Homework time!

1. Write about one thing that has gone surprisingly well and one thing that has gone surprisingly not good.

2. Write about what you should change (if anything) about your sleep situation.

Before starting this, I was worried that I’d always be too rushed or busy doing other things to do enough cooking at home, and I’d end up buying a lot of rotisserie chickens or carnitas/guacamole bowls from Chipotle (two of the few compliant items there), or maybe just eating sugar-free jerky and lunch meat all the time. As it happens, though, I’ve managed to cook dinner nearly every night, almost always with enough left over for breakfast the next morning. I’m consistently blazing through my fridge full of veggies and gradually clearing my freezer of all the meat I’d stocked up on. Making dinnertime a priority in my schedule was a crucial component of following through on this.

I had a surprising setback this morning with my sleep schedule, though. After nearly two weeks of waking up at 9:25 a.m., I successfully moved that time up to 9:10 a.m. on Friday — but when I tried to move it up by another 15 minutes on Saturday, to 8:55 a.m., I failed. I have a distinct memory of hitting the snooze button twice, and the next thing I knew, it was already 10:10. I hoped that by approaching this methodically, I’d be able to gradually and consistently wake up earlier. But, as I posted in our program’s Facebook group two and a half weeks ago:

I tend to procrastinate a lot, which means I put off going to bed — and then I sleep late. Even once I’m awake, I tend to procrastinate getting out of bed and starting my day. I’m lucky I have a job that’s flexible enough to allow me to start work late, but that also means I end up working late… and missing classes at CFSA.

Although I’ve managed to regularly wake up earlier than I used to, it’s not early enough yet. And a big part of that is the fact that my bedtime has gradually crept a little later, so instead of getting seven to eight hours of sleep per night, I’ve been getting six to seven. If I want this to work, I can’t let other priorities interfere with just going to bed when I’ve decided I’m supposed to. I have decades of inertia working against me here, but it’s a solvable problem if I actually commit to solving it.

Here are my food photos for day 25:

Saturday, Feb. 8

I woke up at 10:10 a.m. (after heading to bed at 2:45 a.m.).

Breakfast: 11:30 a.m. | 6 eggs, 1 oz. baby spinach, 2 Tbsp. red palm oil, herbs & spices

Lunch: 3:20 p.m. | 7 oz. roast beef, .18 oz. chipotle SeaSnax seaweed

Dinner: 9:25 p.m. | 8 oz. ground pork, 2 beets, 5 brussels sprouts, 1/2 sweet onion, 4 cloves garlic, 2 Tbsp. coconut oil, herbs & spices

I ate half of the contents of the skillet below, saving the other half for breakfast.