Baby Steps

Hello hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Michael and I went to the Renaissance Faire on Saturday and had a blast! Michael hasn't been to the local one so we had to make it this year. My mom came with us and we all enjoyed walking around, eating yummy food, looking at cool things, and Michael & I did some archery and Michael did some axe throwing. 

Drinking some meade

 Toad in a hole & frozen chocolate covered cheesecake

 My wonderful man looking so manly!

Sunday morning we woke up bright & early to go apple picking

We know have 3 bags full of apples that we have to figure out what to do with.

And yes, I am, in fact, wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt.

Now, I know the title of this post makes no step with what I did on my weekend, but I didn't want to just jump into it. 

"Hi, here's what I'm thinking right now. K bye!"

Not how I want my blog to be.

Anywho, let's get into it!

My healthy lifestyle is a joke right now, let's be honest here. It's been incredibly difficult trying to stay on top of eating healthy, exercising, working, keeping the house clean, etc. etc. 

Sounds familiar to everyone right?

However, everyone else that has those problems tackles them by doing small changes.

I, unfortunately, do not. My brain seems to think "well I'm a personal trainer, I can do it all cause that's my job" and I try to jump right into everything and trying to do it all at once.

And where does that get me?

Overwhelmed and exhausted so nothing gets done.

And it is really really frustrating.

I've come to the conclusion (finally) that I can't do it all 100% right out of the gate. So I'm working on taking baby steps to get back into the healthy lifestyle. Right now it's been focusing on exercising and slowly but surely adding in healthy eating.

So we'll see how it all goes!

 

I'm Here

Well I'm alive and I'm still here.

I can't count how many posts I've done with "I'm alive". I'm just so bad at this blogging thing.

However, I have an excuse for all this and I'll do my best to catch you up on it without putting you to sleep on your keyboard.

First off, I haven't been altogether healthy lately. I've been struggling with clinical depression and an anxiety disorder since I was 15. I've been on and off antidepressants for ages, everytime I was off it wasn't by my doctor's choice, but because I didn't want to take it or couldn't afford it. This past bout I've been on since 2012 and consistently been on it. It's managed the depression and anxiety pretty well, but these past few months it hasn't been working quite right. I've been having panic attacks and more depression bouts than I should. 

Part of my recovery has included stepping away from certain obligations I've had, including cutting back at work, so I can focus on my mental health and recovery. Stepping away also meant stepping back from the blog. I've been getting better and am trying to get myself back into the swing of things while being mindful of myself.

Second, like I said, I had to take time away from work. That meant 2 mornings a week I don't step into work and just focus those mornings on my own thing and relaxing. During those times, I wouldn't so much as open my laptop to write a blog post, but now I'm going to try and write at least one post a day.

I'm not as active on here as I am on Instagram, so make sure you follow me @alife_worth_living

With all that said, I hope I can keep up more with the blog, in baby steps. I'm going to shoot for one blog post a week, the more the merrier, but I'm only obligating myself to one post a week!

Where Have I Been?

Hi Hi everyone! 

Sorry for being gone for so long. It's been crazy crazy busy around here.

Instead of going on and on about what I've been up to and everything I'll just focus in on what's been taking up the most of my time.

If you follow me on Instagram then you'll already know, buuuut

Michael proposed! We're officially engaged!

He proposed on Saturday after recreating our first date. We went to the same restaurant and took me to the cliffs that overlook a beach where he originally asked me to be his girlfriend and this time asked me to be his wife. I'm beyond thrilled to marry my best friend and spend my life with him.

The man picked out the most gorgeous ring too!

So there ya have it, I've been neck deep in wedding plans and enjoying my time with my fiance...oh I just love saying that!

I'll try and be back soon with more workouts, recipes, and fun stuff!

Transformation Tuesday #3

Good morning everyone!

I'm a little late to blogging this week, but my Sunday ended up being jam packed so I didn't get a chance to write up my posts for the week. I'll catch you up on all that on Thursday, but today is all about Transformation Tuesday!

Over the weekend I finally had an "aha!" moment and realized that I have a sugar addiction and it needs to get kicked to the curb ASAP. Now, I'm not cutting out all sugar, I just can't do that, but I've got to cut out sugary snacks, desserts, and candies. I've been catching myself walking into the pantry and eating candy when I don't even want it. That's got to stop now so Michael and I are going to overhaul our pantry so it's full of healthier foods and no temptations.

I did an arm workout yesterday and it seems I'm already making progress. It was still tough, but my arms aren't aching horribly this morning which is an improvement from last week. My core seems to be weaker than I would like so I'm working hard on getting that stronger. I've had lower back pain a lot and that tends to mean my core is not that strong, time to work on that!

As for my orthorexia, it comes and goes. Some days it's worse than others, but it's always there. I can feel it, but I'm working hard to not let it control me. Michael talks to me about it and helps keep me grounded. I was so confused about how to eat healthy without taking it overboard and Michael calmed me down and came up with a game plan. I don't know where I'd be without that man.

This week:

• Be active every single day
• Lift heavy 3x this week
• Stretch every single day
• Have only 1 cheat meal this week

Join me on Twitter, Facebook, & Instagram with your updates for #TransformationTuesday

All links to my pages are over there 

 Don't forget to tag me in your posts so I can see them!!

Transformation Tuesday #2

Good morning my lovely readers!

It's time for Transformation Tuesday!

Last week I skipped out on TT and really, every other blog day ha! So this week we're going to kick it off...again and keep it going. No excuses this time!

I haven't gone forward but at least I haven't gone backwards. I've noticed with a lot of my clients when I show them an exercise that involves core it's way harder than it used to be. I think some of that has to do with me not working my core enough so that's something I need to get back on.

I've also noticed my cardiovascular strength isn't as good as it was a few weeks ago. I'm attributing some of it to the heat and humidity, it just makes it difficult to do Zumba. But I also think I've been slacking there so time to get back on that!

• Lift weights 3x this week
• Run 3x this week
• Eat fruits and/or veggies at every meal
• If I don't get to lifting, bodyweight workout & pilates at home

Update on my battle with orthorexia:

Michael has been a big help with me on this. He's constantly reminding me that it's not the end of the world if I eat something unhealthy. It comes and goes, somedays and some meals it's more difficult to handle and others I don't even think about it.

I'll check back in next week with an update!

Join me on Twitter, Facebook, & Instagram with your updates for #TransformationTuesday

All links to my pages are over there 

MIMM: Oatmeal Square Recipe

Hey there everyone!

I'm back and I'm here with a super delicious recipe.

If Michael is gone for work I'm notorious for not eating a healthy rounded breakfast, aka. cereal. Obviously it's not a filling breakfast so I end up starving not long afterwards.

Well I finally got smart and food prepped and ended up with this delicious and easy breakfast.

Oatmeal Squares

Makes 4 squares

1 cup water

1 cup almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, or regular milk

1 cup steel-cut oats (I use the partially steamed Bob's Red Mill to cut down on cooking time)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

2 droppers of liquid stevia

Berries

1. Bring water and milk to a boil. Add oatmeal and drop heat down to medium-high, stir occasionally. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the rest of the ingredients and stir constantly. When thickened to your liking take the pot off the heat and let sit for 3-5 minutes.

2. While the oatmeal cools, line a square pan or square tupperware with plastic wrap to make removal of the squares easier.

3. Once the oatmeal has cooled, pour into lined pan and smooth the top. Fold the plastic over to cover the oatmeal and let cool completely. Place in the refrigerator.

I cut the oatmeal into 4 squares, but that may be too many calories for some so you can always cut each square in half so you end up with 8 rectangles! You can eat it cold or you can pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute. Enjoy!

Have a great week!

 

A Few Steps Back

Hey there everyone!

Got a little overwhelmed here so I haven't been blogging. But today I wanted to talk about something that's been nagging at me for a long while.

I've talked about my battle with orthorexia here

For more information check out that past blog post.

I'd thought I had won the battle. I really worked on rethinking how I ate and treated myself, but it snuck back up on me. I realized it this Sunday when I was out with my parents. I really wanted a milkshake, but the only place we could get one was Dairy Queen. Instantly my brain said, "Oh no, horrible ingredients, not pure. Don't do it." and I just kept insisting to them that I was okay, I didn't need one.

Thankfully my dad didn't listen and stopped anyway. I did get a milkshake...and then felt like crap for eating it later. I beat myself up for eating something "so unhealthy" and not enjoying a treat.

That's not the first time now that I think back on it. Fourth of July Michael and I ate a whole fruit tart that day, yes, a whole one. The next day I joked about how I needed to work off the fruit tart, but in my mind it wasn't a joke. I needed to work off all those calories and rather than brush it off and move on, I fixated on it.

Eating "treats" hasn't been a healthy thing either. When I do allow myself a treat, it turns into a binge...and then I feel horrible about it later.

It's this vicious cycle that never ends. I beat myself up to eat super clean and super healthy, and then binge and feel horrible about it. It's exhausting.

Not only is orthorexia an issue with my nutrition, but also my workouts. I'm not going to lie, I've been lazy about working out, but I haven't been sitting on my butt all day. I've been teaching Zumba, a cardio muscle class, taking Pilates, but none of that counts as "exercise" to my dysfunctional thinking. To my brain, if I'm not weight lifting and running, it's not a workout. Which is total and utter BS.

But I still beat myself up about it. I berate myself for  being "lazy" even though I've been moving.

I'm exhausted of battling myself and I'm exhausted of my brain thinking I'm just not good enough. I'm not good enough to set a goal and reach it, I'm not good enough to stay on track.

I'm just tired of feeling like I'm not good enough.

Now that I've come out and admitted my battle isn't over, I want to take steps to change it. For my Transformation Tuesday posts I'm going to talk about how I'm doing with my orthorexia.

Thanks for listening. And if anything on here sounds like you, I'm always here to talk!