What is a goal, health-related or otherwise, that you are currently working towards? Is it a goal weight? A PR? Kondo-ing your life? Maybe all three like me? 😁
As you can see here, my major goal for right now is what I’m calling #acomplete180! 180 pounds is my goal weight at this point but I don’t want to get there, hell or high water! I want to get there feeling awesome, whole and like I really enjoyed the journey.
As of right now, my way of getting there is:
Fitness: in the gym 6x a week (four days lifting, three days running) with sprinkles of restorative yoga
Food: 80/20 paleo along with lots of self-love and laughter.
Am I going to hit snags (asks the girl currently holed up at home with an ear infection)? Absolutely. But with this goal in mind, I can keep correcting back and eventually get to where I want to be!
Where am I now? 275 which means I’ve got 95 pounds to go! I know that seems surprising, but I’m incredibly overweight. I calculated this based on a dexascan done on me. It gave me the amount of lean weight and fat weight I had on me at the time. With that information, I was able to create a goal based on where I wanted my body fat to be. It’s a pretty rough sketch, but if I’m happy and healthy, I’m not going to freak out over a few pounds.
What are your goals? Comment down below and let me know! If you post about it, tag me. I’d love to see and support you!
Supplementation! I feel like it’s very polarizing. I thought I’d take some time today to share what I’m using and why so that you can see what a pretty chill wannabe athlete takes on the daily. This is not necessarily a suggestion that you take them (obviously, use at your own risk) but a couple of these have so much science behind them, I’d suggest them to almost anyone looking to take things to the next level.
A lot of people, especially women, worry that with creatine, they’ll hold weight and prefer to use beta-alanine. I personally can’t take beta-alanine because I get the tingles too badly so I go with creatine. I found this fantastic article on one of my favorite sites, Girls Gone Strong, all about why and whether women should take creatine and so if it’s something you’re interested in, I’d say head over there and check it out!
BCAAs really help me recover from my DOMS much faster so I gotta have those when I’m training six days a week! As with creatine, Girls Gone Strong has an article about whether BCAAs are for you, so if you’re interested, head over there and check it out! I take mine in pill form since I haven’t found a drinkable version yet that I like the flavor of. I’m sure it’s less efficient to take it in pill form, I’m just kinda OK with that so I can continue to be stubborn and not drink something I don’t like.
Next up is my protein shakes! Why not just mix one from a powder you ask? Why get these pricey pre-made ones? Well, the answer is simple and two-fold:
I can never get the same result from a Blender Bottle as I can my blender. However, Ruby, my youngest pupper, is terrified of blenders which causes her to scream her head off. All around bad.
In the mornings, I like to keep things chill so just having one of these in the fridge helps me with that.
I grab these ones in big packs off Amazon and while I’ll definitely be weaning myself off them as I go more and more paleo, for now, especially on days I know will be low protein, I add one to my water/coffee morning routine.
Next up are these two supplements from Old School which I’m trying out right now. Old School isn’t a new company to me. I really liked to use their Vintage Bliss back when I was having more trouble sleeping so I figured why not try a couple of their other options?
First up is Vintage Bend, which is a joint support supplement. As some of you might guess or know, I have Celiac Disease and it went untreated pretty far into my life. Because of that, I used to blow out my knees pretty frequently. They’re getting better as I’m getting older but I figure things like vitamin D, glucosamine, tumeric and others can’t really hurt me so why not give it a shot?
The other one is Vintage Burn, which I’m not totally won over on yet. I figured I’d try out one of these newer fat burning supplements since the last time I tried one, I was about 19-20 years old and it had ephedrine in it! Why yes, I am old as dirt 😂 I’m not totally won over on it because there’s so much shifting right now with my new workout schedule, a new diet, and, heck, just beginner’s gains that I don’t think I could tell if it was really working or not. Because of this, I’m thinking about tabling it until I get more stable and then seeing if there are any benefits.
So yeah, that’s where I’m at! Do you use any supplements? Let me know on my Instagram or Facebook post or feel free to leave a comment here! Until next time!
Are you team “everything in moderation” OR “moderation is preventing you from achieving your goal”? Honestly, I’m not sure what team I’m on. Blame it on me being a Hufflepuff but I can see both sides. It’s so hard to choose!
I think what it comes down to are self-knowledge and self-trust. If you can trust yourself to keep your moderation actually moderate, it can be perfect! I suggest 80/20 paleo to any of my clients who just want to clean up their diets but aren’t training for anything specific. I tell them it gives them four “tickets” per week to buy a non-paleo item with. This makes it easy for many people because you don’t have to be fussing over every damn thing you put in your mouth. Sometimes you just need a Coke… and by you, I mean me. Sometimes I need a Coke. However, leave me to my own devices and I’ll have a can a day. Those add up. So structure helps me have moderation.
But, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t have self-control, moderation could just be another way to get into the weeds. “Oh, I’m just eating a moderate amount of Cheetos on a moderate amount of days” could mean a lot of different things in this context. You get into the daily can really fast because the self-control doesn’t hold the structure together that allows for moderation.
How do you know your moderate is actually reasonable? That structure I mentioned must be there. How much and how you place it is up to you but I think to meet any goal, you have to find the balance of structure and moderation that’s going to work for you. I suggest that anyone who really wants to change gets help of some type. That could come in so many forms that it should be doable for anyone. It could be a friend, a wellness coach like me, a personal trainer, nutritionist, whatever. You’ll have a sounding board to help make sure you have a reasonable idea of what moderation, both for you and in general, looks like. From there, you can make powerful choices and hopefully create powerful change.
So, what do you think? What team are you on? Let me know in the comments, either here, on Facebook or on Instagram. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Until next time!
As a lifelong insomniac, I’ve heard just about every tip in the universe for trying to get to sleep easier and faster. When I was just a little girl, I remember my mom dragging me to my pediatrician to talk with him about my sleep problems. I can still recall the weird tips I was given: contract all your muscles and release them! Make a really tight fist and release that! It was the 80s. There was a lot of tightening and releasing apparently!
It wasn’t until I made it to my mid-thirties that I was able to consistently sleep. Here are the tricks that have actually worked for me:
1) Go to bed and wake up at the same time. EVERY DAY. I know, it’s a bummer but real talk: you do actually train your body when’s a good time to sleep. Last year, I was able to get myself to be a morning person and now I wake up at or around 7 AM without an alarm. I get sleepy around 10 every night. When I respect my body’s wishes, I fall asleep easily and naturally and wake up just as well.
2) Create a ritual around bedtime. I know that I’ve said in the past that I’m not a fan of a big ritual. However, the little ones I do are must do. For me, at night that means avoiding my phone as much as I can (I still watch my far away TV), listening to some fireplace white noise and curling up with my big body pillow. Lastly, I love diffusing some essential oils in the room to add an extra layer of relaxation. My current go-to is Serenity from doTerra but I’ve included a blend I found online below. I’ll be trying this one ASAP! New to essential oils and want to give them a shot? Check this site here to find out more and grab some oils for yourself!
3) If all else fails, there’s no shame in the medication game. For me, it wasn’t until I started dealing with my anxiety medically that I actually was able to sleep really consistently. For me, a low dose of Ativan is great for dealing both with my generalized anxiety and my issues with sleep. If it’s very bad (which happens maybe once every few months now), I use an indica-based marijuana vaporizer cartridge. My personal favorite is the dosist sleep but I will keep a random one in my PAX Era for emergencies.
Not to get too spicy, but if you’re really struggling to get to sleep or stay asleep, check into whether medical or recreational marijuana is a legal possibility where you live. I’ve tried both over the counter as well as prescription medication and all of them give me hangovers. I wake up the next morning feeling absolutely horrible. With marijuana, the worst I might have is extreme dry mouth. That’s so much better than feeling like garbage the next day or worse, sleep driving!
As I mentioned, I use indica-based products with more THC than CBD since that will give you the chill stoner vibe that’s conducive to sleep. Try a little bit, wait an hour, try a little bit more. I saw a cartoon that said, basically, “it’s easy to get a bit higher. It’s not easy to get less high.” Keep that in mind and tread carefully!
I hope this helps those of you who struggle with sleep! If you have any other tips or tricks, leave them as a comment here, on Facebook or on Instagram! I’d love to hear what works for you all! Until next time!!
2018 was an interesting year for me. I started a new business, One Crafty Potato, going through everything I would need to make that happen. I created an LLC, I purchased product, I created courses, I was ready to go. But then… nothing. To be totally honest with you, OCP flopped on it’s face.
Around this time, a friend mentioned Seth Godin’s The Dip to me. She thought I might be in The Dip for OCP. If you’re not familiar with The Dip, here’s a great YouTube video that explains it pretty succinctly. Basically, the idea is that if you aren’t going to be the best, you’re better off giving up and putting your energy into something that you can be number one at.
In December, Ryan and I started talking about Running Westholme. It was an old project we’d started and let die because, honestly, I wasn’t ready for it. My depression and anxiety was too much. I wasn’t sure I could deal with getting back into “the industry” since I’d been burned while working at Riot. But now, I was feeling better. Things were more under control and while the internet still isn’t much kinder to female gamers, it was in a place I could deal with, especially with my depression and anxiety much better managed.
I had a decision to make. Do I go hard and continue to work, trying to pull OCP up? Or do I shift gears and take a chance on something new? When looking through the lens of The Dip, the answer was clear: I give up OCP. There were other places teaching classes, other places that sell paper, I was never going to be number one.
But, there was no one out there that we knew of who was focusing specifically on overall personal growth for nerds. There was no one teaching it the way we were teaching. We could put our focus there and help a lot of people. That felt really good (#hufflife!)
So, that is where I’m putting my focus in 2019. I’ll be pouring everything I can into Running Westholme as well as developing my own coaching practice. If you’d like to support us, we’d appreciate it so much. Find our links below and give us a follow or signal boost!
When decluttering, everyone cuts down on their belongings but how many people think to cut down on their past images of themselves? Probably not too many. I remember at one point in the process, I asked myself, “if I don’t own this sweater, who am I?” It might sound like a really odd question, I know, but when you’re a fashion school dropout and you met all of your friends at fashion subculture events, giving up a style means giving up a part of who you are, a creative outlet and a bond you shared with certain people in your life. You probably have a hobby or habit that’s like this too. I had several I identified with: I was the gamer, the anime watcher, the crafter, the Hufflepuff, the nerd, the shopper, on and on. All of these hobbies and habits had a cost, both in my physical space and my mental space. I didn’t have time in the day for all of them so I developed habits, admittedly bad ones, and didn’t really reflect on them beyond “I wish I had time for…”
One day, I found myself sitting in bed, dressed to the nines. I’d spent weeks trying to figure out if I was going to move on from a certain style and it had consumed whole days to thinking and imagining who I’d be without it. I felt like I was locked in a vicious cycle of not wanting it (feeling like I’d moved on, not really loving all the clutter and things it required as well as the energy and hassle) to needing it (who was I without it? How would I dress in certain places? Would my friends feel I abandoned them because of this?) It was stressing me out and I couldn’t seem to move on from the question: was I going to give it up?
Suddenly, it hit me. I had to ask myself: what are my priorities? Where do I want my time to go? It was immediately obvious: crafting and fitness. These were the two things that I really enjoyed, that I wasn’t doing by default or because it’s what I’d always done. After looking at that, the answer became very clear. I had to move on. I had my husband move it all off to Goodwill so I couldn’t change my mind. You’re welcome, ladies of Los Angeles. I hope you wear it well and love it as much as I did.
Now I had a razor. Maybe it’s not as cute as Konmari’s “what sparks joy?” but really, you really just need something to help you make a decision, whether it’s your top three priorities or what sparks joy. You need to be able to ask yourself, “does this matter if X is one of my most important things?” If the answer is yes, it stays. If the answer is no, it goes. And once it’s on the go pile, get it out of the house. If you leave yourself an out, it’s probably ending up where it started since you were probably struggling with getting rid of it in the first place.
That razor is the version of you that exists after all of this. Maybe you’re not what you were when you came into this, but that person got you into this mess. If you want to move beyond it, you have to move beyond that person and embrace what you are afterward. This means you need to apply the razor to your habits as well. What do you do that feeds into these non-priority things that can be removed? What will feed these new priorities? If it would help, do an ideal day project focusing on your priorities being in the spotlight. From there, it’s just a matter of implementing the new habits one-by-one, hopefully replacing the old ones as you do.
Now it’s your turn: What are your priorities? What are you going to implement when you have space to? Leave it in the comments below!
