Small update this month. The quality of my blog is suffering due to being bogged down with mostly administrative work, e.g. purchasing real property and setting up the deed, taxes, HOA declarations, etc. associated with that; operating a small business in Poland (my freelancing English, IT, and marketing services) and the filing and tax requirements associated with that; changing the registration address of myself, my car, etc (to to having purchased and move into new real property); not to mention just doing my freelance work on top of organizing and carrying out the renovation of my newly purchased real property, etc.
Only saying those things for documentary purposes. Not complaining about anything or giving any excuses. I should be able to maintain the quality of this blog despite having the aforementioned responsibilities, but I have no organized my time well enough to. I'll be better at this as time goes on. I'm learning to both love and thrive in this chaos.
So with that, this month I'll give a small update on my dietary situation that I touched on last month.
My diet is better now.
I will not go so far as to say that it's "good"... because it's not.
But it is better. Much better.
I've gone cold turkey on my worst junk food offenders which were, among others: dark chocolate peppermint pastels — my kryptonite.
Unfortunately I do not have any empirical data to back this claim, but I would speculate to say that this action alone (cutting mint pastels out of my diet) has cut my average processed sugar intake by half (seriously, I ate a lot of those pastels). It does not matter how many pastels were in my apartment with me, they would not last 24 hours.
I still eat lots of McDonald's, but I stopped ordering fries with my meals and started getting salads. Yeah, I know... salads? from McDonald's?? Sure, they've got nothing on McDonald's fries but:
- The salads at McDonald's in Poland are actually really good (from an ingredient/health perspective)... they're literally just mixed greens, julienned beets, and tomato slices.
- In Poland at least, you have the option of substituting a salad for fries in combo meals. I do often surprise the cashiers at McDonald's with this — it's pretty clear no one is as crazy as me and asks for a salad instead of fries with their meals.
- I actually like to eat leafy greens — I just don't like washing/preparing them... if I bought all the ingredients for making salads at home, I would not make them. Thanks to McDonald's, they're prepared for me, so I actually eat them.
- Usually the dressings for McDonald's salads are the least healthy things about them, and I do not take any dressings with my salads. I just eat the raw greens, vegetables, and tomatoes.
I still eat other sweets more than I should, but overall I feel much better. I have been feeling fatigued more than ever before in my life in recent months (and I'm NOT old enough for it to be due to age alone!!) but after these few changes, I feel great effects.
I'm going to ease into more healthy changes like this. I'm going to continue cutting down on sugar and increasing intake on minimally-processed foods.
I feel progress. Not only with my diet but with myself as a whole. I feel enlightenment. I feel more inner peace with each day. And I wish this times a million for you, my dear friend!! Catch you next time. ❤️❤️
