Adios Lent.

This past month has been one heck of a challenge for me. Although I’m not particularly religious, I decided to partake in Lent – or what I called 40 days of self-discipline. Not wanting to half ass my personal challenge, I laid out various “goals.”

The first was no soda. I don’t regularly consume soda, but when I do consume it, it is generally in mass amounts. As such, I decided it would be a good idea to give it up. — And I am proud to say I met this challenge. Barely, butI did it. To reward myself, I cracked open a can of Dr. Pepper for breakfast this morning. 🙂

My second sacrifice was meat. I decided, for no real reason at all, to become a vegetarian for 40 days (minus my parents treating me to Famous Daves around day 10). While I enjoyed this in the beginning, this became incredibly difficult for me because I don’t like eggs and I don’t really care for beans. So with no meat, no eggs and limited beans, peanut butter and cheese were my saving graces. I enjoyed the experience, but I can’t say I would do it again. I’m very much a meat eater, and I could tell my body was craving legitimate protein sources. —  This goal went much better than I initially guessed. However, I did give up 3 days shy of Easter, but I decided this was a good thing because for brunch my parents and I went to Carnival Brazillian Grille.[For those who don’t live in Sioux Falls, Carnival is a restaurant where men (most of whom are cute) walk around with large skewers of rotisserie meat and cut you individual portions. Amazing food in an amazing atmosphere. You are bound to overeat there, but that’s okay because you’re paying for it.] While I quickly became buddy buddy with the pineapple guy, I had plenty of red meat. Right now, my GI tract is still unsure of how to digest all this meat, but I’m sure it’s coping a lot better than if I hadn’t eaten meat the past couple days.

My third challenge was push-ups. Yes, I tried this several times before, but for the 40 days I’ve done at least 25 push-ups a day. Not bad, especially considering the fact that I re-injured my bad shoulder (while doing push-ups!) a few weeks back. — Like  said, I did really well on this challenge. I did miss a couple days, but I was always sure to “make-up” for the missed pushups the next day.

And my fourth challenge was flossing. I’m very consistent with brushing my teeth, but I’m am too lazy to be a consistent flosser. When I’m tired, the last thing I want to do is drag a string between my teeth. — I did miss a couple nights throughout the 40 days, but overall, this is the most consistent my flossing has been since the summer. Kudos to me.

So that’s what Lent entailed for me. Between my personal challenges and wrapping up my last undergraduate semester of college, I am surprised I did so well. But I guess that’s what happens when you put your mind to something. Perhaps I should try that with my blog…I’d like to try to update it more often, but this might have to wait until summer when I really have no excuses. We’ll see I suppose.