The season is here!

If I haven’t explained before I live on an island where my place of work is only open for 7 months. The first and last months we are a skeleton crew and that is when business is there but it’s mostly locals. Now that we have made it through the first month and almost a half it is that time again. The peak season. We have new girls to train starting this week and our step count is never under 15,000 a day.

With all that said the new people and new business mean the warm weather is here to stay. We are pretty far north so the warm weather only will last from late April/Early May to early September, but that time is my favorite. Being busier means prioritizing activities as well as meals but it also means that there is a bit more leeway since my activity level is up.

As of May 3rd I am officially 10 lbs down. This journey isn’t all or even mainly about weight but for me weighing myself once a week is a good monitor of how I’m doing, and even though fluctuation and plateaus happen when you are working toward a significant body change your weight should consistently slowly go down.

Since I am not doing any extreme diet changes rather making better food choices, paying attention to portion size, and some calorie monitoring on top of regular exercise I am looking for 5-10 lbs per month. Losing weight this way enables me to make lifestyle changes so that there won’t be too much of a bounce back once I reach my goals.

I do have a couple of milestones and numbers in mind as my “goals reached” but overall there are a few activities I want to be able to participate in and more of a optimum feel good place that I am looking to find that isn’t attached to any number.

I’m sure there will be plenty of slip ups throughout the summer but this week has been uplifting and encouraging. If you’re on a journey like me don’t give up and don’t beat yourself up for mistakes or a few bad choices. The important thing is to accept those and head back into the process with the intention to succeed and the will power to make it happen.

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Half way to 27!

It’s May now. Warm weather finally showed up in the north. The tourist season is here.

Last month was my half year mark. With the cold weather and work I fell off the wagon. We all do for a number of reasons so many times, but my goal this year is to keep at it. Make those stumbles smaller each time. Make them less significant.

Sun and higher temperatures truly improve my mood and attitude toward life. So today on my day off I made that decision and effort to go back to being more in motion than not,

to enjoy more life than tv and phone, to enjoy more cooking than restaurants.

It is a process but by October I’ll be on the track I want to be on. It’s for myself. To prove self love, to prove commitment and willpower, and to prove the best years are ahead of me.

The things you know are crazy but you can’t stop thinking…

My usual goal is to write something every one to two weeks, but the reality of being the kind of person I seem to have been born as has me typing this morning to tell anyone who thinks they are crazy and the only one that they aren’t.

What I’m talking about specifically is anxiety and more than a touch of OCD. Yesterday I messaged my boss about work and he didn’t respond right away or even within a few hours. If you’re anything like me the first(and most ridiculous) conclusion your brain jumps to is that he didn’t message me back because he decided he doesn’t want me to work for him anymore and is waiting for the right time to tell me. Your body will then proceed to fill with energy from the nervousness for the entire night which will cause you to lose sleep as well.

In case you hadn’t figured it out my boss messaged this morning about work. The only thing I’ve gotten better at throughout adulthood is realizing irrational thoughts and trying to acknowledge them as such. It doesn’t make the nerves go away and it doesn’t earn you back sleep, but it does feel good to be able to tell yourself why logically your thoughts have no basis. I even told my husband when he got home last night just to put the rationalization into actual words. Hearing someone else agree with your analysis of what you’re thinking does make things a bit better.

So if you’re the kind of person who assumes a few missed calls from the same person means someone died, if an unanswered text means someone is ignoring you for some horrible reason, or if you’ve ever turned around after leaving your street because you’re convinced that you didn’t close the door. You aren’t alone…or crazy. Some things like the potentially opened doors you can’t convince yourself to ignore, but there are things like missed calls and ignored texts or emails that you absolutely can talk yourself through and at least acknowledge the over reaction.

Spring is in the air!

It’s so strange how the brighter sun and even 10 degrees makes everything feel lighter and more positive. I’m not complaining, the turn in the weather helped me actually do what I intended and get on a good track with eating and working out.

The first week I only hit 3 or 4 days, but last week I hit 6 days of working out and 5 days of food tracking. In case you are trying to find something new that works for you I’m doing 6 days of at least 30 minutes of cardio and also 3 or 4 days of yoga thrown in for stretching and strength.

As far as food I am still trying to be dairy free (for sensitivity issues), I am trying to lay off fried food, and finally tracking everything I eat with the goal of a 1,000 calorie deficit each day. Please understand that I am NOT only eating 1,000 calories a day.  I am being conscious of what I put in my body and in addition to every day activities and working out that is where the calorie deficit comes from. I would say I normally eat between 1,300 and 1,700 calories a day.

If you are considering something like this I encourage you to be realistic about progress. It will work but it does take time to get in shape in a healthy way. I am happy to report that I saw progress in the first week and believe that I hit a good starting place.

Happy almost spring, updates soon!

It takes more than one try

I’m home, well my old home, in WV for the week. It’s always great to see friends and family, but it is hard to keep up with good habits when I come back. Unfortunately for me these good habits are more than just trying to be healthier as I mentioned last time I stopped eating dairy because I believe it is the cause of increasing digestion and bathroom issues.

Since coming home I have had a few slips, aka I said to hell with it and ate whatever I wanted, and they were such bad choices. If you think you have a food sensitivity try giving it up for two weeks and then just throw that food back in a couple days; if you’re anything like me it will destroy you.

I’m still here obviously, but I’m firmly back on the train after all that. No food, even cheese, is worth feeling that bad. I’ve been here for three days now and haven’t managed to find the time or will power to work out, but since it was the weekend and I have been running around pretty non-stop I’m trying not to be too hard on myself and plan to get on it Monday.

On this journey of growing up, of moving away, and of trying(and failing lots) to be healthier one thing I have learned is that I am way too hard on myself and it often makes progress impossible. When I decide to eat better or get back to working out I always plan on going 150% and then when I mess up I feel like a failure and I feel like there is no reason to keep trying because I already failed.

This is the year that I am trying to learn to love myself enough to not beat myself up for being human. Hopefully this is the year that I learn not to let one slip up or lazy day ruin the whole process. I need it. I want it. And I (along with everyone) deserve it.

If this is you. Whatever journey you are on. Whatever improvements you are trying to make. Good luck. And you deserve what you’re trying to accomplish. You deserve the feeling of success. One step and One day at a time I hope you( and I) get there.

It’s been about a year…but I’m back

As I had mentioned in my last post things were starting to come together and I did end up moving back to my island. I also got married, bought a new house, and found a new job. I’ll be 27 this year and it feels like in the last 11 years I’ve lived a million different lives which brought good and bad things into my life.

Now that I’ve truly settled into a life that I confidently chose I am overcoming the constant fear of losing everything and the anxiety brought on from feeling the need to constantly have a plan for what was coming next. Having crawled out of the hole I created for myself I will be writing more, trying more, and hopefully finding little bits of happiness to share here.

Having said that here are some things I’m doing in 2018. At the end of 2017 my best friend and I started a podcast(Bumping Uglies) to help keep us connected now that I’ve moved away for good. Due to increasing stomach issues I’ve begun the journey of giving up dairy and remembering that I gave it up. My goal for 2018 is to leave dairy behind, do yoga at least 5 times a week, and cardio at least 3 times a week(separate from walking my dog and my job). Now that things have settled I am continuing to monitor what I eat and I’m feeling confident that this is the year that I’ll not only see big changes, but the year that the changes last. I’m planning to do a little bit of traveling as well which started with a trip to Chicago to see some good friends up on stage doing what they love and doing something they created.

Cheers to a better, more stable, and very positive year,

Rachael!

Oh, hello there…

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve visited my little blog and had the pleasure of reading others posts as well. 

Although my life has been a near constant source of big changes every time an unplanned change comes my way it really throws me for a loop and takes me months to get on an even keel again. 

I lost a job suddenly and for reasons I will never actually know. I moved home to West Virginia for the winter and while seeing more of my family has been nice the truth is I’m miserable in this little place I grew up, can’t wait to leave again.  I am in a constant state of planning and thinking days, weeks, months ahead. While I want to live every moment to the fullest I cannot just let things happen, cannot wait for the future to sneak upon me with some new unexpected change. 

All of this has put a halt to my writing, reading, and imagining. The past week I’ve started to feel like I’m getting a handle on things again. Been able to get myself back to jogging and being conscious about my food choices. 

I hate the gloominess of winter, preferring to spend my time outside the cold weather also puts a damper on my normal activities. Sometimes it even seems like the cold makes my dog feel gloomy. 

While I prefer to write about positive happenings and new adventures it does feel good to get all these months worth of feeling so tightly wound down on “paper”. 

Things are looking up it seems with the promise of moving back to my island and the promise of warm weather around the corner.