Hey friends! Long overdue an update. It has been an interesting few weeks to say the least.
Last year heard from me I was about to finish the 5 weeks of T25 and do my end of the month stats. I was on a great roll! Everything was going extremely well and I felt like I had found my groove. Enter a business trip. Normally, this hasn't thrown me in the past. But the things I do now for work take MUCH more of my time and effort with preparing and planning than when I used to go in and do investigations and attend meetings. Just about everything I'm doing right now I LOVE, but it takes a considerable amount of effort and brainpower...and it's a bunch of firsts. Which means my focus is on that much more than it will be in a year once things become easier and I'm more familiar with my new role. I did pretty well nutrition wise for most of my trip, but was too exhausted, and feet hurt too bad at the end of each day to work out. The weather was also awful. Have you ever had a business trip and traveled 650 miles with it raining on you every single day? That in and of itself was a challenge, much less doing new things, facilitating and being on my feet, thinking on said feet every day. I forgot how important and balanced my working from home was when I was a traveling person before - I was able to catch up and breath some in between trips. Now it's a race to get back to the office for the next important thing. SO different. I love it. But it's so different and making me appreciate those of you who have had to go into an office all the time for years.
I also have begun to have some issues with my feet. I have what I think is the beginnings of a bunion on my left foot. A bunion! Just saying that makes me feel old, to be honest. I'm trying to wear more flat shoes and ones that aren't tight but it's tough when you also need to look presentable and professional and have super wide feet. Sigh.
So what was supposed to be week 5 was a bust exercise wise which is a really slippery slope. The mental and emotional connection between eating well and regular exercise is powerful. My weight stayed the same, but I didn't get to finish the program. I then returned home for 2 days, with company at home with us, then we left as a family for a week long trip to the beach - one where I was working and the family was enjoying the ocean and pool at the hotel. I did get to put my feet in the water a few times, and I had an incredible 4 days with two different teams, but I made some pretty poor choices foodwise. Chalk it up to exhaustion, hanging out with family who don't usually travel (so they were way excited about eating out - ha) and once again, I was so exhausted and my feet hurt so badly that I physically didn't do much besides sleep, eat and work really really hard.
Not surprisingly my body hurt MOST of the week - my left shoulder flared up, my right hip began bothering me. Dairy, sugar and grains are just NOT my friends regardless of how I'm eating. I definitely felt what I was eating every day.
It stinks not to be able to come back here and tell you that I reached my goal for May. Any progress I made I lost in 5 days. That's the challenge with any healthy lifestyle attempts. You can undo all the good progress in 4 weeks in just a few days and it will likely take me a week to normalize again.
But when I'm already feeling kind of down on myself, something I don't need to feel is that I owe someone else an explanation. I've made the decision to close my blog Facebook page. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop blogging - but over the last few years I have felt like I was having to report to other people versus reporting out on how I'm doing to my close friends and family which was my intention when I began. I originally set up my page because I was tired of posting my blog link on my personal Facebook page and people, "friends" commenting or messaging me to say that I was making them feel bad by sharing my own progress. That was back in 2010. Eight years later I feel like now that you can hide facebook "friends" from your news feed, I'm fine with people doing that, and that is their right. There's absolutely zero reason for me to keep up a separate page, feel like I HAVE to post there and give myself guilt about whether or not I'm encouraging anyone else's journey. It was like I created more work for myself to make other people happy. Silly, I know.
I have spent the last few months self-reflecting about my personality and how it might affect others following some sad realizations in relationships with people I thought I was close to. While I absolutely never want to alienate people, maybe the almost 40 year old in me is weary of people pleasing and trying to change who I am to make others more comfortable. During this time of reflection and soul searching a dear friend shared with me that I shouldn't dull my sparkle because it's shining too bright for some people. They may just need to get some shades.
Since this blogging adventure needs to be all about me, I'm totally content with it just being what it is...an online space for me to spill my guts, share the good, bad and ugly of this journey of pounds lost, gained and lost, and a place, above all else, for ME. I have never made money on it. I've never gained anything from it except some online friends and a place of accountability for myself.
This blog is for me to track my progress. It's for me to refer back to when times are hard. It's for me to see my journey and never forget where I've been on my way to where I'm going. It's for me to benefit from, and I'm SO happy that others have found inspiration here. I hope you continue to do so and I'm happy for you to be a follower and comment here on my blog. But the Facebook page piece is going to be inactive going forward. And I feel really content with that decision, and a massive sense of relief to be honest.
I will have to continue this journey for myself and make that my focus, while removing what felt like a "need" to have a blog as there were people looking for updates from me. We can communicate here through comments, etc., if we aren't "friends" in real life. I look forward to continuing to connect and share, here.
All of that said, I'm going to sign off for now and get some rest. I'm still working on figuring out what my next fitness step is - considering a 5x5 kettlebell program that I began studying last night - but since I fly to California for most of next week leaving Sunday I may wait to start it when I return home.
See you when I see you. Thank you for hanging around with me, even when I am less than inspirational as I gear myself up for yet another "day one."
Clara
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