intermittent fasting, motherhood, Uncategorized, weight loss

Landfills and Bar-B-Que all on a Saturday

As summer rolls in, and school winds down for both my kids and me, my husband and I have started maintaining our yard more. We absolutely love hosting cookouts and inviting friends and family over for Bar-B-Que, but our yard was a complete mess from several months of neglect over the busy school year.

A few weeks ago, I realized that we had a TON of junk that we needed to trash, but weren’t sure how to go about it. This junk consisted of an old disheveled couch, a rusted weight bench, two broken dehumidifiers, among other large useless items. Our city provides a schedule to collect such items, but it’s a hassle to get put on the list and they only take “certain items,” which they are never clear about over the phone.

After some thought, I finally decided that it would be best to rent a U-Haul truck, pack up the items ourselves and dump them at our city’s local landfill. It would take some tough physical exertion on our part, but well worth the time and energy to finally be rid of those eyesores tarnishing our back yard. Plus, my husband was off work that Saturday which is a rarity that I had to take advantage of.

So I rented a 10-foot U-Haul truck and scheduled to pick it up at 9am that Saturday morning. We would drive it to the house, lug our items into the truck, then haul everything to the city landfill and return the U-Haul the same day. Sounded like a perfectly productive Saturday! Although, my husband had other plans…

Wednesday of that week, my husband casually informed me that he had invited his boss and his family over to our house for a Bar-B-Que Saturday evening. Wait…Saturday? The same Saturday that we planned to haul a ton of junk to the landfill? Yes…that same Saturday, he informed me. My husband quickly explained that a simple conversation about improving our backyard enigmatically turned into an invitation for Bar-B-Que at our house. Knowing my husband, that sounded quite plausible.

So a productive Saturday morning turned into a frantic day of manual labor, cleaning, and cooking for people who I barely knew, but did not want to disappoint. What could possibly go wrong?

Remarkably, nothing went wrong…in fact it all went smoother than we expected. I woke up, poured coffee into my trusty travel mug, picked up the U-Haul, packed our junk in the truck, dumped it at the landfill, returned the U-Haul, and picked up the kids from their grandparents’ house just in time for lunch. After taking a shower, we fed the kids, cleaned the house, set up the back yard, prepped the food, etc. and fired up the pit by 6 p.m.

In the midst of all the action, it hit me (again) how much more energy I had since intermittent fasting. I know I’d noticed this before, but it still perplexes me as to how it’s possible to have more energy after not eating, than after consuming a solid meal. I turned to my husband and said, “You know, if someone had told me five years ago that I could feel better and have more energy just by not eating throughout the day, I would’ve thought they were nuts! Seriously babe, sometimes I still don’t believe it myself.”

My husband just smiled and gave me a quick air-kiss before moving on to the next chore. I sat for moment just dwelling in my feelings of wonder and gratitude. It’s only been about a year and a half since I started asking myself “What IF?” but I am so incredibly grateful that I did.