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!