It’s time for my annual New Year’s Resolution’s post. If you are part of my life or have read my 2019 wrap-up, you’ll know that it has been a hell of a year for us. Life was more complicated than usual and I lost sight of many of my resolutions, including keeping a consistent blog schedule. Luckily, the last month has brought a lot of calm and I have a great feeling about 2020.

Let’s take a look at the goals that I set for myself in 2019.

1. Create a writing schedule with a focus on the revisions for my novel. - Semi-successful. For several months during the first half of the year, I kept on track with writing in the mornings. I made a lot of progress. I owe much of this to a new habit that I created. I began to write a list of small goals on a sheet of paper and leaving it on a clean desk with my computer, so that I was ready to work in the morning. I plan on going with this strategy in the new year.

2. Attend a Writing Conference = I was registered and had begun to travel to the AWP Conference in Portland, when we found out that my mother-in-law was critically ill. We canceled our plans and fly to England. I was disappointed to miss the conference, but family comes first.

3. Maintain a blogging schedule=Semi-successful in the early part of the year and then it fell apart. This was one of my worst blogging years, since I have started “Always Packed for Adventure.” Thank you for sticking with me, it will get better!

4. Read 60 books or more = Big fail. I only read 26 books this year. Unbelievable and so out of character. I didn’t count literary journals or magazines, which I also read. I also recently discovered audio books and those are not included. Michelle Obama’s Becoming was fabulous to listen to in her own voice.

5. Track food and get to a healthy weight = Lasted three months and lost some weight, but then put it all back on and then some. This was made extra difficult by all of our traveling and moving.

6. Track steps and be mindful about exercise -See above.

7. Visit a new country, state or major city = Traveled a ton in 2019- Sweden, England (twice), the Big Island of Hawaii…I had been to all of these places. I did add Colorado and New Mexico as new states. I also visited different parts of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. In my home state of California, I visited Death Valley National Park and Yosemite National Park for the first time. We also went to Sequoia National Park, which I had not visited since I was five. I spent a total of 107 nights in hotel rooms last year! That sounds nuts, until I realized that my husband, with all of his work trips, spent over 200. I love traveling, but more nights in our new home, is what I’m aiming for in 2020.

8. Scan in old-family photos and documents-Success! I’ve done about 80% of this and I’m really happy.

9. Continue to work on family Genealogy project = Success and I look to work on this more deeply in 2020.

10. Work More, Save More, Spend Less = Semi success. I think this will be much easier to achieve in 2020.

I’m fairly happy with what I achieved, especially with all of the upheaval in 2019. Now the fun part: setting goals for 2020. Many of them are the same, with a few additions and tweaks.

Maintain a creative writing schedule: Work on novel and other non-blog writing for a minimum of five hours a week. If I know I am traveling, make sure to work ahead to meet this goal. The ultimate goal is to finally begin looking for an agent.
Blog: Commit to two blog posts a week and catch-up on old book/travel reviews.
Attend a Writing Conference
Read a Minimum of 50 books.
Start my Youtube Idea: Keeping quite for now, but I have a business idea for YouTube, which ties into my tutoring job.
Start my Podcast =. I have the equipment, I have a name, and I have a solid plan. I hope to get this going in the the first quarter of 2019.
Maintain Going to the Gym =. Dan just bought us gym memberships and I’m hoping that we can get this to become a routine. We both need the exercise and to shed a few pounds. I’d also like to get better, build up to a longer, more intense cardio workout. I love strength training and pilates, but I currently avoid cardio.
Maintain Food Log = Be aware of what we are eating and focus on eating more sensibly. This always works when I need to focus on my health.
Achieve and Maintain good Blood Test Results = Earlier this week, my annual blood test came back with high triglycerides ( a problem I’ve had throughout my life) and prediabetes (a new and scary diagnosis.) I need to do my best to focus on healthy eating and exercise to change these issues. This is definitely the most urgent and vital resolution of 2020.
Visit a new country, state, or major city.
Finish Scanning photos and documents - this should be easy to accomplish. It just feels great to know that precious photos are backed up on the computer.
Add several new recipes to our repertoire. We can throw a great dinner party meal, but we usually resort to the same tricks..I’m looking at you, English roast dinner! I’d love to expand and be more creative in the kitchen.

A few months ago, a close friend of mine told me to watch That Sugar Film. She discovered it after learning that she was pre-diabetic and needed to curb her sugar intake.

In early 2015, I dramatically cut sugar from my own diet, after receiving scary blood-test results showing that my triglycerides were sky-high. High triglycerides run in my family and they have plagued me since childhood. For most of my life, I've been on a teeter-totter, going up and down between carefully monitoring my diet and eating crap. The longest that I've stuck to a "clean" diet of no sweets/fried food/alcohol, has been about two years. I always feel amazing when I stick to it and my triglyceride level quickly drops to reflect my efforts.

Going off of my clean eating regime is a slippery-slope. It usually starts with a few bites of dessert or a drink on a special occasion and soon, I find those special occasions happening more frequently. I make excuses for the slips. Before I know it, "It's a day ending in Y", becomes a reason to celebrate! I've never been quick to gain weight, so when the clothes still fit, it makes it easier to ignore the slips. The yearly blood test tends to reaffirm my resolve.

Like many things, diet is easy to ignore when the negative effects of high triglycerides seem to be a problem for the distant future. The terrible consequences ( heart attacks/strokes) are not happening now, so surely I can have some chocolate and work on the problem later? Last year's resolve lasted from January until the end of June, when we went on our summer vacation to Europe. Soon, I was eating dessert and having cocktails on most days. We returned to the states in late July and the celebrating continued with other mini-trips, birthdays, and anniversaries. Soon, I was eating chocolate every day and back to square one.

Fast forward to January 2016, with a fresh resolve and That Sugar Film. Although she raved about it, I didn't watch That Sugar Film when my friend originally recommended it. I wasn't ready to commit to change. I wish I had though, because That Sugar Film was a revelation.

I feel that I can state with confidence, that most people realize that candy, sweet baked goods, and soda are unhealthy food choices. We love them and maybe we don't think that they are too harmful in moderation. That Sugar Film isn't really about this type of sugar usage. In That Sugar Film, Australian documentarian Damon Gameau, explores hidden sugars in common foods.

In a move similar to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me experiment, Gameau spends sixty days eating forty teaspoons of sugar a day, which is the average amount of sugar that an Australian adult consumes in a day. The catch of the experiment is the sugar has to come from "healthy" sources, like low-fat dairy and packaged snacks that are labeled as healthy, like granola bars. A big part of the documentary explores the "low-fat" diet craze and how in low-fat foods, the taste of fat is replaced by sugar or sugar substitutes to make it appealing.

It is quickly apparent that Gameau will have no problem meeting his forty teaspoon goal through "healthy foods" and he will not need to consume more calories than he was consuming pre-experiment. Pre-experiment, he generally ate a Paleo diet ( not that he endorsed a specific diet, other than cutting sugar) which included plenty of vegetables, nuts, and lean meats. It was easy to find enough added sugar in breakfast items, like yogurt and cereal, to nearly meet his daily goal. This was without eating sugar-laden "Kid's cereal". Just to drive this point home- all of the sugar that he ate was from "healthy" foods. Scary, scary, scary!!!

As with Spurlock, Gameau had a team of doctors monitoring his health over the sixty days. He gained weight ( especially around the middle), function in multiple organs started to decline, his triglycerides and cholesterol levels rose, he was sluggish and moody...and he craved more sugar!

That Sugar Film had us reading every food label in our house. The amount of sugar in foods with shock you. The current American guidelines for daily sugar consumption ( not counting fruit or full-fat dairy), are six teaspoons for women and nine for men. To convert this into grams, you multiple by four. This means twenty-four grams for women and thirty-six for men. To further put this in perspective, a cup of Tillamook Strawberry Yogurt has twelve grams. This would seem to be a relatively healthy snack, but it means 1/2 my sugar allowance is gone. This said, there is no actual need to have any sugar in our diets. The less, clearly the better.

Although soda was not part of his experiment, Gameau did explore the impact of soft drinks. Soda sales are at an all-time low due to the recent healthy studies outing it as an unhealthy drink. To drive sales, soda companies are now employing many of the same tricks that tobacco companies used when their sales began to decline. They are targeting poor regions and children. For example in Australia, soda is finding its way into aboriginal communities, where it didn't exist previously.

The most horrifying part of That Sugar Film was when Gameau visited a community in Appalachia, where dentists have coined the term, "Mountain Dew Mouth" to describe rotted teeth and gum erosion that seems to be coming from the over-consumption of Mountain Dew. The drink is consumed in large quantities and so frequently throughout the day, that the mouth is bathed in soda, not allowing for the natural process of saliva to clean out the mouth. There was a nineteen year old featured in the film, who had teeth so broken and rotten, that he was having them all pulled and getting dentures. He had no plans to give up Mountain Dew.

Gameau demonstrated why fruit juice isn't a healthy option. Take oranges for example; when you juice them, you use several oranges to fill a glass and you are getting the sugary juice minus most of the fiber. It's far healthier to consume one orange, than to have a glass of juice.

Not only was the information in That Sugar Film indispensable, but Gameau educates in a humorous and entertaining manner. He brings in celebrities Hugh Jackman and Stephen Fry to help explain physiological aspects of nutrition. It never hurts to have a few famous friends help out!

That Sugar Film was a huge eye-opener for me. I've really been reading labels and making different food choices based on the sugar content. I'm proud to say that I've kept my sugar consumption well below the six teaspoon/24 gram maximum and I feel better for it. The great thing about cutting back on sugar, is after a few weeks, you don't miss it. Your brain and taste-buds adjust to their new reality. Apples taste sweeter and broccoli is more appealing.

Interested in more? We found That Sugar Film on Amazon Prime and here is a link to Gameau's website. He has a bunch of sugar-free recipes to get you started. For Dan and myself, this was a life changing documentary and I hope that more people take the time to watch it and evaluate their sugar consumption.