Small wins

What’s kind of humerous is that when I first saw the picture of the “big” bowl of cheese and sour cream Mark posted yesterday, I thought, “ Oh my gosh! What have I done? Yes, I wanted him to boost his calcium intake, but not really like that!” Over my shoulder, my husband was looking at the picture, and said, “Wow, did he really eat that? Good thing he bought the Tums!” Although, if he really did eat a big bowl of cheese and sour cream, the Tums may not have helped him much anyway.

Fortunately, as I read further, I realized the bowl looked a lot larger in the picture than it actually was. As it turns out, it was a mere ¼ cup of cheese alongside 4 ounces of sour cream. While not a full day’s intake of calcium or vitamin D, or necessarily what I would have chosen to eat, I’m happy with Mark’s choice. He took my advice seriously and made an effort, which is half the battle! I’m all about baby steps and small victories! Here, we have victory! We’ll eventually get there, Mark, but you’re definitely making progress.

To adapt to the $3 Dollar Diet, Mark has had to make some drastic changes in the way he typically eats. He’s mentioned before his love of fast foods, which is something he literally had to give up as he can’t afford them anymore. I’ll have to admit, though, there’s no disappointment from me on this one. He’s also had to start making more foods from scratch, probably something more of us should revert back to doing, but this has significantly increased the amount of time he’s had to spend in the kitchen preparing his food. This means there’s less time for other things he either enjoys doing, or has to do by necessity. Having said this, I’ve read that it usually takes about six months to adopt a change in behavior. While we are nowhere near six months yet, I’m impressed he’s continued this for a week and not even tried to sneak in a McDonald’s or Burger King burger, or a Diet Coke, for that matter!