Food, Family, and Fitness

I wasn’t sure how this morning was going to go with Ares. He hasn’t been at school since 12/22 due to a Covid outbreak and it does not take much to get him out of his routine (like most adults even).

After a few hiccups and a tantrum (or 2) he finally walked out to the car and was perfectly fine going into school once there (albeit a little later than usual)! Hopefully he makes it through the day 😬

The last few weeks have been pretty bumpy for all of us but this morning with Ares is a perfect example to show you that anyone can get back on track with a little help.

So hopefully no snow today, and he can use today as his jumping off point to being back in his routine! (Ares not pictured due to the aforementioned tantrums before school 😂)

Meal planning and Grocery shopping ✅
Ordered a book to read ✅
Started taking all of my vitamins ✅

These may seem like small things to most, but they are huge for me right now. The last two days I have stopped making excuses for my behaviors and started taking action instead.

Things I would tell myself lately:

💠I don’t have time to make dinner after work”

❌ not true, I had time to sit on my phone for some time after work. My problem was planning out what I was making.

💠 “Prepping for my meals for the week is too time consuming”

❌ Again, i had time to sit on my phone after work so why not take 10 minutes of one evening to look up recipes and make a list? I go grocery shopping every Sunday with my mom, but never went with a set plan.

💠 “I don’t have time for me”

❌ The truth is, I did. But I felt guilty taking that time. I took off work every Friday from mid-October until the end of December for “me time”. But every Friday I felt guilt for taking that time and ended up just doing housework or checking in on work. No one made me feel guilty but myself, and this is something I need to consciously change.

💠 “The vitamins don’t matter, as long as I take my medications”

❌ The vitamins I take are for my migraines and the post COVID symptoms I deal with. To say I have felt like crap not taking them is an understatement. Bad headaches everyday, fatigue, temperature spikes, etc. But instead of taking 5 minutes a week to actually set up my things for the week, I chose to deal with it because I felt Like had other more important things to do.

So while the things I actually did this weekend seem small on the larger scale of things, they matter so much to me and I can already feel a difference.

Tomorrow I add the workouts back in. I’m starting this week with something I know well and miss, MMA based training. Then later this week my shakes will be added back in. And I can’t wait. It’s never too late to start, or re-start.

I know the timing of this post makes it seem like a New Year’s resolution type thing, but I assure you it isn’t. I just happened to have some time off last week and it gave me time to think. This post is to talk about some things I have been doing to myself, that I just actually realized, and how I am going to change. Not just because it’s a new year starting tomorrow, but because things desperately need to change.

I have not been taking care of myself, at all, physically or mentally. Looking back I can’t say when it started exactly, but I do know that it has been progressively getting worse lately and it cannot continue. It goes beyond not working out (which I stopped last year) or not eating the way I should, though those things contribute to how crappy I feel physically. I noticed i haven’t read a book in over a year, and I love reading. I made excuses for why I couldn’t do simple things to take care of myself. Sometimes things as simple as washing my face twice a day I would skip because “I have other things to do”.

That isn’t a way to live and it isn’t helping anyone. I can’t take care of others if I’m not taking care of myself. So after some discussions, I made the decision to start back with my workouts, meal plans, and coaching. I will start reading again in an effort to not only better myself, but to feel more like myself.

And I will stop isolating myself from posting things online and interacting with people. I love helping people, in any way that I can. So I will be posting more, about everything, and hopefully I can help some others along the way. If I can use my journey to not only help myself but to help others, to me that’s even better.