I’m writing this to hold myself accountable.

I like carbs. Not the good healthy ones. The bad processed ones.

Like, I could eat cookies and cheez-its for every meal.

Last week, I stress ate about 20 packages of swedish fish (the little halloween sized ones, but still).

It’s hard to eat well in the summer because I’m home and every event centers around eating. I’m fine with this. I like eating. We need to eat. Our cells, which make up our entire body, need the nutrients to function. I tell my students who don’t eat breakfast or lunch that they are starving their cells. Nerd alert science moment about to happen. Our bodies are amazing and work hard to self-preserve. An estimated 300 billion new cells are produced every day and 300 million old cells die every minute. We won’t die from skipping a meal or two. However, our brains don’t function properly when we skip meals. We get “hangry” and “hangry” brains don’t care about what I’m trying to teach them. They roll their eyes at me, but I try anyway.

What Happens When You Stop Eating?

Once I’m back to school, I usually focus and start eating better again. On the other hand, in the summer, I had more time to exercise.

The struggle is real.

During the summer I ran and participated in classes at the gym. I stuck to it as I was determined to become a “runner”.

I’m still currently working on that runner’s high thing…

Now that school has started again, it’s been hard to make exercise part of the routine.

Which would be fine and all, but I have a couple races coming up for my 40 before 40.

It’s time to get serious. I mean I can’t eat McDonalds before going on a run. This results in the poisonous food sitting in my throat and making me want to puke. Then I have to quit running after only a mile. This is a sad, but true story.

So Rachel and I are getting serious this week.

We are starting South Beach and we are sticking to our work out plans.

I don’t like to call it a diet because diet’s don’t work. It’s more like a lifestyle change. Insert eye rolling emoji because I know that’s what you did as you read that. I even rolled my eyes at myself.

Okay, whatever we call it, we are trying to detox the bad foods out of our system so that we stop craving them. We are essentially starving our bodies of the glucose that we need. Long-term this is bad, but after two weeks, we work the good carbs back in and we no longer crave the processed junk.

If you know me, you know that I don’t love cooking. This is really a story for another day, but I’ll say this: I CAN cook if I must.

I prefer to buy food at Costco that I can just shove in the oven. Or meats that Beau can cook on the Traegar. By the way, that was the best purchase EVER for a wife who doesn’t love cooking. I turned dinner into my husband’s job. Well played, Angie. Well played.

I’m still in charge of side dishes. So yesterday at Costco, I asked Beau what sounded good for side dishes this week. He said “mac and cheese”. Yes, this giant Costco package of Kraft mac and cheese was already in our cupboard.

I should probably talk about our cupboards. How am I possibly going to stick to “no carb” for two weeks with cupboards like these?

Oh, and I’d also like to point out that my kids say EVERY DAY that we have no food in our house. Like, they complain with these carb-filled junk food cupboards. Okay, last week we had expired milk. It was curdled. I don’t expect them to drink that. I’m not that bad of a mom, but you’d think they could throw something together. This is definitely a parenting failure.

Actually, Jaxon can cook, but that’s because his Grandpa taught him.

Emilee boils water out of a pan. And microwaves chicken nuggets. Her friends make fun of our bagged mashed potatoes, boxed salad and hard boiled eggs that are already boiled and peeled and packaged. I just thought that was smart shopping.

Yes, I’m aware that eggs are not difficult to boil or peel. I still don’t want to do it.

Back to the side dishes. I kindly pointed out that Kraft mac and cheese is not low carb and he kindly pointed out that he is not planning to eat low carb. I proceeded to stock our cart with celery, avocado, lettuce, broccoli, laughing cow cheese, hummus, eggs and various meats. I’m still not sure about side dishes, but at least I have my lunches covered.

I started pinning recipes to my pinterest board. Beau is NOT excited. As soon as I mention spaghetti squash or ground turkey, he starts to gag. I mean he’s being slightly dramatic. It can’t be that bad.

My pinterest board: South Beach…because I love carbs

I know that if I’m going to train successfully I need to provide proper fuel for my body and unfortunately, swedish fish don’t make the cut. Enjoy your lives my little uneaten fishy friends. At least until the next time I’m stressed and faced with a moment of weakness. Stay strong for me and stay in those cute little fishy packages.

It’s hard to make healthy choices unless we are organized and thoughtful. Thanks Rach for the meal plan inspiration. Here’s what I came up with for this week:

Monday: Roasted Tri-Tip and Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Tuesday: Broccoli Beef (with the leftover tri-tip)

Wednesday: Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Thursday: Taco Salad (tacos for everyone else)

Friday: Who are we kidding…I’m not cooking on Friday.

And we will train for our races at least two times this week.

I wrote it. It’s public.

I can be fit and eat healthy.

But that starts tomorrow. Tonight we eat at Olive Garden!