So, here we are… 2022. We’re a month in already, and I’m still writing “2021” everywhere.

The year started with plenty of messages, “Happy New Year! Let’s hope it’s a better one.” I thought about making a Happy New Year post – then I thought; hmm maybe not.

On the 1st of January 2020, I made a post that said…
Happy 2020! Has a nice ring to it 🙂

Who would have thought that post would doom us all! We all know how that year turned out. 2021 wasn’t any better, (even without me making any posts.)

Like every year, I came up with a New Year’s Resolution for myself. I basically want what everyone else wants, to be happy and healthy… or in my case, happy-ish and healthy-ish. My pursuit to achieve this is still in progress.

These 2020 2021 goals remain unticked: –

• Weight of sixty kilos
• Eat less chocolate
• Have less snacks

The timeframe has also changed quite a bit… first they were set to mid-year, then got pushed to my birthday, then pushed a bit more until the end of the 2021…

I’m now rolling these goals into January December 2022.

Living happier and healthier isn’t as easy as it seems, we’re advised to eat better, be active, drink plenty of water, sleep well, have a good mental state and stress less.

Let’s see what my average day looks like…

I start the day with the annoying sound of my phones alarm clock, that I usually snooze about three times before I hit stop. Then I lay in bed hoping that I had eight hours of sleep, but I know that’s not likely because I had stayed up until midnight snacking on a packet of chips, while catching up on a TV show that I missed that night, because I had decided to do a workout for two hours to finally see the 10,000 steps fireworks graphic on my FitBit, which I hadn’t seen in a while. 

I do the usual ritual of going to the bathroom, wake up my daughter, make a coffee and some breakfast, get my dog something to eat, then clean his mess. I pack my daughter’s lunchbox, then brush my teeth, my hair and get dressed, put on my FitBit, and think damn! I missed all those steps I’ve already done walking around the house. I take my daughter to school, come back and jump on the computer to start my work, which normally consists of switching from my emails, the InDesign program and to multiple browser windows, because I’m studying an online course at the same time… shuffling from the student portal on the Open Universities website, then making a quick detour to Kmart, Ikea, and eBay websites to browse, before going back on InDesign to continue work.

It’s 10am, I take a break to make a coffee, while I wait for the water to boil, I start washing the dishes from breakfast… which sometimes consists of the dishes from last night’s dinner if I didn’t get to do them, because I needed to get to bed and get my eight hours of sleep. I’m back at my computer to complete some more work and enjoying my second coffee of the day. I have the TV on in the background, usually 9Life and House Hunters is on; listening to people complain that the room is too small, even when the one room they are in is bigger than my whole entire apartment. But I’m now too invested, so I must keep watching to see which place they end up choosing.

It’s lunchtime, I make something to eat, put food for the dog, and the sink has dishes again. I clean my dog’s mess and get back to it… I’m at the computer to work, study and browse. My step count says 500, so I sit there on my chair wondering how I’ll reach 10,000 by tonight and still have time to watch TV before heading to bed. Oh, I can’t forget to have plenty of water, I drink from my 0.5 litre Ikea bottle, if I refill the bottle four times a day, that is my recommended amount done, but I usually lose count and drink double the water, ending up using the bathroom a few times a day. Which causes issues with the toilet paper shortage we are having… Remembering it took me a month to even find toilet paper… So that starts to cause me stress. 

The time is 3pm, I’ve picked up my daughter from school and return back home to get more work and study done. She plays with the dog who has missed her all day, and I get in on the fun too. Jobs are not all complete yet, but this has to be great for my ‘Happy’ side.

It’s 5pm, the working day is done, amongst all the studying, window browsing and fun, the work somehow gets done. But since I work in my own business, my work hours are more like… 8pm…. 10pm… midnight (while snacking) 2am… forget about that eight hours of sleep. To keep on top of my mental state and look after my mindset; I go back onto Kmart, Ikea, and eBay. I happily browse through pages of products, oh, my daughter needs shoes for school – Out of stock online.  I need some books for my writing course – add to Wishlist. I have a voucher to use for Ikea – add to Cart. All these items usually sit there for days weeks and forget, I close all the fun windows, then do my grocery order and pay some bills, and buy nothing else!

It’s time to cook dinner, we try to eat by 6pm, so that way I can rest my tummy before starting my evening workout. After cleaning up my dog’s mess I look at my FitBit… step count is about 1,000 and i’m wondering how I can achieve another 9,000 steps in just one hour before MAFS starts at 7.30pm. In the back of my mind, I know there is no way I can make it… stress starts to come back. But I try anyway… I select the songs where I can move around more in less time, and hope that gets me seeing the fireworks graphic on my FitBit. Sweating, tired and drinking plenty of water – bathroom, toilet paper – stress.

It’s 9.30pm, I have missed the show, I guess I’ve picked the wrong songs to get the faster steps. The night ends in me catching up on the show with my snacks and not getting those eight hours of sleep. Mental state is low, weight is high, time flies and I wake up the next day to try it all over again. How can I not be stressed!

Feeling frustrated, I’ve decided to take drastic action and do something very crazy! I’m going to tackle this ‘Eat less chocolate’ goal head-to-head. I’m giving up chocolate altogether for the whole month of February… I figured that 28 days compared to other longer months would be the better option for me. Will I make it past Day 2? Can I survive without my favourite thing in the whole entire world? Let’s test my strength and will power. I’ll post up my weekly progress with day-to-day struggles, wish me luck!! Look out for my next blog to follow this insane Me vs Chocolate Challenge.