Purge my vices 28 day challenge

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  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I like bread, but I'm not a fan of bread :D I'm a fan of people finding sustainable strategies. If you eat a lot of bread now, because you like it, it's going to be difficult to just stop doing it. The problem is that when you have forced yourself to do something, and you find out you just can't do it anymore, your reaction won't be, "hell, I'll just eat something else then", or even, "hell, I'll just eat like before, then", it will most likely be "EAT ALL THE FOODS!". For weeks. Maybe months.

    If you eat a lot of bread just because of convenience and lack of creativity, it can work. But find out what you want to replace it with before you start. You can't just cut out a big chunk of your calories and not eat something else instead.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
    purtchiarn wrote: »
    Ha I feel I struck a nerve with bread, I have it with every meal, breakfast toast, lunch sandwich or a bagel and with my tea hell I even have it as a desert sometimes iced roll. For 28 days I am going to use alternatives and not go for the easy option a white bread sandwich. Much like junk food I don't eat a lot and usually my calorie intake I suspect is close to maintaining weight. It's just an experiment to make better choices. If it's not an option I would have to look for an alternative such as ryvita etc. I feel like I may have offended the bread fan club. I'm not saying it's absolutely detrimental to a good diet, just that for me it's a go to and I could find a healthier option. Much like alcohol, I want to go to the pub and not drink alcohol or pop.

    I don't think you've offended anyone, I think people are (rightfully) pointing out that bread in and of itself doesn't cause weight gain or prevent you from losing weight. If you feel like it's crowding out other important nutrients and you're not eating a well-rounded diet, that's a good reason to reduce your consumption. But FWIW, I have a starch with every meal for satiety, often bread, rice, or pasta. While eating nutritiously is important, it's equally important to have a diet you enjoy and that keeps you full for adherence purposes. Just something to keep in the back of your mind as your embark on this experiment - if you add bread back in before your 28 days are up, don't view it as a failure.

    As for the rest, that seems like a LOT of changes to make all at once, and everyone I've ever known who's quit smoking has had to focus on that and only that for a while. For me personally, it's important to change habits one at a time, and I think I'd fail miserably if I tried to do what you're doing.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited January 2017
    I gave up bread because I have celiac disease and gluten free bread is made of sadness.

    I gave up drinking because it was verging on becoming problematic for me.

    I gave up smoking 27 years ago.

    I, at one point, did give up sugar. It didn't pass my lips for ten years. I thought that would be the path to my weight loss success -- except it wasn't. I limit my access to things I find it difficult to moderate, buying them in single servings (like packets in the grocery check out line of peanut M&M's) instead of keeping them on hand, but I regularly eat different varieties of popcorn, which is my favorite "junk food" (which I don't think is all that junky, tbh).

    OP, I'm of two minds about your plan. One side of me thinks it can be motivating to have a clean slate approach and tackle so much at once. Sort of as if you're reinventing yourself. The other feels that too much at once can lead to burnout. I think that which side of this you fall on will likely end up depending on your personality type. Try to keep this thread updated with how you're doing. I wish you well.

    I understand your approach to giving these things up and then planning to reintroduce them in moderation later if they are all problematic for one reason or another now. It's a tactic I've employed in the past myself.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    All i can say is that if you're planning on giving up vaping AND caffeine at the same time, you are stronger than I. Why don't you cut down on the nicotine you're adding until you're down to none.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    purtchiarn wrote: »
    Ginger : binger

    Heh, I was just about to send you to the thread on discussing different word meanings in different English-speaking countries! (Either that or wonder why you so rudely equated redheads and alkys.)
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    If you eat a lot of bread just because of convenience and lack of creativity, it can work. But find out what you want to replace it with before you start. You can't just cut out a big chunk of your calories and not eat something else instead.

    This reasoning for maybe doing it is actually what I was thinking -- I do like cutting things out for a period of time sometimes, and often it's because I feel like I'm in a rut and need to force myself to get more creative.

    That's been one benefit to me of going veggie for periods of time -- I stop basing meals around just meat + veg which I do when I get lazy and actually play around with my cooking and ideas more. I can see bread being the same (not for me since I rarely eat bread because I don't much care about it, but for people who do).
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    So I had a medical condition suddenly develop a few years bAck which triggered this crazy allergy response to so much that i went from regular old diet down to five foods plus salt, and had to keep it to those five foods, basically, for over 8 months or so.

    From that experience I feel comfortable saying that dropping a lot of things you enjoy all at once can be overwhelming. Impacts you a lot more than you think and doesn't tend to be successful unless you find very good motivation that works for you.

    But aside from that, there is an interesting few studies that seem to indicate we have finite self control. Or in other words, when you use your self control more- like to actively avoid something you like, you have less to use in other areas of your life- like finishing a school paper or work project or exercising, for example.

    So doing something that will have a LOT of self control needed, you might just want to make sure everything else in your life is pretty mellow for that time period or it could be even more difficult.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Like I said, I think it really depends on the underlying reasons. If the idea is just to see if you can live in a really healthy way for a month, it might be easier to give up a bunch of things at once and when tempted you don't have to think "does this really fit in or how much can I have," it's a no, and most people can do extreme things for a discrete period of time. (The cigs seem like a possible problem here, but I don't know how much of a smoker OP is and I am fortunate in that I have never smoked.)

    If the idea is to make long-term changes and deal with something that's a serious problem, combining it with a bunch of things that aren't and may just make sticking to the really hard one more difficult (i.e., take away other ways you might be inclined to deal) may end up interfering with those efforts.

    When I seriously decided to lose weight I didn't bother with coffee even though I'd cut coffee lots of times successfully (I do it every year or so), since I knew coffee would be helpful when I was developing new eating habits. Part of this is that I'm an emotional eater. Same was true when I quit drinking for real -- I needed to focus on that and not make it harder by also being really strict with eating.

    On the other hand, I did cuts of meat, alcohol, sweets for periods of the time in the past where I told myself it was about being healthy or about living without indugences or some such and being able to say "oh, I'm just seeing if I can do this for a while" and focusing on the overall purpose actually probably made it easier at that time than just doing one of the things since for me then doing one of the things didn't seem so important so I needed a bigger reason, if that makes any sense.

  • purtchiarn
    purtchiarn Posts: 12 Member
    Op here. I think my explanation for this personal challenge has been quite poor.

    First and foremost I want to quit nicotine. At the end of my 28 to a month challenge that is the only benefit I see myself keeping.

    I would like to be a moderate to occasional drinker who doesn't smoke when they drink etc so I will phase in alcohol etc.

    Sweets and caffeine I think offer a molar stimulation to nicotine so I don't want to replace a like for like and bread as I've already said is to kick start a more varied diet open to more alternatives.

    This isn't a complete reinvention of myself, more an aggressive push to get one aspect right in my life I am hoping a better quality of sleep with the reduction in caffeine stimulants etc.

    Im beginning to feel like this may be a bad idea however I feel like it's a personal challenge can i beat the little devil in conscionce, and if I can rule my mind it would hopefully push me on to tackle any other issues I feel get in the way of quality of life.
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