Commitment

Almost two weeks into the new year and I am fairly sure that many of us are having difficulty sticking to our New Year’s resolutions. This is fairly common, and I am trying to not be one of those people. I am still chugging along with my diet changes. I think I have been fairly successful. Some days are harder than others, when my appetite is ramped up because I have been exercising. This is a normal metabolic adaptation, but it is very difficult not to overdo it by gorging on sweet things and my kids leftovers. My exercise routine has probably been the most successful to stick with. I am doing strength and resistance training twice a week, and have been faithful to my running program three times a week. In fact, I think I am progressing fairly quickly back to my previous 5K track record. My goal this year is to be able to run a 10K. The biggest obstacle to this in the past has been the time commitment, as well as the max speed on my treadmill! Even though it is just the beginning of winter, I am already excited for spring when I can run outside and increase my speed, especially because we will not be buying a new treadmill anytime soon.

Before and after of my belly - still plenty of progress to be made.

I have been reading a book that was provided by my church. It is written by Matthew Kelly, and it is called 33 days to Eucharistic Enlightenment. It is a religious book, and each chapter discusses a different virtue to focus on for the month as you learn about the enormity that is the importance of receiving Communion at Mass. One of the chapters discussed the idea of commitment to something, and I found this chapter extremely enlightening. I have discussed commitment in my previous posts in various contexts. This chapter made me see the idea of commitment a little bit differently than previously. It highlighted the fact that when you commit to something, you not only stick to that one thing, whatever it is, which could be a habit or a person or a job, but you also forsake all others. You choose to miss out on all the other possibilities, whether they be better or worse. Just like in a marriage when you take vows you promise to forsake all others! Well, any commitment to anything, whether it is a person, a habit, a hobby, or something else, you choose to give up experiencing everything else in order to immerse in and devote yourself to the one. I found this very interesting, because it is applicable to so many things in life. We are always looking for ways to not settle on something, and our culture tells us not to settle, to always look for something better because that is what we deserve. The term “settling” in our society has a negative connotation, like it is something that we should avoid or be aware of because we could potentially be missing out on the time of our life.

The reality is, we can choose to have the time of our life, we can choose to be successful and happy when we narrow our focus to one thing at a time. When it comes to self-improvement, which is my main focus right now, it means sticking to a particular exercise or diet plan. It means not jumping around from program to program, or the opinion of one medical journal to some other source of advice to find the best diet plan or the best fitness plan. The best plan that will work for you is the one that you can actually stick to. But this means giving time, this means dedication, and it means patience, which is another virtue that this book discussed. Goodness knows we are all working on patience all the time. And if you have children, you especially have your patience tested daily! So even though I am not seeing my body change overnight, I am seeing small consistent changes. Maybe I will not meet my health and fitness goals by the deadlines that I have set for myself, but I know that I am working towards that.

I have looked back at previous pictures from after I had my third son, and in hindsight, jI do not think I was happy with my body until I was about six months postpartum. This time around, I have set many of my goals to be reached around three months postpartum! That is very difficult to meet, and I feel maybe I have set my bar too high and set myself up for disappointment. I am not going to move my deadlines, but rather still continue to strive for them, but I will be gentle on myself if I do not quite make it there.

In the meantime, I am having fun experimenting with new foods and recipes that my husband and I have found. We recently found a way to make chocolate from rock cacao beans. We used the husks to make tea that tasted like chocolate!

Just one and a half cups of cacao beans made about 13 ounces of dark chocolate that I sweetened with monkfruit instead of regular sugar. My next objective is to temper it and make dark and milk chocolate candy bars. More on that to come!

I also recently made pop tarts using leftover pie crust from my sister‘s baby shower, and blueberries that my kids were not eating for whatever reason which I used to make a jam.

Remember “school pizza” all you 90’s kids? One of our favorite YouTubers had a recipe and I think it has become a new favorite and easy weeknight dinner!

I am just trying to enjoy the last few weeks of my maternity leave before I return to work. I have to admit, I have rather enjoyed being a stay-at-home parent, and I have found a lot of value in taking care of the home and family as my primary function. I have found joy in doing the small things every day, like the laundry and the dishes, because they are ways of making my home clean, tidying my space and my mind, and keeping my family healthy and loved. There is a unique satisfaction that one can get from a well-kept home, and I have really started to appreciate that this time around. I am hoping that once I go back to work, I can stick to some sort of housekeeping routine. It will definitely be an adjustment, moreso for my husband because most of the time he will have all four children on his own, at least when I am at work. We shall see how we adapt, there are a lot of changes to come, but we just have to take it day by day week by week. For now, onward and upward!