Timetobeme's Blog

I am like most people and tend to make so many new year resolutions that I never, ever see through.

You can guess some of them.

Get out of debt,

Save money,

Get organized,

Lose weight,

Get in shape.

I was just watching a Youtube creator I watch regularly by the name of John Davis. He just said something so profound in his New Years video I had to turn it off and come in here and write.

He said , and Iparaphrase, we all live each New Year like ground hog day. Same goals or resolutions that we fail to get through the first month and quit .

That it was just like the movie Ground hog day…..

I had never once thought about it that way but he is totally correct.

For as long as I can remember I have been saying the same thing every single year. Every year it never , ever , happens.

Instead of letting that happen again , and once again relive another failed year of not accomplishing the goals you set out to do, why not take them in steps ?

In other words.

I want to get healthy and lose weight.

Our knee jerk reaction to that statement is to jump all in and do it all at once. But what John suggested was to take it in steps instead.

Week one, give up some foods that are a big issue for you.

Week two, maybe cut out another big thing, maybe soda if you drink it.

Week three start a slow excercise plan.

I turned his video off at this point as I wanted to make this more personal.

I do this all or nothing every single year. It never works.

There is a well known saying that goes something like, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is a symtom of insanity, something like that !!

I do not think it is insanity, just taking on too much at once.

I agree with John.

I did start carnavore yesterday. That is one big step but not such a big deal to me as I have so many stupid issues that this will take care of over time. I am happy to be on this plan. My prediabetes were slowing getting closer to being full blown type 2 diabetes and eating sugar or carbs that turn into sugar is no longer something I can do.

BUT, I am still going to drink my Crystal LIght , which I have tons of in the house, and not go straight to drinking water , which is the preferred method for going carnivore.

I am also drinking one packet a day of True Lemon Energy which has some caffiene in it. Not cutting that either.

Neither of these have any carbs or sugars and I do not want to do more than I can handle right now.       

As for excercise, I am going to very slowly step it up. Just a 15 to 30 minute walk a day to start. At the end of January, my goal is to have done that walk every single day of Jan. I am sure some days will be the entire 30 and some will be 15. There may even be a few longer ones, but 15 to 30 is all I am asking of myself for the month of January.

Come February 1 I will decide the times for February. What I am already doing will be the minimum, and might be all I ask of myself in Feb as well. Month by month I will take it slowly , deciding on the first of the month if I want to add anything or just keep it the same. No pressure. If all I do all year is that, and eat carnavore, that will be an absolutely huge positive change from , well, forever.

We are chosing to make January a no spend month. We can buy the food we need, and any household things we need as well, NEED being the operative word. Being on carnavore, we are buying meat and that is it. We are both off dairy for health reasons, we know it is not good for us and we both need to step it back and that too will be adjusted each month to either stay the same, or add a bit back in, depending on how January goes and if we notice a difference in how we feel, but most likely, we will stay away from it for a good amount of time. We will however allow ourselves the ability to change it on the first of any month we feel we really want to. But once a monthly goal is set, we need to stick with it.

Since my husband is doing caravore with me, this will make grocery shopping extremely easy.

No eating out, which is kind of hard on Carnavore anyway. So, that should not be hard. But regardless if it is hard or not, NO eating out. It has gotten so darn expensive it is just not worth it. Also, other than getting a fast food burger without a bun, it is hard to pay for an entire meal and just eat the meat. Even those fast food burgers are not worth doing that. Too expensive. We can make sure we always have a bag or two of burger patties in the house, quick and easy to make. Eggs are easy too.

We are not really big shoppers , we do not go out to stores and malls and just shop for no reason. It has been at least a decade since we were in a mall. Just not our thing.

We do spend way too much on groceries and eating out and I am guilty of online shopping for things I am interested in. My husband, not as much, except at the grocery store . This rule will affect me much more than him, but it is a very important one. Even a small amount here and there over the year can add up, so just not allowing myself to shop for now is a good decision.

So, for the month of January NO online shopping. There is nothing I need and I need to step back from buying any more craft supplies or books. If over the month I find I am out of something or need something, which is unlikely, I will add it to the next months budget and if I still feel I need it, five bucks or fifty bucks, it does not matter, if I still feel I l need it , it will be part of that next months budget and I can get it.

I plan to renew this each month. Once we rebuild our savings to where we need it to be, we can maybe allow each of us a small amount of spending money a month. But that will not be for a while.

We need to learn to save and pay off the debt we have. I want to end the year 2024 debt free or very close and have a decent amount of savings.

We both want to work on building some streams of income from side hustles as well so by the time he retires in a few years we will have some extra money coming in on a regular basis.

So, I will report how we are doing on the first of every month all through 2024. I will keep reciepts for our groceries, not sure what it will cost us to eat this new way, but we will only spend what we need on food and household stuff. 

I am really looking forward to this new year and I hope anyone reading this post has a wonderful year with some goals that want to accomplish and I hope none of us have a Groundhog day kind of year !!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !