Learning as I go.

I seem to be learning new things every day since I starting writing in my blog again. Writing seems to cause  more critical thinking. This is causing me to learn new elements to myself. I love this when it comes to writing and proves that I needed this outlet again.

Full disclosure I have been diagnosed with Clinical Depression, General Anxiety Disorder or GAD, Panic Disorder, and severe insomnia. I have always said that working out helps with my illness and it really does, but I haven't, in recent memory, had that "high" that people say they get with a good workout.  I am sure I have had it before, but as I stated earlier this has not happened in recent memory. I woke up on Thursday morning ready to get my 4th workout in this week. I knew I wanted to push myself more as I had a 5k on Sunday (which went really well) so I pushed to get 3 miles in and I did. I noticed my outlook on this day to be different though, literally for the first 4 hours of my work day I felt great my anxiety was way down, I was more positive and the dark hue of my depression that I had lately seemed to dissipate.

This made me very hopeful.  Hopeful in the respect that although going off my medications completely may never be in my cards, I am hopeful that sleeping and my daily anxious mind, anxious to the point that fear lives with me daily, could possibly be controlled at some point with diet and exercise rather then medications. This is something that I really hope and work toward daily, but this week made me think that it could actually happen!

What this week has taught me though that consistency is the key.  In the past I have worked out or trained sporadically. This week I got 6 days of really good workouts in and have felt so much better. I am going to continue to work on this, and hope that I continue to improve on my overall feeling thru mindfulness, diet, and exercise. It will not be easy but I know it will be worth it.

This weeks blog was more of a revelation on my part, but it just goes to show that we are constantly learning new elements and awareness of ourselves daily.

Well, I hope everyone has a great week and as always all comments are welcome.

Peace,
Paula

Self Talk

Today I am writing about something I am TERRIBLE at: self talk.  I know self talk can be good, but I am talking about the negative self talk. I am great at supporting and giving my friends the kind of support and positive affirmation that I know to be true and will make them feel better. When it comes to myself though; I can be my own worst enemy.  My husband actually wonders why I can be so positive and helpful to others but when it comes to myself I never take my own advice.

Well, this week I worked at it so much more than I have ever worked at it before. During difficult workouts rather than say I just can't do this, I said this is hard but you can do it and each time you do it you will get better. When I wanted to just ruin my nutrition and say screw it, who cares, I said "if you want something you can have it without going crazy and eating way too much." I also asked myself "am I really hungry or am I having high anxiety?" I am creating self awareness for myself even though it is hard at times. It has helped a lot. Rather than saying I CAN'T have something I would ask myself if I really want it.

With this self awareness I also noticed how much better I felt when I drank water and ate healthier nutrient dense food. I was more positive and as a whole I felt so much better. I never said I couldn't have something because the minute I introduced negative words in my self talk the desire to binge eat was fierce. I just realized a couple things about myself this week. Positive self talk DOES work. I got 5 workouts in this week, and I ate a lot healthier than I had in a while. I will admit that I wasn't always the biggest advocate of positive self talk but I am rethinking this opinion and in the long run I will be a better person because of it.

I hope everyone has a great week! If anyone wants to follow me on Instagram where I am highlighting my health journey I am under pjamn # healthyjourney,

As always any comments or question please leave them below.

Weight Loss

So it has been a few years since I have blogged last.   For a while I was doing well with it, but toward the end it seemed more like a chore than something I really wanted to be doing anymore. My writing juices have been renewed and I am feeling more willing to write my feelings and thoughts out there for others to see. Some may think why not start a brand new blog? Well, I thought about it and since my blog has "My Journey' in the title I still felt it was accurate, you will have seen the ups and downs in my journey when I started writing to when I did not write and now back and ready to write again.

Today I want to talk about something that I have been seeing a lot over the years. The changing idea of weight loss.  Sometimes, to me,  it seems like when an ideology like this is prevalent to the public;  extremes just seemed to take over.  There are those that say "love your body as it is" or "you don't need to be a certain size." I LOVE  this idea, when it comes from a place of love. What I don't care for is when it becomes shaming or negative to those who chose to eat stricter and want to be in their best shape. Just because they want to not because society has made them feel like they need to be a certain size, but  is truly something they want. They should not be shamed for wanting this either.

Then there are those who are in great shape, but must feel something missing in their life that they have to verbally go after those who are heavier by saying nasty, unwarranted things to them. Two extremes and nobody wins.

The way that I look at it is we should be trying to build each other up. If I say I am going to work on my lifestyle as a whole and lose some weight due to health issues in my family. This should not make you feel jealous or hate. It should make you want to encourage me positively and be happy for me.  If I were to say something along the lines as "God I am fat. I have to lose weight and need to diet.  I am just looking ugly." My very first response is going to be 1,) No you are not 2,) Don't let a scale, or pant size signify how you feel about yourself..

If you go into a diet with this negative mentality the process and journey itself will be negative, harmful, and just plain hard and you will be in pain.  Pain because you are not loving yourself, you are beating yourself up and forcing yourself to diet.  That is a recipe for disaster. Believe me I know. I have done this many times and it has always come back to bite me in the ass. I end up gaining the weight back plus more and then feeling even worse about myself then I did before I started the diet.

Wanting to improve yourself through nutrition and exercise should not be this hard, but when you hear extremes from both sides it gets frustrating as hell.  Here is my choice and my goal. I know if I want to live a life where being healthy and fit  is important to me I know it won't be easy. But as my friend and mentor Trish Blackwell (http://www.trishblackwell.com) said "You Can Do Hard Things."  Nothing you truly want come easily and if I truly want it nothing will stand in my way to get it. So, here it is me knowing what I want,  I want to be healthier, fitter, and feel good about myself whether I am a size 14 or size 4, I want to start taking care of my body because I love my body not because I hate it.  I choose happiness over dark negative thoughts that will do nothing to help my progress and in fact will hurt all progress both physically and mentally.  I choose to work hard daily and choose foods that will fuel my body. I choose to live a happy full life that I want to live!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and I will be posting once a week. If this resonates with you leave a comment below.

Thanks!