400 Things in 28 Days from Scratch from Scratch

Ok - I'm back. I could have blogged the 28 days. Then school started and my focus went in that direction. And I made a more basic error.  While I did create a calendar for the month, it looks like this:

I never got the proper stickers! Took that little sticker in the March 1 box from a different project. It fell off. I tried using these as stickers.

They are left over from my moot court days. But they are too big and not very inspirational. Don't get me wrong - the month itself was not so bad. I stayed completely dairy and gluten free. But I ate restaurant food about four times rather than the twice I had challenged myself to do. And I didn't always observe the carb/veggie/protein ratios. It wasn't a disaster but it wasn't a triumph either.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal, Steamed Purple Cabbage, Scrambled Eggs.
We call this "Struggle Breakfast"

Steamed Purple Cabbage with Red Lentil Mash

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato;
Spinach and Mashed Sweet Potatoes 

Scrambled eggs with Corn Phutu; Steamed Purple Cabbage and Carrots
Finally got the ratios right

One lesson I have definitely learned is this: Losing weight really isn't about exercise. Exercise is about physiological health - muscle strength, cardiovascular performance, balance, agility, flexibility. Those kind of things. Weight loss is about nutrition. It is quite possible to lose weight and keep it off without ever breaking a sweat. I am not recommending that; exercise is essential. However (and I say nothing new here), one cannot hope to lose weight by exercising and eating junk.

No amount of exercise can compete with what you eat. I worked out once for ten minutes during January. That's it. Aside from the work of lifting boxes, I really have done no exercise since then and yet I have maintained my weight and still lost inches. What's that about boxes, you might ask?

Remember the 400 things project? I heard Dee Williams, a bright light in the Tiny House Movement, mention that she was inspired to simply her life following some time she spent in Guatemala. She sold her big house, built a tiny house (84 square feet), and reduced her possessions to about 300 things. I was intrigued and I wondered whether I could do something similar.

I have a storage unit full of a lifetime of junk and memories. I have things in for about six years. For many reasons (and I forgive myself for all of them) I have not been able to touch that storage unit . . . until now. The time has come for me to clean out the closet.

In September I moved from the large storage unit . . .

 to a smaller one.

The Much Smaller Unit

I started working on the storage unit around February 10th. The goal was to sort everything into shred, trash, donate and keep piles. I rented a much smaller unit for my keep items.

It just kept on going!

I looked into my medium-sized storage unit and thought, eh. Two weeks. I can do this in two weeks. And I set to work. When I thought myself half way done, I patted myself on the back, took a short break, and then moved a stack of boxes to discover, to my horror, that the unit was actually twice as deep as I had remembered it. I was in serious trouble.








My new plan is to finish by the end of March. I cannot afford to rent two units, so I am returning the smaller unit until I am done with the primary unit.


So, March is the month of the 400 Things in 28 days from Scratch from Scratch, proving that you can always start again.