Weeks 13, 14, 15: Partial Fail – Reboot

You know that whole “I’m going hard core 811rv with zero exceptions for 30 days” thing?

Yeah, so that didn’t happen …

Here’s what did, and what I learned:

Week 13 Progress:

• no sugar
• no alcohol
• 17 – 811rv meals
• 3 – cooked vegan meals
• 1 – cooked meat meal
• some vegan junk food on a poker night with friends

Week 14 Progress:

• no sugar
• no alcohol
• 18 – 811rv meals
• 3 – cooked vegan meals

Week 15 Progress:

• no sugar
• no alcohol
• 17 – 811rv meal
• 3 – cooked vegan meals
• 1 – cooked meat meal

What I Learned:

• Adding the extra constraint of going 100% 811rv has made the primary task of cutting out all sugar and alcohol super easy.  Some say shooting for a goal higher than your actual goal makes the attainment of your actual goal easier.  As with all business-advice-self-help-platitude b.s. there’s some truth to that and some nonsense.
• After every non-811rv food experience I inevitably felt pretty crappy – either immediately after or the next day.  Psychological?  Who knows … but the correlation was consistent.

So, what now?  Well, I think this “go 100% no matter what” thing is way too stressful.  One may argue that in the initial stage of establishing a habit 100% compliance is critical.  Maybe … Either way, I’m still generally on track and the act of observing the impact of non-811rv food is having the desired effect:  I want non-811rv food less and less.

And beginning this week, I am going to add a new element to this process:  public tracking charts.  I’m going to start including a tracking chart of my water consumption with each update.  After 30 days I may throw in another chart … and then another.  Let’s see how it goes.  Here’s my current water consumption to start …

(click on the chart for numbers and dates)