Hitting the hard part of transformation

When I started this great idea of personal growth and started to map out what I was going to do and when, I felt excited, energized and in control. However one thing I forgot is that personal growth is messy and doesn’t always go the way we plan.

I forgot that I have things to work through and many times it takes longer than my timeline would allow. One area for me is with my eating. I been really enjoying my new lifestyle of eating healthy and trying to focus on how food reacts to my body. However I also must admit that I also effect what food I put in my body. I am an emotional eater, and it goes way back to my childhood. I guess that I could try to come up with a number of reasons why I eat the way I do however in truth most of them are just excuses and half-truths.

So here I am about a month into this whole transformation and we are at the point where I need to take a look at the work I have done and figure out what to do next. So what have I done?

While first I have some much needed personal time and time to celebrate my amazing friends and their personal successes. I have been getting workouts in and reconnecting with my body. However I have also fallen off my eating and not listen to my food voice like I should be. So the scale is back where it was when I started however I am not giving up.

One thing about me is that I am a survivor in truth all humans are. We are meant to change, grow and deal with challenges.  Sometimes they can get overwhelming and we can end up in Pity City (this is where I go and eat really bad!) but we need to drive out of Pity City and enter the land of our creation.

What do you want to create? I am sick of living life the way people tell me to and want to start living a life of my design. That can be scary, I love rules and following them so making my own seems crazy. But how do you ever get to the next level without challenge what is and how things are done?

So where am I: tired, overworked and trying to find a new way. What I know is that getting past how I am feeling and to a new reality is going to take work, saying no to some stuff and saying yes to new stuff.  What I keep telling myself is that its ok to put myself first and to focus on me a little bit. If I am not whole, then I have nothing to give but junk. 

We are 11 days in!

Wow it’s hard to believe how much life has changed over the past couple weeks. A quote I love is that in life you are either finishing a crisis, in the middle of one or about to start crisis. That is very true for me, a couple weeks ago I never would have thought I would be moving and rearranging my life. However sometimes there are bigger plans then the ones we have for ourselves.

 I knew with my move that I wanted to live in a healthy way of my own design. I wanted to use this time to dedicate to myself, my health, my happiness and to my future. Finding balance is something I have always struggled with in my life. I say Yes more than No, even when I want to say no.  And while I know I have unlimited potential, sometimes I over esteem what I can all do at one time.

Focusing on me seems really selfish at times to me still but I am working on that as much as I can. I was lucky to have a holiday weekend to start up with transformation and allow me to settle into my new place, do touches to make it feel like home and figure out what a perfect day for me looked like.

So what does it look like? It starts with breakfast in the morning follow by weight training and getting ready for the day. Lunch is usually still a busy time but making sure I have good options that fill me and I enjoy finally nighttime is when I do a little yoga, journaling and reading. I am trying to keep work at work and home at home. Living alone at times has been hard; it’s hard not having someone to come home to or to talk about my day with. I have found the journaling is really helping me process my feelings and move through this change in my life.

I can’t really totally tell the changes in my body so far, I know that I feel better eating the way I have been, with very limited meat protein, no dairy or gluten.  I have been really focused on my water intake and trying to get 8-10 glasses in every day.

Helping in all of this has been an amazing book by Bethenny Frankel called Naturally Thin. Bethenny wrote the book awhile back, I believe it’s her first book she released. In the book she talks about not dieting but instead using common sense rules that will help you move through life being in touch with what she calls your “food voice”. Your food voice helps to tap into what you want to eat, when you want to eat it, and how much of it you want to eat. The book then goes into more details on these rules.

 So how have I used the book? First the idea that your diet is your bank account and they you have to treat it that way, you want to end every day feeling like you have a balance bank account…and if you don’t then you have to adjust the next day. It’s about your overall picture not the calories.

Something else that I have been trying to do as much as possible is not doing anything else while eating, trying not to be doing homework, watching TV, checking emails while eating. That way I can really focus, taking my time and listen for when my body is telling me it’s had enough. How many times do we eat and don’t remember what the food tasted like?

These have been big shifts in my thinking and I continue to make naturally thin changes as I am going along, did I magically drop 10 pounds?  Well, no (duh) but I feel more in touch with my body then I have in the past for sure.

So what is next? This weekend I am off to cheer on an amazing young woman as she competes for the title of Miss America. I will get to spend time with some of my favorite pageant people, see Atlantic City and recharge my batteries a bit. Biggest challenge will be that I won’t be on my perfect schedule or be cooking my meals. I am really going to have to put some of Bethenny’s ideas to the test and I will let you know how I do.

My updated workout pictures can be found on the Facebookpage!

Day Four

While I survived the move, which was all done over the course of a week in 89-90 degree temperatures and trying to guess when it might rain. It was defiantly hard and at times so exhausting I just wanted to throw my hands up and give up. However I am so blessed to have some many people encouraging me and helping along with it that every time I felt like giving up, I got right back up and keep on moving.  One of my very good friends sent me an amazing message right after the break up happen, reminding me that I am one of the strongest people she knows and that if anyone can get through this I can. If that doesn’t keep you moving I don’t know what will.

I am official moved into my first place where I am leaving completely by myself, it’s a studio apartment that is five minutes away where I work and central located to get pretty much anywhere in Rochester. I have crazy about finding creative storage ideas online and also figuring out what I want this new space to look like (colors will be blue and yellow with gray, cream and dark wood to accent).  I am planning on changing it around as I start to discover the new me.

I started back working out and I been really focus on being good to my body and taking care of me. It’s just a refreshing change. How often do we pour into others without pouring into ourselves? It happens so much and I feel very liberated for allowing myself time to myself.

I start every morning with weight training or cardio. I am currently using the Supreme 90 Day system and I will keep you updated on my progress as I go along. I haven’t found a review of the system where the person is completely at the end of the 90 day period. So we will see how I look after. I finish every night with yoga and journaling. It really has helped to get me on a better sleep schedule. I am trying to keep to getting eight hours of sleep whenever possible and also am very big on getting my 8-10 glasses of water in a day.

I am currently reading Naturally Thin by Bethenny Frankel and I can tell you I am loving it! It’s really changing the way I look at food and how I feed myself. Look for my full review of it coming early next week

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How do you treat yourself during a stressful time? Through this process I am really learning to love myself through the process and try to keep a positive attitude on life and on what is coming next.  That doesn’t mean that at times I haven’t felt like a failure or so distort I am not sure what to feel  but I try to move out of “pity city” as I like to call it quickly and focus on all the amazing things that I can do now to get ready for what is next.

I know that true happiness comes from taking care of and knowing yourself first so that is where I am at. Remember to like our page on Facebook to get pictures, ideas, inspirations and check my progress!