Coconut Milk, Pomegranates, and 2 Secrets to Achieving Your Goals

So, for the last 4 weeks, I’ve been on what some would call a “cleanse.”  Officially, it’s called the “28 Day Reset Challenge” by Cassey Ho of Blogilates.  Basically, you cut out the following five things from your diet:

• Dairy
• Gluten
• Sugar (except fruit and stevia)
• Processed Foods
• Alcohol

Rose (age 9), was going to do this with me and my dad, so I gave her the list of what she couldn’t eat for 28 days and she says,

“Oh that’s okay.  I don’t drink alcohol very often anyway.”

WHAT!?  HA HA!

I come to find out she thought caffeine and alcohol were the same thing….ha!  Whoops.

Anyway, she lasted half a day (she was obviously fully committed, right?) because she didn’t have a big enough reason why she was doing it, which brings me to my first point.

POINT #1: If You Don’t Have a Big Enough Dream, You Won’t Do Anything to Get It.

What does that mean?  It means that anything worth having is worth going after, worth fighting for.  If you aren’t motivated, you won’t do anything.  For example, if you want to get in shape, you might start eating healthy and working out.  But what happens if you don’t have a specific goal or reason to become physically fit?  A day will come when you don’t feel like eating right or lifting weights, so you quit.

The WHY wasn’t big enough to fit the WORK it was going to take to get there.  I’ve heard it said from Terri Brady on stage once: “if the DREAM is BIG ENOUGH, the FACTS DON’T COUNT!” [emphasis added].  In other words, if you have a big enough dream and a path to get to said dream, nothing else matters.

Key word – ENOUGH. 

It has to be big enough.  If the dream is too small, you can easily push it aside and tell yourself, “I’ll start tomorrow,” when you very well know “tomorrow” may not ever come.  The dream has to be big enough to be worth all the pain and struggles you’re going to have to go through to get it!

And be honest.  The struggle is what makes the victory sweet!  It wouldn’t be any fun to achieve success without a struggle, because if success were easy, everyone would do it.

When You Say You’re Gonna Do Something…

Okay, so I was super smart when I started this thing and I told a few close friends that I was going to omit all those things from my diet for 28 days.  That was a huge mistake/step in the right direction, because then I couldn’t just quit.  I had to see it through or else these few people I had told would tease me about it!  In a nice, loving way, I’m sure ;P

That brings up point #2:

Point #2: Attain Accountability

Think about this for a minute.

Why does Weight Watchers work?  Because there’s a community of people cheering you on, congratulating you, and most importantly, competing against you.  Oh, they aren’t officially competitors, but it sure seems that way, right?  They lost more weight than you, so you go out the next month and try to lose more than them.  Plus, you’re accountable to the community.  You choose to eat healthy not only because it’s good for you, but because you don’t want to be embarrassed when you weigh in at the end of the month.  (Feel free to correct me on any of this information…I’ve never been a part of Weight Watchers before, but I’ve heard about it from people who’ve been it it!)

So because I told a couple of my closer friends I was going to do this thing, there was no way I was going to quit.  Honestly, that’s what kept me going at the half way point and at a few other points when I wanted to quit so badly.  If I had quit, I would have felt like I cheated myself, lied to people (even though they couldn’t care less if I was successful at this), and I would have probably gotten teased.  Worst of all, I would have had to make up some lame excuse as to why I was quitting while all the while knowing the truth: that I just didn’t feel like doing it anymore.

Sometimes, all you need to succeed is for a few people to tell you that you can’t do it, or people that will jokingly tease you about it if you quit.  I don’t know.  Maybe that’s just me and people who have the same type of personality I have, but when a few people tell me I can’t do it, I’m like, “Oh yeah?  Watch me.”

Don’t get me wrong, you need people telling you you’re a winner too!  Everyone needs cheerleaders, but choose your cheerleaders wisely.  You don’t have to care what everyone else thinks about you.  You should only care about what the people you respect think about you.

Discoveries

Additionally, this new diet has shown me some cool foods that I didn’t know tasted good, and probably would never have tried, if I hadn’t done it.  Okay….only about three that I can think of, but they’re GOOD.

First, peanut butter date bars.  Yum!  It’s peanut butter, peanuts, dates, and salt blended up in a food processor and molded into bars.

Second, pomegranates.  I have Eve Plozizka to thank for that 🙂  I was at her house and there was a pomegranate laying on the counter, so I tried one of the little seed things and THEY’RE GOOD!  My only problem with them is they’re kind of expensive…

Third, and most importantly, light coconut milk.  It’s a really nice alternative to milk for me, so I enjoy drinking it in small quantities.

What’s the point of all that?

When you step outside of your comfort zone, you are bound to learn and discover new things.  Picture your comfort zone as a ring.  There are cool discoveries on the outside of your ring, but you will never find them if you don’t step outside of it.  You will never know.

So what are you waiting for?

Get a big dream, learn from someone who has done what you want to do, tell other people you’re going to do it, and DO IT!  It’s going to be hard, but that’s the point.  And remember, if your dream is big enough, the facts don’t count!

Until next time,

Hope Frances