Post Cancer New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's New Year's Resolution time again, and for the last week I've been thinking about what I should resolve to do in the New Year.

I always view my New Year's resolutions as optimistic goals.    I don't beat myself up if I don't meet them 100%, but if I can at least get to 40 or 50% compliance I think I've accomplished something. 

I also think it's important to set realistic goals with nothing being too over-reaching.   I don't know about you, but I do better with smaller, more attainable goals then wide, over-reaching ones.    I'm more inclined to meet a series of small goals, then one large one.  Meeting a goal is reinforcement for me to set a new higher goal, so after I lose, say 5 pounds, I just set another goal to lose 5 pounds.  If I just initially set a goal to lose 10 pounds, I'd likely get frustrated before I reached that goal, and just drop it.

Adding to the resolution mix this year is that I just completed my cancer treatments.  I still have to start taking my Tamoxifen and stay on it for 5 years, but as far as the surgery, radiation, etc., that's all behind me now.

Now, as you can imagine, I sort of fell off the clean eating bandwagon in the last few months.   With all the stress, fatigue, etc., I found comfort in food.

Now, even off the bandwagon, my eating was still probably better than most.   I still never ate a bag of Cheetos or a sleeve or Oreos, but I did somewhat overindulge in my "comforts" of cheese, good bread and sugar.

Have I ever wrote about how much I love cheese?    J'adore le fromage.   Pretty much any cheese (other than American), is alright by me and I can eat it pretty much anyway you want to serve it to me.

The only thing is that in recent years I've come to realize that cheese doesn't love me the way I love cheese.   I just can't seem to digest it that well anymore (I get excessive gas), and I've discovered it also leads to excess mucus production giving me a permanent post-nasal drip.

Cheese also tends to cause weight gain, so for the last few years I've reserved my cheese eating to small amounts on special occasions.

But, in my Cancer phase, I just didn't care about gas, post-nasal drip and weight gain.  I wanted cheese and I ate cheese, along with lots of bread.

I also love bread, the good bakery kind with a hearty crust (I love a good chew).  Since I've limited my consumption of refined carbs in the last few years, however, I just haven't eaten much bread.   That also went out the window.  I wasn't eating Wonder Bread, but I still was indulging way more in refined carbs then I should.

Lastly, as I've posted before, I've been on a bit of a sugar binge for at least two months now.    I was good in not indulging in any type of overly-processed snacks, but anytime there was any kind of home-made cookie, cake, pie, brownie, crumble, candy, etc. I ate it, and generally ate a lot of it.  

So here we are at the beginning of another new year, and it's time to make resolutions.

So here they are:

In the coming year, I resolve to get back on the clean-eating bandwagon.  I will once again reduce the amounts of dairy, sugar and carbs in my diet, and eat more plant-based foods.  

I also resolve to do sitting meditation at least once a week.

Wish me luck.