Several folks have emailed, commented or asked questions in person about my goal of cutting back on sugar consumption by cutting back on the amount of soda I drink.  The first week has gone pretty well…surprisingly well…perhaps too well.  As you might remember from my “spoon full of sugar” post, I decided to cut back from an average of 36oz of soda a day to just 12oz, saving myself about 70 POUNDS of sugar intake a year.

The sugar in one can of Dr. Pepper (40g)

Last week I was able to stick to my goal without any problems.  I never had more than one can/bottle of DP and even went without soda over the weekend…just for kicks.  There are only two times I can think of that I really wanted soda and had to make a conscious decision not to have one.  I had expected some low ‘energy’ issues at work since that is where I drank a lot of soda, but I believe that walking and working has really helped.  (Side note: I did 26.22 miles of walking at work last week…that’s a full marathon!)  I think my body has been pleasantly surprised by all the water I am drinking.

With any pursuit of a habit change comes an examination of associated behavior. For me, soda consumption was coming from bad habits.  I had gotten in the habit of eating WAY too much fast food.  (There’s a Whataburger within 100 yards of my office door…come on!)  So I decided it was in my best interest, for multiple reasons, to bring my lunch to work.  So I’m saving money, eating a bit better, and staying away from the flowing fountains of sugar.

I also discovered that I was using soda as a crutch for poor sleep habits.  On a whim, which seems to be a theme for me recently, I switched my sleep schedule to be similar to my wife’s, and the majority of other humans.  I have been known to stay up till 2am or 3am working.  This doesn’t work out well in a house where the the mandatory wake up call (the baby) is at 7:30am.  I still work a bit at night on various tasks but make sure to be in bed by midnight.  I function best on 6 hours of sleep so I sleep from midnight till 6am.

This morning I woke up at 4:20am to see my wife off to work.  I’ve been up since then and have already done some reading, caught up on my Google Reader feed from the weekend, written part of a family devotional, spent some time gazing at my beard and have written this post!

How about you?  How have you been doing with the goals you have set for yourself?  Have there been any bonus changes that came along with your goal?  Do you have any tricks for keeping your goal in the forefront of your mind?

One of the men at church delivered a thought yesterday that reminded me of a post I read last week.  In my treadmill desk update, I referenced the “One Push-up Challenge” that was posted at deepexistence.com.  This quote stood out to me, “If trying to do everything at once caused me to do nothing, what can I learn from that?”  In my own experience I can see that focusing on one change has led to many.  The other improvements that have come with the change are bonus!  (By the way, I’m liking the one push-up challenge as part of my work day.  My office is going to start smelling like a gym if I’m not careful.)

As always, I am thankful and flattered that so many of you are finding my blog interesting and worth reading.  I hope that my efforts are an encouragement to you and that together we can make positive changes in our lives, in our families and in our communities.  Tomorrow I will be posting up another family bible study.  I was really excited last week to have such positive feedback from those studies at our church and among many other people.

A few bonus links from my scan of Google Reader this morning:

How to Clean and Re-stick a Tacky Cutting Mat – We have been using a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine for projects at church and at home for about a year now.  This cutting machine (similar to a Cricut) is phenomenal!  The only problem I have is with the adhesive on the cutting mat losing its stick.  Lifehacker.com, one of my absolute favorite sites, posted a quick tutorial on cleaning a mat and applying a fresh coat of adhesive.  If you have a cutting machine I know that you will find this tutorial VERY useful.

The View From the Trombone – Mashable.com, another of my favorite sites, posted this silly video that is making the rounds on the internet.  A trombone player attached a little GoPro camera (Wish I had one of these!) to the slide of his instrument and pressed record.  It was entertaining when I watched it at 5am.

A merry Monday to you all.  Make a positive difference in someone’s life today!