So I have been working on my health on all levels. Notice that I stated "working on". I am a constant work in progress. I'd always focused on weight, diet & exercise (the obvious), however, it never occurred to me that I should look at everything in my life that could make me unhealthy. What about stress at work, unhappiness, trouble in friendships & clutter in my environment, etc. Turns out those things absolutely matter.
A friend of mine, Christina, who is a registered nurse, decided to take a different approach with medicine and received a certification from Duke University's Integrative Medicine program recently. She learned to look at an individual as a whole and assess all aspects of that person's life that could be causing illness. She accomplishes these assessments in coaching sessions. It's a holistic approach to getting healthy in all areas of your life.
I decided to take coaching sessions from Christina & it's changed my life. I have a much different approach to life since. I am the happy person again that I had always been, but had lost along the way during my "growing up" years. Those years are when I began to really feel the stress of the economy, constant fears of layoffs, loss of income, etc.
I had not only gained weight, but had become a bitter person in many ways & was incredibly unhappy. I can't say I'm 100% the picture of health now because I'm simply not, but my approach to dealing with many issues has changed for the better greatly.
I spend most days now laughing and enjoying the possibilities of all the that life has in store for me. That makes for a great foundation to tackle some of the more difficult struggles that I encounter in my road to be a healthier person.
Back in August I once again started that familiar "get healthy" goal and joined a running group training for a 1/2 marathon, but got off track when life got super hectic. Since then I've found it hard to get back on track.
Lately my excuse is that it getting dark too quick after I get home from work. This is seriously a silly excuse for me because when I was doing well with my running goal I was getting up consistently 3 days during the work week and out the door by 4:45 am (in the dark) and running outside with my dog. Then I'd happily wake up and get to the running group Saturday morning for 6am long runs.
So what exactly is my deal these days you may ask? Well, if I have to be honest I'm just giving lame excuses. I simply need to stop the excuses and get up and DO IT! Doesn't matter that it's dark out, will be getting chilly (eventually), rainy possibly here and there....bottom line is I need to simply just get up and run again.
If I find it hard to get up I need to sleep in my running clothes again & set several alarms that scream at me to get up. I need to plan out meals once a week for the entire week and a come up with alternatives for the days that someone side tracks me because life does happen & the unexpected does occur. I need to have a back up plan for the days when life gets in the way of my goal.
I'm finding motivation in many healthy living blogs I've come across. Blogging is new to me as you can see by my archives, but it seems like the perfect journal to keep record of progress. I will forever be grateful to Christina for introducing me to a way of living better; for teaching me that I can choose to live life positively and change the areas in my life that I am unhappy with.
Here's to starting at the beginning again :). Day 1 of 1/2 marathon training again; can't wait for sore limbs the next couple days! They're my reminder of the good I'm doing my body.
My ultimate goal you may think may be a set amount of weight loss, but nope. I figure if I keep up with a consistent training schedule and nourish my body with good, whole foods and limit the processed food well where else will the scale number go, but south.
I
want to be able to be so confident in my snowboarding skills (I currently am a horrible snowboarder; but, love, love, love it none the less) that I can master some crazy snowboarding tricks! I have this dream to be able to learn tricks on a half pipe.
