For September’s 12 Months to a Healthier You Challenge, we focused on clearing out clutter. I committed to spend 30 minutes to an hour every week de-cluttering at my house. Here’s an update from my last 30-minute decluttering session:
I cleaned clutter/trash/things that didn’t belong out of the car. Um, I’m sort of embarrassed to show you the sack I brought in from the car.
Yes, that whole entire thing was stuff in the car that was either trash or didn’t belong in the car. Yikes!
October’s Challenge is to cut back on caffeine. And I kind of groaned when I saw that’s what it was. Because I love my two cups of coffee each day!
But I’m going to try to slowly cut back to one cup of coffee per day just to see if it changes how I feel or my sleeping patterns or anything. And also just because I think it’s good to challenge myself to things like this on occasion (yes, you can call me crazy!)
Did you do any de-cluttering this past week? If so, how’d it go for you? Are you planning to join us for October’s challenge?
Maria says
Oh, goodness, September was a huge mess here. The first Friday something I ate tore through my system bad, fast, and awful, and I haven’t been on my regular routines since. I’d get so compacted that drinking more than a glass of water or eating my usual amount of food was making me nauseous, so I stopped my water-drinking goals and my salad-eating goals. My place of employment had a huge run of unexpected circumstances that caused me to work way more hours than I normally do, leaving me stressed, sleep-deprived, frustrated, and everything else in between. All of my decluttering goals went out the window, since anytime I had time off I was trying to flush out my system and get it back on its regular rhythms (or do just the basic maintenance of laundry and dishes). Like most of the other people on here, I don’t consume enough caffeine for me to make a specific goal on cutting it out, so I guess this month I’ll take a beat and try to get my life back on track to meeting my other goals again.
Bethany says
This is something I’m hoping to work on soon, so this month seems like a good time to do it! This year I went from coffee to black tea to green tea (my own step down program) and then regressed to coffee then back down to black tea. At least the change to tea has stuck, and just one cup a day. This month I’d like to get down to white tea, which has the least caffeine of all.
Thanks for the declutter challenge! I didn’t quite make my goal, and there are still some piles that need to go to Goodwill, but I’m excited about what I did get done. Things feel so much better organize at the bones level which is a good place to be.
Victoria says
I cut out coffee recently except for when I go to Starbucks to write, which is about once a week. Since I am trying to get my iron levels back up I did a bit of reading on what to eat to raise them naturally and what to avoid and coffee what at the top of the avoid list of what to avoid. I switched to green tea (a lot less caffeine) with a tad of stevia in it. The switch was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. As for sleeping better well…being low in iron already helps that. LOL . I am going to keep up with Septembers decluttering, bedroom is almost done. Just 3 more boxes of stuff from the renovated room left.
Crystal Paine says
Good for you! So sorry that you’re struggling with being low in iron. I’ve struggled with that at different points in my life and it’s rough. 🙁 {Hugs!}
Becky says
I switched to decaf when I was pregnant with my son nearly 2 years ago and have yet to switch back! I love my coffee and now there is less guilt about the caffeine
Misty Nicole Overstreet-Roberts (The Lady Prefers To Save) says
So, I am now on a low-amylose PCOS-friendly diet so caffeine is out for me. A few things I drink during the day are berry infused water, caffeine free apple cinnamon tea, diet, caffeine ginger ale, and green tea almond milk smoothies. Since cutting out caffeine, I actually sleep better, feel more rested, and my migraines have lessened. It’s worth it!
Lori says
I will have to look into that. I’ve had PCOS since I was a teenager, but I did not realize it until it evolved into Type 2 Diabetes, so I need to change my diet desperately.
Misty Nicole Overstreet-Roberts (The Lady Prefers To Save) says
This book, a free pdf, has been life-saving! I’ve lost 8 pounds in a month, thus far. Yes, it’s wordy, but worth reading. One thing though, you will have to change the way you eat, consume, and shop; it’s going to be pricey for produce, gluten-free options, etc. but there are still coupons available, and things like Abe’s market and amazon subscribe and save can help. This is a lifestyle change! For me, I’m TTC, and so this is a necessity for me. Also for the larger picture, consider PCOS, left uncontrolled, can almost double a woman’s chance of ovarian and breast cancer, which can be lessened greatly through diet and exercise. Several physicians diagnosed me with PCOS but left me with very few alternatives, would not take me seriously, and left me clueless about my own health. While is no cure for the illness, but it can be all but stopped with preventative measures!
I blog about deals and my weekly diet struggles on my blog as well; diet tips and recipes on Monday’s.
The book can be found here http://tamarindball.org/lj/pcosbook2.pdf
JF says
Eating gluten-free doesn’t have to be expensive. It does get pricey when your purchase packaged goods. One loaf of gluten free bread at Aldi’s is 3.99 and it’s half the size of a regular loaf. Buy a lb of coconut flour and make several loafs for less per loaf.
Also gluten-free does not equal sugar free. Most gluten-free products are high in sugar. I’ve found that keeping it simple and natural works the best for health and pocket book. It’s different but doable.
Misty Nicole Overstreet-Roberts (The Lady Prefers To Save) says
Yes, I bake use gluten-free flour and use Truvia; I’ve been prescribed a diet and includes both! PCOS diets generally contain both low sugar and gluten-free options. But your points are well noted.
Kerri says
My honest first thought was: I can cut back to one cup of coffee a day… I wonder what is the largest mug I have in my cupboard? 😉
I do like the idea of switching to decaf. I think that is something I can do.
Crystal Paine says
Too funny! 🙂
Renee says
I really love my two cups of coffee a day too but I also recently challenged myself to decrease my caffeine intake. I found that having two cups that we made with half regular and half decalf made it so much easier for me than cutting down to one cup. Have been doing it several months now and I don’t miss the caffeine at all.
Shelly says
I’m thinking this months challenge will be fairly easy for me. Since I don’t drink coffee or caffeinated tea. The only form of caffeine I consume is chocolate. On second thought, this might be harder than I first thought. 🙂
For my decluttering I did a 30 minutes pick up around the house. There was a lot of little odds and ends that really needed to go.
Crystal Paine says
I’ll let you decide whether caffeine includes chocolate, too. 🙂