Trying to Find the Truth with Argylle

Hi everyone! Today was the world premiere of Henry's new film, Argylle. I am incredibly excited to see it in the theatre on February 3rd!

The slogan, "The greater the spy, the bigger the lie" is hitting home with me right now. Anyone else feel like you are 'spying' on yourself sometimes... and then lying to make a situation seem better?

Example: I've been logging my food intake for three days now. Throughout the day, I'm finding that I'll look at what I'm about to eat and think, "This probably should be a healthier choice." Stare at it... and then proceed to eat the food because it's the only thing available?

The spying part is uncovering the truth about my eating habits. While I think I'm eating pretty well... in a pinch... I grab what's available. The lie comes in when I say, "Well, it was the only thing available and... I'll do better tomorrow."

In my profession, as a teacher (and specifically a teacher who spends a lot of time with students after school), getting out of the house in the morning with a bag of healthy foods to eat is generally not on our minds. Our minds are focused on that morning's IEP meeting, staff meeting, PLC meeting, SST meeting, GLT meeting, 504 meeting, committee meeting, and...well.... all the meetings that we have to attend before we can actually get ready for our school day (sometimes only in 5-10 minutes). Yes... that's a lot of acronyms. This morning, I fully intended to grab a decent breakfast at home before school. Then, my 5 year old took forever to get up and get dressed. While dealing with that, I also had to get ready. By the time we were both ready...It was already time to leave. So I preordered a coffee and a sandwich from Starbucks. Picked it up, and dashed off to my meeting. Sadly, that was my first poor choice of the day. The calorie total took up quite a bit of my allotted calories. Well, that was my first lie to myself today.

So, how to do we go about making sure that what is in front of us is going to contribute to proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle? In Henry's case, he's probably got someone on set providing the proper nutritional meals he's going to need for that day. In the MuscleTech interview I talked about last post, he mentioned sweet potatoes being something he disliked because they were always offered as a carb. Unfortunately for many of us, this isn't a reality. Meal prep, careful planning, and executing that plan need to be in place.

Today I was 600 calories over my goal.

Is it the end of the world for one day? No.

Am I going to fail during my take on The Cavill Challenge? Yes.

What to do about that? Plan.

Planning Needs to Become an Important Part of my Routine

Every night, I take the time to pack my daughter's lunch for school the next day. That way, it's ready and it can be easily tossed into a lunchbox. Why am I not doing the same thing for myself? The next deception I give myself is that I'll take the time to get something out before I leave in the morning. Wrong. It's not going to happen.

Planning can be an important part of not only healthy eating, but also for your mental health. Knowing that you've completed the task (for those of us that like checklists) is pretty rewarding. So, focusing on the things you have control over (choosing to make the plan) can help.

"When it comes to my mental health, [I] focus on what I can control and work on that." Henry said in an interview with People.

The circle of control is something I discuss with my students. You can only control what YOU do for your responses to situations. My choices are mine alone and I have to live with consequences of those choices. I can't control the weather, but I can control my choice to prep meals.

So, I'm making the commitment right now to focus on that aspect of my health. Make the choice to control what I eat and not give into the lie (excuse) I give myself.

It might be 1am, but I'm off to the kitchen to prepare something for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

How is your Cavill Challenge going?