvian white lightning habaneros, 16 mammoth russian sunflowers, 30 big smile sunflowers, 100 zinnia's, 100 basil plants, 100 green onion plants
Letters written - 5
Meat eaten - none
Donations made - Bike the US for MS, Personal Mission Trip, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative,
Movies watched - 0
Glasses of wine - 0
The sign to the left sort of explains how this week went. It was the end of having a drink after work. The end of a mimosa on my day off. The end of a glass of cool white wine on a hot summer day. Yet it was the start to training for my fall races without alcohol involved. The start to achieving goals that I've been meaning to accomplish for years. The start to a more productive and healthy rest of the year. The start to my goal to run the Appalachian Trail next year.
Giving up alcohol isn't so hard if you take a look at the things you will be doing instead. Besides we have already spent the majority of our life so far without it and those years were pretty fun so I don't think I'll have any trouble having a completely wild, exciting and adventurous rest of the year. Rather than finding my credit card statement full of charges from bars it is now beginning to fill with charges from grocery stores and fundraising websites. This goal has been a long time coming and I believe that it will still have its challenges throughout the year but in the end it is just the breaking of a bad habit and just as any of the other things I have given up the idea of drinking alone will soon begin to fade away.
End of Week 20 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 71.20 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 238 cups
Trips to unhappy places - Jimmy Johns (1)
$ to support neighbors = $351.39
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips
Breakfasts eaten - 91
Pushups - 1060 Crunches - 980
Days Flossed - 76 (missed one day)
Coffee - 0 cups
Sunrises attended - 9
Beers drunk - 0
Gallons of Trash Collected - 165
Items planted - 12 jalapenos, 12 bell peppers, 8 yellow pear tomatoes, 30 canna bulbs, 1 chinese pistache, 30 sensitive plants, 24 carolina reaper peppers, 12 ghost peppers, 31 scorpion peppers, 5 brussel sprouts, 12 tyria hybrid cucumbers, 14 congo watermelons, 6 hybrid prizewinner pumpkins, 45 devils tongue peppers, 14 black sea man tomatoes, 33 peruvian white lightning habaneros, 16 mammoth russian sunflowers, 30 big smile sunflowers, 100 zinnia's, 100 basil plants, 100 green onion plants
Letters written - 5
Meat eaten - none
Donations made - Bike the US for MS, Personal Mission Trip, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative,
Movies watched - 0
Glasses of wine - 0