Project 7:15 2.0

An entire month has passed since the initiation of Project 7:15, my intense, uncertified life-coaching street cred, self-improvement regimen where I don’t eat cookies after going to bed for a whole year.  Fortunately, the first two weeks were so successful that I decided to up the ante and also not eat cookies before going to bed, as well.  Before long, I was not eating cookies all day, for days at a time, and my family was feeling the effects.  Oreo packages that once were lucky to last a few days were living in the pantry for weeks.  My pants loosened up a bit and my pace picked up steam.  Without cookies, I felt lighter and more alive, and soon the outright mental clarity I was experiencing reminded me of a National Geographic article I’d read a year or so ago that discussed the deadliness of copious sugar consumption.

To paraphrase, the article suggested that humans weren’t really designed to eat sugar, at least not the processed kind that surges into our bloodstream and gives small children the energy to power a boat.  This is the main reason, the article explained, why Americans are so fat.  Sugar.  Way too much sugar.  This processed sugar, combined with our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, has led to the obesity epidemic plaguing our health system and filling up our cemeteries.

This got me to thinking, “I do not want to die.” But not only that, I would like to be kind of active as I don’t die, and do things with my kids and maybe even grandkids, like hike mountain trails and canoe down majestic rivers.  Unfortunately, although I do not have an actual weight problem, per se, my cholesterol numbers were not trending in a direction that would lead to mountain trails or majestic rivers.  My numbers were leading me to cholesterol medicine.

So, these thoughts led me, naturally, to this idea:  What if I went a whole year without eating, not only cookies, but cake, too?  And candy?  And ice cream and sugary cereals and sugary drinks, even the sports kinds that supposedly help you kick balls?  What if I just stopped eating sweets all together?  Would my cholesterol numbers improve?  Would my brain start working better?  Would I fit back into those khakis that someone bought me for Christmas that one year and I’ve kept in my closet just as a reminder that, “Dude, someone once thought that you could wear these pants?”

Thus, Project 7:15 has now been upgraded into Project 7:15.2.0.    Stay tuned for even more uncertified life-coaching inspiration!