Goals: I have a lot of them.

I want to start showing up. Every other Monday, I will be here, pouring my heart out and working toward my health and fitness goals. I hope you will come back and join me each time. It always helps to have others to hold you accountable for your actions. You do that for me, as long as I keep showing up here.

My word of the year? Consistency.

In 2018 my focus is on overall health, physical AND mental. I want to feel good inside and out. I want to decrease my anxiety and depression. I want to find joy in the everyday. I want to decrease stress. I have a plan to slowly add in daily meditation, journaling, and reading. These three activities center me and help me decompress. I am starting out with 1-2 days per week and when that becomes habit increase it slowly until it’s a daily thing. The hardest part for me is finding the 15 minutes to meditate. I work all day and then come home. It’s easier after work when no one else is home but that is a rare occurrence. And then I sometimes doze off while meditating later in the evening. It’s a work in progress.

For journaling, I can easily do that most nights. I just don’t. I have journals and pens, just gotta do it! Same with reading. I usually read on my commute and lunch break, I just need to be more consistent with these times. I want to read a book a week this year. I’ve devised a plan of attack and week one went great. I figured out I needed to read 55 pages for 7 days to finish my book. It was easier to sit down and read knowing I *only* had to read 55 pages. Most days I read more and the last two days I had about 30 pages each day. I also listed out all the books I plan to read this year so I know which one is coming next and when I finish one I can move right on to the next!

I am also focusing on logging my food and hitting my calories and macros. For now, I am working on just logging. I log everything I eat. If I have a great day, I can hit my calorie goal. If I have a bad day, I log and go over but at least I am logging. I am holding myself responsible for my choices, both good and bad. Meal planning and healthy recipes are also a focus. I am trying to find easy, quick recipes with similar ingredients to make it easy to do and stick with.

Finally, the physical. I want to be consistent with all my workouts. I want to be a runner again. I want to gain strength. I want to push myself to workout when I’d rather sit on the couch. It’s so much easier to sit on the couch and listen to that voice in my head than it is to workout. I have signed up for a few short races to help push myself in running and another challenge to help me reach my strength goals.

Part of me is afraid to run more than 3 miles. If I push myself in distances will I have the same reaction I did early in 2017, which caused me to stop running altogether? I’ve had it a few times over winter, but not every run. I plan to discuss this with my physician at my annual appointment. I think it might be blood pressure related, high or low. I test high at the doctor and normal at home but the symptoms read like low blood pressure drops. It could be related to poor nutrition and going out too fast/hard. I need to figure it out though because I get anxiety when a new distance comes up on a training plan and then find out reasons not to go.

I still have plans to get the runs on (not) gluten page up and running, in the meantime go join the Facebook group as it is slowly becoming the place to be!

What are your goals for 2018 and how will you be consistent? What is your word of the year?

July is coming to an end. How have I done the last few months?

Not that great.

I have given up on working out. I was being so sporadic I didn’t feel it was worth it. I did better in June than July but I can’t get my head in order. My 9-5 has been crazy this month and despite having good intentions every morning I am dead by the time I get home. My head is spinning and all I want to do is zone out and relax. I have been giving myself permission to do so. I think it is important for my mental health to just have some downtime.

I have been focusing on eating better. And I would say 90% of the time I have been doing pretty well. I am eating fruits and vegetables and filling up on protein. I am limiting my sweets and doing really well in this category. July has seen me eating a lot of potato chips and pretzels. I apparently am heading towards a salty binge. Week days are so much better than weekends because I tend to graze when I’m writing or editing photos.

I am giving myself permission to take time and get one area of my life somewhat controlled before I add another element. For July I really focused on my food and will continue to do so through August. My plan is to reintroduce workouts in September. I want to try running again plus restart the Bikini Body strength program. It’s a 6-day program but I plan to start slow and do just Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the weekends. I will rest on Tuesday and Thursday. Once I feel comfortable with that, I will add in one more day to do the program as written.

I think mental health is just as important as physical health. Stepping away from exercise is both bad and good for mental health. I know I feel better when I workout but right now working out is causing me to stress more. I am still taking walk breaks every day, just not doing strength or cardio workouts. I would love to but I need to get my mental health in order.

I have not journaled much in June and not at all in July. I plan to start adding that back in during August. I will start off with once a week and build from there. I also want to start reading before bed again. I have a stack of magazines that are calling my name but I have picked surfing Facebook or playing Candy Crush instead. As much as I enjoy mindlessly playing around on Facebook, I need to use my time better.

It’s been a rough summer but everything gets better eventually, right?

How do you keep yourself motivated? What do you do for mental health? Tell me in the comments!

June 21st is international yoga day and I’m taking that as a sign.

I need to get back on the horse. I used to do yoga after *most* of my runs and all my long runs. I stopped running and therefore I’ve stopped doing it.

I probably need more yoga than most people because I am literally the least flexible person on earth. I’ve never been flexible, even when I was dancing five days a week. This is probably why I never became a professional dancer. I do much better and actually get a little flexible when I actually stretch daily and do yoga at least once a week.

And now with my increased emphasis on strength training, I need to do more stretching.

I am the least flexible and I am pretty sure I have the world’s rightest hips. My squats are nowhere near ass to the grass. I’m lucky if I can get parallel. I use a lit of hip openers to work on gaining flexibility in my hips to help improve my lifting.

Like most people, I sit at a desk for 8-9 hours a day. I try to get up and do posture checks but I know I need help here too. Even at home I have horrible posture. What helps posture? Yoga.

I also benefit from the mental aspect as well. I feel less stressed when I take the time for yoga. I need to learn to shut my brain down and certain poses help with that. I always feel better after a good session.

Lastly, I’d like to work on my balance. You’d think after 20ish years of dance I’d be a pro at balance. Nope. I’m only graceful and balanced while dancing. Yoga, and many of the individual poses, are great for balance work, which is helpful in real life.

I pledge to start doing yoga once a week and stretching daily. I really want to feel strong and healthy, both mentally and physically.

What do you pledge to do to be healthier? 

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