The Goals!: Health and Wealth

When we were traveling around Austria and Switzerland this summer, I was turned to this book, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It by multiple people and referenced in multiple other books and high-profile articles.  Usually I go into full-on eye roll when confronted with any kind of "diet" book - and the cover of this one kind of made me think that was what it was all about.  And frankly, a part of it really does give some broad diet advice.  But the majority of it is a history of diet theory in the west and the science (a lot of science) behind the chemical processes of digestion and energy storage.

Gonna be real here, it got a little dense for me.  Could have been because, as I was reading it, I kept thinking, "Yeah, yeah but why do we get fat?  And what do we do about it??" and skipping ahead.

Well, long story short, I decided to very, very mildly test out the thesis of this book -- essentially all about regulating your insulin spikes -- and see if I actually noticed anything.  Also, I wanted to be sure that I wasn't restricting calories in any way since I was still nursing Hadrian (heck, I'm never okay with calorie restriction dieting in any form) and well, because I love good food.  So after reading Taubes I kind of took an attitude like, "Oh, so you say I can never feel hungry but still lose this extra pregnancy weight, eh?  Welllllll we'll see about that."

This is what happened (the y-axis is BMI):

To my utter surprise, it really, really worked - and I wasn't even really trying to follow all of the advice.  And I've been sharing the gospel of Taubes ever since.

So, this month I want to revisit Taubes, but try to more strictly see if I can eliminate and then gradually re-introduce refined sugars and any carbohydrates, as described in the book.  I'll try to track how that seems to affect my energy and, frankly, see if it can take me not-much-farther down in weight to where I was when I was married.

So, for the Health side of this month's theme, here are my goals

Daily:

     Restrict carbohydrates/sugars to the following daily amounts for Week 1 (20 grams), Week 2 (30 grams), Week 3 (40 grams), Week 4 (50 grams).

     Note quantitative weight and qualitative energy levels every morning.

I figure this is going to take a lot of concentration and effort on my part, so the Wealth side of the month is less demanding:

Weekly:

      Categorize all spending to the smallest unit possible in Mint on Sunday afternoons.
      
      Create and add to a list of items we need to buy for the new house, get general price estimates, and prioritize them.

Monthly:

       At the end of the month, create a budget based on the month's spending patterns (and best guesses from last month, if useful).  In particular, see what, if anything, can be saved or put aside for buying furniture/appliances/home improvement.

      Decide on a Homeowner Insurance Provider (ughhhhhh, but it needs to be done!).