This evening, I hit a breaking point during my studying. I have so much on my plate right now - 6 classes plus work and trying to maintain my sanity...well that last one is the hardest. And tonight, I just lost it. The proverbial 'straw' was a moldy sweet potato. Let me explain.
After the GRE on Friday, I had a delicious dinner and then went straight to bed. As soon as I woke up on Saturday morning (at 4:30am!), I started my homework and studying. I grabbed chips, bread, instant noodles (basically any easy carb to snack on) and ate mindlessly as I kept studying through the entire day (and evening). The same thing was on the bar for today. (side note: I've been sitting so much that my butt literally feels bruised).
By the evening, I had eaten every junky carb in the kitchen/pantry (which I know, is totally gross!). This should have been a red flag, but.. sigh.. it wasn't. Anyways, after all the junk eating I wanted something warm and slightly healthier and something that I could make in less than 5 minutes. I nuked a sweet potato, and once it was ready, I removed in from the microwave with a paper towel. I rushed back to my desk, panicking at the realization that I'd lost 5 minutes. Without even looking down at the potato, I started eating it and studying at the same time (bad!). Only at the end of the potato eating, I started to realize it had a funny texture. It was then that I looked down and realized.. holy crap, I was eating something BLUE. I was eating mold. Yeah. You read that right. It was a small potato, so I'll be alright but the important thing was- I had just unintentionally eaten a moldy potato. What was happening to me?
As I looked up from the BLUE potato, I saw candy & granola wrappers, literally in every nook of my desk that didn't have books on it, and in my trash, so many empty chip bags, that I flushed with embarrassment. Now, I know I said before that I would do whatever it took to hit this semester out of the park, but I had just hit into the foul zone. Literally. It finally clicked- what I'm doing.. well, it's gotta stop. This is not healthy, not sane, not productive. There is NO EXCUSE for this grossness.
Not giving myself 20 minutes to breathe in some fresh air outside or 15 minutes to whip up a healthier, more satisfying meal, not letting myself off my study chair.. none of these things were okay. I'm not a robot. (Even if I were, I don't think moldy potato is the right battery lol). I've decided, NO EXCUSES, I'm not going to do this to myself anymore. I'm going to take breaks, stretch/exercise, eat better, and LOOK at my food as I eat it. I can't become perfectly healthy with my current workload but tonight I realized I was far beyond unhealthy.
Now, I tend to make grand plans on how to improve myself but they are usually too grand and quite unrealistic. I am not good at working on a longterm lifestyle change but I am pretty good at tackling each day. So here are my goals for the next 24 hours:
1. Get 30 minutes of stretching/yoga in before bed tonight
2. Eat 3 square meals tomorrow
3. Drink two 1L bottles of water tomorrow
4. Eliminate junk food, candy, gum, bars
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