Overhauling | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Overhauling | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
01/12/22
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The milk concoction swirled as I spooned it into the dark brew; foam hovered appealingly just below the rim of the cup. My friend was right, it had been so easy.

“I just can’t live without my frother,” she’d said, gushing about it. So I’d requested one for Christmas.

I took a tentative sip and licked the frothy mustache off my upper lip.Yum! It wasn’t quite as scrumptious as the dab of chemically flavored creamer I typically put in my coffee, but I knew it was a much healthier option. This was all part of my “slashing the sugar” campaign, one of five new habits I was determined to begin this year.

This was not a New Year’s Resolution. Or so I said when a friend had asked, “Did anyone set any resolutions this year?”

“No, but I’ve decided to adopt a healthier lifestyle in 2022,” I said.

I’d been healthy once. Yet in the past eleven years, and especially since the virus, I had slowly started sprouting like a couch potato. I wondered if this was merely part of getting old. Old had always seemed to be twenty years away, but this was the year I officially became a senior citizen. Somehow my nemesis had caught up to me.

During a recent road trip, I listened to an audiobook about brain health. The author listed twenty-four criteria for early signs of dementia. If “yes” to five or more questions was an indicator of memory loss, I assumed my fourteen affirmatives and family history of Alzheimer’s, meant I was doomed. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach, my biggest fear had become an unavoidable reality. Then I’d turned the page and scanned several steps that might help to take back years from this brain-eating disease.

Slashing the sugar, among other dietary modifications, was one of the toughest changes I tried to implement.

“Let’s have pizza for dinner,” I said, when I walked through the door, four days into that first week. I’d substituted at the high school and had come home starving.

“If that’s what you want,” my husband said. “Paisano’s?”

“That works,” I said, though I’d originally planned to pull one of the Chicago pan pizzas out of the freezer.

We ordered a large Hawaiian and two Dr. Pepper’s, which were refilled multiple times. A few nights later, I had a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, with chocolate chips and whipped cream. Despite my two moments of weakness, I had, indeed, slashed my sugar that first week. Or so, I consoled myself. I was on the right track.

The author had also challenged me to begin four other new habits the first week, with the goal of continual transformation—and more new habits—over a twelve week period. These included exercising five times a week, learning new things/skills, doing brain exercises, getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep, and connecting with others via text, phone call, face-to-face or zoom. While the book did not address spiritual health, I knew this would be vital to my overall well-being. I wanted to spend more time reading God’s Word and praying God-sized prayers.

With these challenges in the forefront, I tried to eat healthy, walked two miles and did sit ups three times, planned to download Babbel and learn Spanish but didn’t quite get to it, solved several timed sudoku puzzles, spent more time in the Bible and prayer, slept almost eight hours (trying to get to bed before midnight, as recommended), and reached out to several friends I hadn’t spoken to in awhile.

While these new habits may not change the inevitable, they have already given me more energy and more focus as I continually look for ways to engage my brain, instead of mindlessly gazing at the television screen growing sprouts.

And though I fell short of my first-week-dementia-prevention goals, I have never felt closer to God. I continue to pray for the self-discipline I need to battle the symptoms of this disease but, in truth, I know there is nothing I can do to change the plans God has for me. I understand that worrying will not add a single day to my healthy brain functions. I sometimes wonder if this was God’s way of reminding me that my time on earth is brief, my days are numbered, and my life is fleeting. (Psalm 39:4) Maybe His goal was to teach me to spend what lucidity I have left looking toward eternity.

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