2024 Resolution — How Things Are Going (Month Six!)(Plus, Did I Eat Cake For My Birthday?)

Another month has come and gone, and the month of June happened to be my birthday month. When I came up with my one and only resolution for this year (to go a year without sugar), I initially wanted to give myself 12 cheat days for the year — one per month. But Matt thought that was too many, so then I reduced it to six cheat days for the year.

From January through the end of May, I still hadn’t used a cheat day. So I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do for my birthday. Did I want to stay the course and see if I could go the whole year without using any of my allowed cheat days? Or did I want to give myself some liberty (and perhaps a reward for having lost almost 30 pounds so far this year)? I really did want cake. White sheet cake with buttercream icing from HEB is my absolute favorite dessert. But the thought of eating sugar actually scared me. Would I be like an addict returning to an old vice, thinking I could do it just once and then stop, but reawakening that thing inside me that then wanted more and more and more over the following days?

Honestly, I didn’t make my final decision until the night before. If you had to place a bet, what do you think I did?

I ATE THE CAKE.

Well, would you have won or lost that bet? 😀 I decided to eat the cake. We’re halfway through the year, and I decided that this was a good time to give myself a free day before buckling down, getting back into a workout routine, and getting serious about finishing strong on this health journey for the year.

So on my birthday, I went all out. I had my favorite meal — beef fajitas from Rosa’s Cafe. Then I bought 1/8 sheet cake, a bag of cheese puffs, and a large container of pre-cut mixed fruit. I ate all three fajitas for lunch, followed by a piece of cake. Then I snacked on everything else the rest of the day. What really shocked me was that by bedtime that night, all of the fruit was gone, and most of the cheese puffs were gone, but I still had a whole lot of cake. To be honest, I enjoyed the fruit every bit as much as I enjoyed the cake. That really shocked me.

But at the end of the day, I threw out the rest of the cake. And I didn’t put the plastic shell top back on and throw it away in the kitchen trash can. I know myself enough to know that if I had gotten up the next morning craving sugar, I would have dug that out of the trash can. I would have told myself, “But it’s in a plastic container! And I put a new bag in it often! It’s safe! Nothing could have gotten on it!” And I would have dug it out of the trash, opened up that plastic shell container, and dug in. If you’ve ever been addicted to sugar or anything else, I know you probably know exactly what I mean. It’s really embarrassing and shameful the lengths some of us will go to to get that “fix”.

So I wasn’t going to take that chance. Instead, I took it outside and threw it into the big trash can. No matter how desperate I am, I would never dig something out of that can. 😀 But I was so pleased to wake up the next morning and not have any cravings at all. In fact, I haven’t even given sugar a thought since my birthday. I haven’t craved any sweets at all. The next day, I just got right back to my normal low-ish carb eating, and went about my normal life.

The bummer is that I gained four pounds. I mean, if I’m going to have a cheat day, I’m gonna do it right! 😀 I have since lost those four pounds, but I’m back to where I was at the end of May. In other words, I didn’t lose a single additional pound during the month of June. I really had an overall undisciplined month, and I’m pretty disappointed in myself for wasting that time. Not only was I not disciplined in my eating (even though I only ate sugar on my birthday), but I also got off of my workout schedule. So even though I weigh the same now as I did at the end of May/beginning of June, I feel “fluffier” now, and I feel like my jeans fit me just a little tighter. That’s a real bummer.

I’m really having a hard time figuring out how to fit everything that I need to do into a day. Matt seems to need more care and attention these days, so that’s taking up more of my time. We’re both getting up earlier and going outside in the morning so that we can start our day in the morning sun and with our bare feet on the grass. So getting up that early requires us to go to bed much earlier than we used to. So finding time to fit in a workout has been challenging this last month. But one of my main goals for this next month is to make that a priority. I know that if I don’t take care of myself, that actually puts Matt at greater risk. So making myself and my health a priority is, in turn, the best thing to keep him safe and healthy. So I’m going to make it a priority to get back to a workout schedule this month.

So, as always, I’ll end my June health journey update with some comparison pictures. I always go back to this picture at the beginning of the year…

And then here are two pictures that I took yesterday…

So here is me in January compared to me yesterday…

And check this out. I was looking through older pictures last night, and I came across this picture of me from July 2022. I was about ten pounds heavier then than I was at the beginning of this year. So this is almost a 40-pound difference. See how I was holding the phone higher to take the picture? That was an attempt to hide my double chin, but I was unsuccessful. Also, my hair was a mess. Clearly, I never meant for that picture to be published online. 😀 But I’m swallowing my pride and showing you because I think the difference is very noticeable.

So we’re halfway through this year. We have six months left to go, and I still want to lose about 75 pounds. It’s time to buckle down again and get serious about my goal.

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.