Day 36- Perspective

So, maybe everyone is like this, but I have this tendency to get really passionate about something... start to do something about it... then never.follow.through. This trait displays itself in many areas of my life, such as various social justice causes, food choices, Caleb's schedule, my job, cleaning the house, etc. I'm not sure if this is because I get so idealistic in my thinking that I make it impossible to live up to the standards I set for myself in the midst of my idealism.

Example: In December, I decided that Caleb would sleep better/be less fussy if I woke him up at exactly the same time everyday. Well, day 2 or 3 came along and it was the weekend and Caleb went to bed a little later the night before and I was tired, so I didn't get up until he woke up naturally, which so happened to be 1 hour past when I was supposed to wake him up. Fail. Then, I threw the idea out the window because I couldn't live up to my standards.

Hmmm... as I'm writing this, I just had an epiphany. It all comes down to my perfectionism. I'm stopping myself prematurely because I don't want to FAIL. Wow, I guess it's good to know that about myself (okay, I already knew I was a perfectionist, just not how it affected me in this way).

What made me want to write this post is because at MOPS yesterday, we had a speaker about Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies. The speaker talked a lot about whole foods and not eating processed foods and how nitrites in food have been proven to increase rates of leukemia and brain cancer in kids and how the new national guidelines for nutrition recommend 7-13 servings of fruit and veggies daily, as well as drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water daily. I got all excited about it yesterday. But now I'm having second thoughts as I just chowed down on some tagalong cookies and a piece of pizza for breakfast. Somehow the banana I picked out to eat is still sitting beside me on the couch. Oops. I truly want to make good food choices, especially now that I'm a steward of someone else's lifelong health. I don't want to give up on this. Anybody have ideas for how they eat more whole foods, more fruits and veggies, or other ways they are making healthy lifestyle changes? I'd love to copy you :).