This would be the life...

It is day 3 of working on taking care of myself and it’s going pretty well so far – although tough when I am at work. My job is busy and has a very large learning curve; in fact I have been here for 10 months and am still not fully comfortable. I often think I am not doing a good job because there are so many little steps for everything and missing a little step is easy but creates problems. I know that I will get it, and my co-workers are very patient, but it does create some extra stress in my life. So the ideal situation to be able to FULLY take care of myself would be if I did not have to work…of course, this would only happen if I won the lottery!

But hypothetically if I was able to be home from work to take care of myself this is what my day would look like:

8:00 am - Get out of bed and walk the dog for 1 hour

9:00 am - Have a healthy, homemade breakfast, cup of tea, read a book or the paper

10:00 am - go to the gym, do one hour cardio, one hour personal trainer

12:00 pm - Have a healthy, homemade lunch

12:30 pm - Spend time grooming ie shave legs, pluck eye brows, moisturize, paint nails ect

1:00 pm - Hot bath or shower

1:30 pm - Walk the dog for 30 minutes

2:00 pm - have a nap

3:00 pm - play with Levi

3:30 pm - go to the market and get fresh food for dinner

4:00 pm - sit on the balcony and relax with a glass of wine and a book

5:00 pm - prepare a fresh homemade dinner

6:00 pm - enjoy that dinner with husband

7:00 pm - catch a 1 hour evening yoga class

8:30 pm - snuggle with husband and dog

9:00 pm - lights off

Sounds pretty great eh? It gives me lots of exercise but also lots of rest too! I would clean the house on the weekends and switch some things up a bit – but if my life were like this, I feel like I could fully take care of myself.

Now that being said, things have been going well so far by taking baby steps. We are well on our way to paying off our debt (all things going well our goal of March 1, 2013 will be moved sooner), I have been getting up a bit earlier to put on some make up and do my hair, I’ve been putting effort into my clothing choices, and have been focusing on healthy eating.

I hurt my back 4 weeks ago today and it has made it very tough to do much physical activity. I am able to walk but that’s about it. I have been trying to rest the injury and use the ice/heat method but it’s not helping very much. Tonight I am going to sit in the sauna at the gym and hopefully once my muscles relax and loosen I can try to stretch them out a bit.

As for the HBL challenge, I have still been taking my vitamins and having my shake(s)/tea everyday but I am still not noticing a huge difference in energy, and no difference in my pain yet, but these things take time sometimes – I’m not ready to write it off yet!

Let's drop the T's

I’m back! I’m sorry for the temporary LOA but I have returned!

I’ve been spending a lot of me time lately and doing lots of thinking, and reflecting. I’ve been working on making small but positive changes in my life, both at home and at work, you and happen to have caught me on a good day!

I want to share with you something that I’ve been working on lately, and that is dropping the T’s. Okay, so what does that mean? Let’s turn can’t into can, won’t into will, shouldn’t into should and so forth. So much of our lives are spent thinking about the things we “can’t, won’t shouldn’t” do. For example, I can’t accomplish this goal, I won’t make it, I shouldn’t try. So, let’s drop the T’s and move forward.

Now you’re asking…what does that look like? Well, I’m not an expert by any means, but here is what I have come up with (I will do 1 example of the few plans that I have come up with for myself and then you can fill your own goals and make your own plan!)

My plan

What do I want to accomplish? Getting back to my goal weight

Why this is important to me? So that I can live a healthy life, fit back into my clothing, so getting older isn’t as hard on my body, to be able to be an example and to show to everyone that it can be done a healthy way!

How am I going to do this? I am going to make a commitment to myself to loose 1 pound, one day at a time and not look at how much I have to loose total.

I will make my weekly meal plan, and stick to it.

I will get to the gym at least twice a week to start, and build up again from there.

I will see my trainer at least once a week, preferably twice.

I will treat myself once a day, or a minimum of every other day.

I will track everything I eat.

Now it might look like I have put a lot down for how am I going to do this, and yes I started it all at once, but for me these are small changes that I can make to sustain my weight loss/maintenance long term – which is very important to me.

I have made some other goals in terms of finances, my emotional/mental health, and house work. I used a plan for each one and made sure that I started out SMALL. I did not throw out everything in my kitchen and promise never to eat junk food again, because let’s be honest, I’d fail after a few days. I did however look at the small steps that I could take that would get me there. It might take longer than I want, but I will get there. I have also been sending a list of everything I eat to my mom, it will help to keep me accountable.

On a different topic, I have some very exciting things coming up in my near future!

Next weekend: something huge is happening (I can’t post more details right now since it is a surprise for someone, but the wait will be worth it).

May: Going to Chicago with my parents and husband for the long weekend. We are going to a business conference, but it will still be exciting. Plus it’s the same weekend as our two year anniversary!

July: I am going to BC again to see my family <3. This time my parents will be there at the same time as me so it will be extra exciting.

August: Camping!

September: Women’s retreat

Food for thought: When you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything you want