Developing Myself

Two in one, this time. Today was the end of the first week (new goals for the next to be posted tomorrow), and the first trial (having a solid food breakfast every morning; results and comments coming tomorrow, as well). Today’s was a couple of scrambled eggs – between that and “normal” breakfast food in Portugal (bread or cereal), there’s no contest, and eggs are quick to cook.

So far, I’ve reached all my goals and upheld all my decisions, except one: last dinner (just about an hour ago), I “got distracted” and ate too much – what would have been “normal” for me before I started all this. My habits, when I don’t think about it consciously, still lead me to fill the plate too much, and to eat everything on it, even if I’m already satisfied before I finish. I’ll have to pay more attention to that.

Tomorrow is housekeeper day, so I won’t have time to exercise in the morning; I’ll have to do it when I get home. I could get up earlier, but exercise makes noise, and I’d be waking up the neighbors, which is not nice (it’s for exactly that reason that I only open the windows in the room(s) where the birds are, as they have “morning calls” at first light, so I have to ensure that “first light” doesn’t come too early for them).

Even though I’m not noticing a big physical difference (I’ve lost some weight, but, as Mário said, it’s normal for that to happen in the beginning), I feel great, simply because I’ve made a decision – to improve my life –, and I’m sticking with it. This has been affecting other areas of my life as well, such as shyness and self-confidence; if I can do this, I can do anything. Starting this blog, so far, has been one of the best ideas I’ve had in my life, and I feel dumb for not doing it decades sooner (even before there was such a thing as a “blog”, in fact). But better late than never…

Not much new to add today (I must find a way of making these more interesting). Dinner was a salad and two scrambled eggs, and I’m feeling a bit hungry right now (dinner was about 3 hours ago), so maybe I’ll eat some fruit or something before going to bed. I felt fine and awake today, and my abs only hurt when I consciously contract them. Tomorrow, since it’s Saturday, I plan to do a little more exercise than today, though all of it still at home.

So far, after 3 days, the main difference that I notice is that I feel wide awake during the entire day, which comes mostly from 1) sleeping well, and 2) not going to bed with a lot of alcohol in my system every evening (which also affects number 1). However, there’s also the psychological part, which is even more important: I feel that I have a purpose, and goals. That hasn’t been true for most of my life.