Well, I made it through, and I am VERY excited about it! It took a lot of willpower, and it took a lot of thinking and planning. There was one particularly tough evening when they brought me a big plate full of fries with my meal and I wasn’t prepared, but I asked the waitress to take them away and all was good!

Today is the day where I decide rather or not I am keeping the habit, and for the most part… yes I am keeping the habit… BUT I will amend it a bit… I won’t eat anything deep fried in a batter, or french fries… which is pretty much what I have been doing all month (ground beef, for example, while technically fried in a skillet, was not on the list) so I will continue with my habit with one exception… on occasion I can have chips… if I am eating a mexican salad and it has tortilla strips, I am not going to spend ten minutes picking out the strips, etc.

I want to keep this habit, if for no other reason than I never again want to eat french fries, but I know that if I continue to limit myself in the ways that I have, then it won’t be possible for me… so I have decided that I will make this broken habit work for my life by allowing myself the occasional chip snack. I don’t plan on eating an entire bag of chips with my subway meal, and if there is a substitute, I will make it! But, this is how I plan to make this habit happen and fit into my life!

Well, I thought long and hard about it, and I decided I didn’t want to do a food related habit next month, but that I did want to do a habit that was something I thought I could actually do, because I feel like the most important part of the beginning of this whole thing is to be successful, so I have decided to tackle my hatred of laundry.

Okay, some people hate laundry, but I despise it… loathe it, and would rather go to the store nd buy new stuff before I actually did it. And, sometimes I do actually do just that… go to the store and buy new stuff instead of going upstairs and doing a load. That being said, here is the plan… I will do at least four loads of laundry a week all month long. That will give me some leeway on something I completely hate, but it will also make me do some laundry, and if I start doing it like that, then maybe I can start actually doing the laundry regularly!

Hell, if I can NOT eat fried food, then I can totally do some laundry… right?

I don’t eat fried food oh no I don’t. I am awesome sauce and I rock so much. I thought this was going to be hard, it is not. I am awesome!

Yup… that’s my song… so sing it loud!

It’s the twelfth and guess what?!?! I still haven’t even eaten fried food, and I can’t even believe how easy it is! I love that I am just taking this one habit at a time, and focusing all my energy on it. Part of me thinks I should spped it up, but I am thinking that if I were to do that, then I might not have as much willpower to do it. I think I will stick to the original plan and just see how far I can take this.

i still haven’t decided what I am going to give up net month though… part of me thinks I need to drink more water… another says a load of laundry a day… or should I go with breakfast every day… oh… or maybe ugh I dunno! So indecisive!

So today I decided to spend a little time researching habits and how to break them. I mean that seems to be the big thing here… I have habits, and I need to break them. How simple is that, right? Not as simple as it may seem… apparently there is a lot to breaking a habit… I have these little tidbits…

The wiki on how to break habits

Some people say that it takes 30 days to form a pattern and 90 days to form a habit, so plan on giving this a good chance.

An About page on breaking habits

The first step in breaking a bad habit is to look at why you find this action so compelling. In other words, what’s the payoff for doing this seemingly negative thing? Since you’ve already classified this as a “bad” habit you may be tempted to say there isn’t one.

So basically what I am reading is this… Figure out why you love the habit so much and spend a lot of time getting rid of the habit.  Well, I think I am doing both of these things successfully.  I mean I spent a long time deciding what habit would be first.  I wanted one that would make a big impact on my life, but would be relatively easy so that I could be successful.  And, I think that I picked well.  So far it has been a tough habit to break, but one that I really do think is possible.

So what I learned today… I guess something I already knew… hard work and perseverence pay off in the long run

Okay, it is definitely the flu, and that is making it so much harder.  You see, my sick food is potato chips, and I am trying to make the baked lays work… but they just don’t seem to be hacking it.  But, I can’t stay sick forever, right?  So, I will just keep plugging away one day at a time.  I have to say though, this is way easier than trying to like give up all good foods, or something else like that.  Aalready I am just feeling SO much better.  I guess for me it’s just that I am too big of a wimp to give up tons of stuff at one time.  It’s important to remember that I didn’t get all these bad habits in a day, so it isn’t going to take me a day to get rid of them either!  So, with that in mind.  I still haven’t had any fried food, and I am still going strong!  AND so…. another day bites the dust…

That’s right… I am still going strong. I am actually quite surprised at how much fried food just pops up in everything I have been eating all this time. Of course… that could explain quite a bit of the extra weight I have been putting on as of late… I mean… it is like hidden with tortilla strips here, or onion rings there… I mean what has MADE it so popular anyway? I guess it is cheap to do, and let’s face it, tastes pretty good.

But… I have managed to special order or just avoid all the fried foods on menus, and I have made it five whole days fried food free! I am fairly sure I am fighting off the flu, but other than that… I actually do feel a little better, and seem to be retaining less water. My guess is that isn’t actually the fried food, but the salt that goes on it.

So, five days fried food free, and feelin’ fine! (uhhh except for the flu)

So, I am definitely needing the get to the grocery store. I know this will help me in my whole no fried foods thing, but I am thinking I might have something like the flu… This does not make me happy, because you need to be at your top notch best in order to have the willpower to change things about yourself. But, fortunately I am feeling so crappy that I don’t even want to eat… so that seems to be working out for itself

I do have the first week of the monthly meal planner all planned out though, Hopefully I can figure out how to upload it here so you can take a look at it I will see what I can do soon.

So, I said I wouldn’t do it… but I have totally been sitting here thinking about other bad habits I could break, and so far…I have a few that I might try to break over the next few months…

• No more soda (courtesy of a twitter friend)
• In bed by midnight (this is a scary one, but I know I need to do it!)
• Drink my daily water (maybe I could do this one WITH no more soda…)
• Quit playing World of Warcraft (yeah this gives me the shakes just thinking about it!)
• Stop ignoring the laundry

Wow… those are some tall items! I am kinda scared just thinking about them! What are some habits that you guys want to break this year? Maybe I will get some more ideas!

So, my husband and I were out with the daughter today, and we were like hmmm…. let’s have mexican food… and my mind shoots to enchiladas and rice and I think to myself, okay we’re good… I totally forget about the big ol BOWL of chips they bring ya!

Wow, chips are like everywhere ya know… my husband is cutting down and dieting as well… so he had no problem with me sending them right back. That was harder than I thought it would be! But that just a test of willpower, and it totally went okay… so far… I am kickin ass and takin names!