it is there every time i drive to my client’s home in clinton which is twice a week – a small donut shop that sells (in my opinion) the world’s best glazed donuts. each time i stop there, i always tell myself it will be my last but every trip to clinton I somehow find myself in their parking lot, scrounging for a few quarters to buy one donut. fresh out of the oven and still just warm enough to melt in my mouth, they are hard to resist. now some of you may say, “what will one donut hurt, you run all the time anyway.” and you are right to some extent. but in other ways, that one donut could be my downfall.
rewind back to november 2006 when i lived in upstate new york. every morning, i’d drive thru dunkin’ donuts and order the same thing. i started my day with two chocolate covered donuts and a large iced coffee, two creams and sugar. i thought it was healthy. i mean, at least I was having breakfast. two hours later, i would suffer a sugar crash so i’d rush to the nearest mcdonald’s before they switched over to lunch to grab a sausage biscuit and a diet coke (“diet”!). lunch was found at the nearest buffet and my afternoon snack usually involved a combination of candy bars, chips and a diet coke (there is that “diet” word again!) then it was home for another unhealthy meal after i got home from the gym.
my gym visits were nothing more than an attempt to justify one of my bad decisions from the day. the routine consisted of some stretching and some half-hearted treadmill work. i was about 60 pounds heavier at the time, suffered from constant stomach pains (from all of the meat and processed foods) and i was well on my way to being another very unhealthy and unhappy american living what has become know as the “western lifestyle” of convenience and laziness.
but one day, i made a decision. i decided that enough was enough. i was better than the way i was living. and although i claimed to not know what was good and what was bad, i did. i convinced myself that my gym routine was “efficient” but in reality, i was only wasting my time and the gym’s electricity. on that very day, i got serious about my health and decided to commit 100% to a lifestyle that would allow me to be healthier- physically, mentally and spiritually. i wanted a cleaner way of eating that was more plant based and that did not include factory-farmed meat and processed frankenfoods. i wanted to exercise religiously and make it a lifelong practice instead of a dreaded trip to the treadmill. and i wanted to regain the energy i had when i was younger. i was done with food comas and the highs and lows that came with them.
after a few months of this new new approach, i was down 40 pounds. not only did i feel better but i was sleeping much better too. some of the adjustments were hard at first – like cutting out beef, pork and chicken- but the rewards made it well worth it. i felt lighter and cleaner internally (i won’t go into detail here, but you get the picture) and had 100% more energy. when it was time to run or workout, that extra energy turned into better workouts and much better results. i lost almost 10 inches off of my waist and felt 15 years younger than i had a mere six months prior. all of the things i had read were true and my only regret was that i had not figured this out sooner.
so what does this have to do with the donut shop in clinton?
even though i have been living and preaching this healthier lifestyle for almost two years now, i know how easy it can be to slip back into my old ways. bad decisions tend to attract more bad decisions and bad decisions lead to bad habits. and we all know that bad habits lead to poor health. THIS is why i want and need to avoid that donut shop in clinton. I MUST. today, i am hitting my reset button and recommiting to my original ideals of healthy living. i have been slacking a little bit lately and the motivation behind this post is that i know that there are others out there that may need to recommit with me. i welcome you to join me. living healthy is a never ending endeavor and there will always be roadblocks, but learning to accept these obstacles as being unavoidable is as important as learning how to overcome them.
today, i will put down the donut.
live healthy, live happy.