When this happens to me, my brain goes right to those awful thoughts. Thoughts about my worth, or whether I deserve to be happy and healthy, or how I must be doing everything wrong. I don’t stop to think about whether there is an underlying issue; I go straight to “you are a failure.”

That is my mental state right now. As much as I’ve tried to work on it, I’m still living in the hurt, scared, inferior place my mind creates for me. I’ve seen the ads on social media for all the tricks and gimmicks and schemes, and believe me, I’ve been sorely tempted to throw money at a gimmicky solution for a quick fix, even though I know there isn’t one.

Think of the truth

Before simply continuing on this downward spiral, I’ve decided to stop and consider what is true:

• I’ve undergone considerable change and emotional upheaval in the past 12 months
• My blood work shows my thyroid could be a little out of whack
• My hormones, while “normal,” are on the low end of the range, which may be causing issues
• I have not weighed, measured, and tracked every morsel of food, so there is the possibility I’ve underestimated my calories

Thyroid and hormone results alone could account for much of my weight gain this year. I have not checked cortisol levels, but with everything going on, I have no doubt those are abnormal. I head back to the doc soon, to hopefully get some answers and solutions for those potential issues.

Other people who go through significant life changes tend to have some period of time called a “glow up.” Can I sign up for that part of the process now, please? I think I’m ready. I’m ready for both a mental AND physical glow up.

Where I’m starting from

Most days, I still feel like I’m in the chrysalis. In many ways, things in my life have not settled. To add insult to injury, my beloved dog passed away earlier this year, so I lost my lovable little furry buddy. Seems like for every step I’ve moved forward, I go another few steps back.

Not to mention I’m still not over everything that happened last year. I’m still dealing with the stress and fallout. I think I tried too hard to create normalcy, and that meant I didn’t deal with the hard emotions; I just stuffed them. I’m learning that no matter how hard we try to stuff them, they will surface eventually.

Also, what even IS a glow up? According to Merriam-Webster, it is “a striking transformation in a person’s appearance; a makeover, a coming-of-age”.

Somehow, for me, I think it will be more than just a physical transformation. It will need to also be an emergence into a more confident, uplifting, joyful human being. A mental and physical glow up.

The Glow Up List

Lists are fun and informative, no? In case you were curious, here is a list of 10 things I commit to doing regularly in order to facilitate my own glow up, in order of physical health, then mental health, then emotional/spiritual health. Also these are in no particular order, and I reserve the right to add or delete items as necessary for said health.

1. Track my food intake daily.
2. Work out 5 days per week.
3. Stretching & mobility work 3 times per week (more as needed).
4. Decide who I want to become — set goals in order to become her.
5. Continue therapy.
6. Branch out and find new support groups in addition to the ones I currently have.
7. Journal 10 minutes per day.
8. Practice reframing my dumpster fire thoughts into more positive and affirming ones.
9. Learn to spend time in silence and meditative prayer.
10. Take a break from social media at least one day per week.

While this seems a little daunting, I have confidence I can make this happen most days. Watch out world, when this glow up happens no one will know what hit them.

The post It is time for a ‘Glow Up’ first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

What is my fence?

Some of this is my own fault. I’ll admit I wasn’t as focused on the habits that would get me closer to my desired results. I let the stressors of life get in the way of my routines. Life is always stressful in some way, we build our routines to work for us in times of stress so we don’t spend the mental energy thinking about it. I did an extremely poor job building those routines…which led to huge amounts of mental fatigue and minimal results.

Much of this fence that I can’t seem to leap over is just …life. Family struggles, death, marital struggles, illness, stress, worry, job struggles; you name it and I’ve most likely experienced all of it, all within the past 6 months. It is a little too raw for me to discuss here, but just know I’m right there in the middle of all the pain and stress, and every time I think, “Ahh it must be almost over now”…something comes up out of the blue to throw me right back in the spiral.

Maybe the extra boost that will get my hind end over the fence..

I’ve felt more tired last fall than I remember feeling in a long time; my fitness activities were more draining than energizing; mental and physical fatigue was at an all time high for me in the month of December. I did not want to make the effort to do anything else, whether that be write, mop the floors, wrap the presents…I just wanted to hang out on the couch and take a long winters’ nap. That is when I knew something had to change in my life for the time being.

There are seasons to training–a season to push, and a season to pull back and re-evaluate. Right now, I’m in the re-evaluate season. I’m prioritizing sleep and rest and recovery and prioritizing one thing that is just for fun (for me, that is dance). I’m changing my weight lifting routine to do a different program for a few months, and focusing more on maintaining than adding lots of weight. I will eventually get back to a season where I can truly push my limits to see what I am capable of; my mind and body just need the break right now.

The other side of the fence?

There are also seasons to life. I am entering a season where the question “what do you want the rest of your life to look like?” looks a whole lot different than it did when my kids were younger. This season is less about surviving and more about thriving. Enjoying and living life to the fullest extent possible. Doing a job that brings me joy (and compensates accordingly!).

This season is also terrifying. I have never ONCE asked myself what I truly wanted. I’m assuming I’m not alone when I say that my “wants” have always, ALWAYS included someone else, whether that was my husband, kids, extended family, or friends. I was alone for dinner on a Friday night and it shocked me that I couldn’t even decide what I wanted to eat, I was so used to choosing based on others’ preferences.

Suffice it to say, it will take me longer than a weekend to figure out the answer to the “what do you want the rest of your life to look like?” question. But it is a question worth asking.

The post There are cows that can jump over the moon… first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Seeing all of those individual droplets made me think about flooding…and I realized something. An individual droplet won’t cause a flood. It is an annoyance — but it doesn’t change its surroundings except to make them a little bit wet. Unless there are millions of droplets…the environment doesn’t change much.

Millions of droplets, however, cause huge changes in their surroundings. Some for the better, and some for the worse. They can alleviate a drought, or cause a flash flood. They can fill a rain barrel and they can keep a retention pond full. A lack of them brings us right back to a drought, and until there is a consistent amount of raindrops over a time period, not just one downpour, a drought continues.

Raindrops are our habits

One new habit won’t effect the change we are looking for in our lives. Also, adding a multitude of new habits and going strong for a week (like a single downpour) won’t move the needle either. But adding new habits in one at a time, consistently, day after day, will create enough of a consistent rainfall to move us out of the drought of our lives and into the people we want to become.

I’m going to start thinking of my current habits (and new ones) as raindrops. Am I creating a go-big-or-go-home flash flood? Or am I adding in a little at a time, consistently, and avoiding drought? Are my raindrops being collected in a barrel or a retention pond, or going to waste when I could use the win later, in a season of life I may not have the mental time or energy to keep going? We all have those seasons…we ought to be ready for them.

What about you?

What raindrops are you collecting? How are you filling your barrel? Do you start with a bang and taper off quickly like a flash flood? Or do you create a consistent stream of moisture that nourishes the life around you?

It’s funny how life can hit you at the most random moments. But it was a good reminder.

The post Collect those raindrops first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

The Dreaded Scale

Many people have a love/hate relationship with this device. It is the most common way to measure progress with health. The problem is, most people have a “weekly weigh-in” and don’t take into account the daily changes our body goes through. What you ate for dinner, how much water you are retaining, whether you have had a bowel movement…these all play a role in determining what that scale says.

We let this number affect our mental health. How many times have you gotten a result that you didn’t like, and said to yourself, ‘forget it — none of this matters, I’ll just have a cookie’. Oh wait — is that just me? Don’t tell me if it is.

Pro tip: as long as you don’t have an emotional attachment to this number–and trust me, this has taken me a long time–taking an average over time is a much better measure of this data.

Tape measure

Another way to measure your progress is to literally measure your body. I bought a new tape measure last month, and so far, I’ve been impressed! It is easy to use on yourself, and keeps the data in an app, which is really convenient.

Again…this is something that is better to collect data and look for trends over time rather than obsessing over your measurements.

That is so hard to do! I know. I’m right there with you. If I knew how to stop obsessing, believe me, I would be giving out all the tips. As it stands, I just measure and forget about it. And then conveniently forget to measure for the next 6 months.

Body Scans

You might be thinking, ‘what other torture devices are available to shoot down my confidence and tell me I’m clinically obese?’ Well, my friend, you are in luck! InBody is just such a torture device!

How much body fat do you have? How much lean muscle mass? What is your bone density? If you have ever wondered about those things…look no further. Set your bare feet on the scale and your hands on the convenient handle and let the…current?…flow through and determine the amount of all your tissues.

Then you can look at the results and die inside just a little bit.

But remember…like any other scale…it is affected by what you ate the night before, what time of day you are measuring, and can vary widely in the numbers it tells you–even on the same day. So take heart!

Which brings me to…

DXA Scanning

This scan is supposed to have maybe a 1% margin of error. Lie down, let the low-grade X-ray judge you. Show you your Visceral Adipose Tissue (that is, fat around your organs). Have fat somewhere else? Yep…you’ll see all that in a dark purple color! Didn’t think you were fat before? Oh boy, get ready!!

To be honest…it is a really good baseline. Repeating this measurement a couple times a year is probably beneficial. There is a lot of data to sift through and utilize to adjust your current routine and nutrition. (I’m still sifting through my data…and trying to understand what it all means.) Dr. Peter Attia probably has a podcast all about this scan and how to interpret data.

Non-Scale Victories

We can’t always rely on the hard data. Sometimes, you have to step back and assess your quality of life. Scale stays the same…are your clothes fitting better? Do you have more energy? Can you lift heavier weights? Did you beat your personal best mile time? There are plenty of other ways to measure your progress that have nothing to do with the outward appearance of your body.

Frankly…this is the HARDEST part of measuring for me. I tend to focus on the negative side; for example: ‘I can lift 5 more lbs than last week…but still not as much as ‘so-and-so”. This is extremely counterproductive. Once I figure out how to stop doing this I’ll probably write a post about it. Until then, I’ll try out all the tricks I can find to stop the self-sabotage.

So tell me…how do you measure progress? Anything else I should try?

The post If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Except then you start ruminating on all the different ways people determine the “right” way to eat. How often and what type of exercise? How much sleep? And what exactly is a minimum amount of stress? You get deeper into the world of fitness and you just end up with more questions than you started with. And strangely enough, the miracle cure for one person may not work for you. And what works for you may not work for someone else.

We are all, apparently, unique. There’s a shocker.

via GIPHY

Keep it Simple…and Consistent

So, now what? A lot of trial and error? (Probably) I wish I could tell you there was some magical trick or supplement or expert to follow to the letter for sensational results. Heck, I wish I could tell myself that!

The only thing I can tell you is to keep going, even when it feels hard. Even when it feels like nothing is working. Even when you go off plan a little bit, or a lot.

It’s easy to get frustrated and quit. I challenge you to take the more difficult and more rewarding path of picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and persevering. You may not see the changes you want to see immediately. You may not see them a month down the road, but I promise you, a year from now you will be very glad you stayed consistent. Please don’t think this means you have to be perfect, because I truly don’t think it is possible. All I mean is: don’t give up on yourself. Don’t fall back into old patterns that you were frustrated with because they didn’t give you the results you wanted! There is a reason you decided to make a change — remember that reason and keep going toward what will bring the changes you want!

Keep it Simple to start

If you haven’t read Atomic Habits, you really should. We always assume, when we are trying to reach a big goal, that we have to change everything all at once. (I’m very very guilty of this too! ) NEWS FLASH: you don’t. Take it slow. Pick something small and start with that. If you are already drinking enough water, add in a step goal every day. Once you get those habits in place, pick something else. Choose an eating plan and start. Counting macros? Start with calories and protein…worry about fat and carbs later. Find ways to make the changes sustainable and doable for your daily life.

Stay simple, my friends

There are new advances in technology and science every single day. Eggs are good, then they’re bad, then it doesn’t matter because inflation + avian flu = taking out a loan to buy them! Should we eat meat, plants, or plant based meat? Red meat, white meat, seafood only? Do you know where all your food comes from? Processed or “clean”? Does clean mean not processed, or minimally processed?

Cardio? Weights? Both? How much of both? Neither? (Just kidding, neither isn’t really an option.)

So. Many. Questions. So many conflicting opinions.

From me to you

My advice? Make a decision and stick to it. Do whatever diet or eating plan you want, just stick to it. Find whatever workout program you want, just stick to it. (The only caveat is, make sure you are using proper form…we definitely want injury-free training sessions! If that means asking a friend who has experience, or paying a professional…do it! Money well spent if it keeps you injury free.)

The consistency (there’s that word again) will do more for you than the actual program. You can be successful on any program! Wait until you have been consistent with one program for a while before deciding to switch. My recommendation for a good place to start would be counting macros. To me, that has been the easiest. Start with tracking what you currently eat and gauge your current intake. Then there are all kinds of calculations based on activity level, age, weight, BMR…the list goes on. Just pick one and try it out.

I can recommend workouts to you as well. You probably do not want this. If you haven’t worked out in 5 billion years…just start by walking. Start small. Keep. It. Simple. Keep it consistent.

You will be so glad you did!

The post Keep it simple, even though it’s complicated first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”

Karen Blixen

Deciding how to prepare myself mentally for the wall I know is coming in a week or two is a battle in and of itself. Around Day 50, I just want the experience to be over. My self-talk revolves around, ‘hey you’ve done 50 days, that is amazing!’ and ‘why would you want to keep going? What do you have to prove?’

One half the battle … Keep your promises

I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, but I do have to keep promises to myself. For the longest time, I would tell myself I would do something, whether it be pursuing a goal or vision, finally buckling down and focusing on health, or even something as simple as keeping a home routine so my house was clean and comfortable most of the time. I planned, prepped, visualized, but didn’t follow through and keep my promise. Excuses became my self-talk.

Every day I complete these tasks is one more day I keep my promise to myself to finish strong. That means more to me than anything, and is why I started this program to begin with.

Another half of the battle … Decide

Decide. One simple word with a lot of meaning: To choose something, especially after thinking carefully about several possibilities. Once you decide your course of action, you don’t have to think about it anymore. You don’t have to have an internal debate over how much water you should drink, or how much protein you should eat, or whether you should have a glass of wine on Thursday night or save it for the weekend. This program makes those decisions easy–just follow the rules–but what about when the program is over? Make your own rules and decide to stick to them. And keep your promises. Don’t talk yourself into a big piece of chocolate cake when you promised yourself you would not go over X grams of sugar per day.

As for me, I needed this reminder as much as anyone else. I am not going to second guess or question my decision to complete this program. I am just going to do it.

The post Half the battle first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Check Ins

In Camp Gladiator we celebrate check ins. Getting up, getting out of bed, getting dressed, remembering hygiene (deodorant is important), and making it to the workout daily makes us feel accomplished. We celebrate check in #1, #50, #100, the same way we celebrate check in #1000+. We celebrate the same way because showing up your first day is just as difficult as showing up on day 1000 (sometimes even more so). Getting started is a struggle. Staying disciplined is a struggle. It is a struggle I choose to engage in, because the alternative (being sedentary, overweight, and unhappy) is also a struggle.

Today is a celebration

Today, I hit 600 check ins. That is 600 hours or 36,000 minutes of choosing to show up for myself.

In the past 36,000 minutes, I’ve made a lot of changes. I’ve met my very best friends, tested my limits, and seen marked improvement in my physical performance. (Well, I would hope so. If I hadn’t seen improvement after 600 hours of effort and sweat, I would huddle in the fetal position crying. ). I may never be the fastest runner. Considering how I feel about running, this is completely okay with me. However, I can keep up reasonably well and most of the time, I can still talk during the workout. Much to the trainers’ chagrin.

How do you celebrate progress?

I enjoy external accountability, so a check in is a highly motivating way to keep track of when I should celebrate. You may not need that type of accountability. Maybe you want to hit a certain weightlifting goal, or mile time, or another metric. Perhaps your progress is how many days you have kept from hitting ‘snooze’.

Whatever your goal, how do you celebrate getting closer to it?

My personal preference for the moment is a celebratory coffee with my friends. (Don’t worry, I’m working my way through The Macro Barista‘s recipes to stay within my macros.)

So…cheers, y’all! Cheers to another day of choosing what is best for us! Cheers to another day of showing up and doing the work to become better. Cheers to one more day we get to wake up before dawn, be eaten alive by mosquitos, breathe the hot, muggy, humid air, and basically run a 5K with weight stations mixed in. I’m ready to wake up and celebrate. How about you?

The post 36,000 Minutes first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Top Ten Takeaways from Dorm Move In

1. Find a lot of rest stops. That gallon of water is NO JOKE. Buc-ees for the win!
2. Make sure to pack extra snacks so you know you have something to fall back on.
3. Dorm move in counts as a workout.
4. Count your wins! You followed your diet, didn’t cheat, and didn’t stress eat or head to the nearest Mexican restaurant and order the “biggest beer you have” as we overheard one frazzled dad doing at lunch. (You also didn’t eat the fried cheesecake dessert that your husband ordered for everyone to share…#winning)
5. Bring a gallon jug so you know how much water you have left to drink. So much easier than trying to remember how many little water bottles you drank so far! (Hat tip to my friend Jordan from Mama Bear Fuel for the advice!)
6. Brag to everyone within earshot that you lift weights heavier than their full IKEA bags (on a cart) as you carry 2 bags at a time up 4 flights of stairs. (Just kidding. I thought it but didn’t say it out loud.)
7. Whisper to yourself over and over “this is why I work out” as you lug said heavy bags, boxes, & cases of water down the stairwell in the parking garage level 3, 1/2 mile to the dorm, then up 4 flights of stairs. Lather, rinse, repeat at least 4 times.
8. Be grateful that you didn’t have to drive. Reading in the car (I would have gotten it done at the end of the day either way, but it was nice to be able to front load my day as much as possible)!
9. Forget the progress pic in the hotel? No worries. Took a progress pic with my beautiful freshman all ready for campus life.
10. Did I mention always knowing about at least 2 nearby restrooms at all times? So much water!

The post Day 21 is over and done first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Showing up is half the battle

Picture Monday morning. Your alarm clock is blaring. Instead of jumping out of bed, you hit “snooze” and roll over for 9 more minutes of glorious sleep. (Why it is 9 minutes and not an even 10, I’ll probably never figure out). That alarm blares again in what FEELS like 2.5 seconds. On autopilot, you keep “snoozing” until you miss your opportunity to execute your perfect morning routine. You might even end up late for work and your whole day is thrown off.

Discouraged, you decide to ‘take the day off’ and start fresh tomorrow. Tomorrow is a new day, you tell yourself. I’ll do better. Except, tomorrow ends up in much the same way, and the week snowballs until you have woken up late every day and the ‘snooze’ button is your new best friend. It is so hard to start again once you get off the rhythm of making sure you are up at the time you want.

Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.

Ken Poirot

One day last year, I decided I wanted to build better tomorrows. Therefore, the snooze option on my alarm had to go. Now I get the joy of waking in a panic 10 minutes before my alarm, in fear of missing it.

But, I don’t miss it. I get up…get my routine started…and show up daily. My days are infinitely better than they would be if I didn’t.

What is your WHY?

If you don’t know why you are waking up…why would you do it? I wake up to see my friends. And save some of them a spot when they might be late. Which, let’s face it, is often. The latecomers know who they are!! Repeat: COMMUNITY is why I get my lazy behind out of bed every single day. I don’t think I would leave my house for a sweat sesh if it was just me there.

Side note: as I have gone back to work, my community has changed a bit–it has grown! I know I will see the ‘regular’ 6 am crew on my days off when I can work out later, but the “Done Before Dawn” group also became my community during the past year when I went back to the office full time. Changes and adjustments happen. Find your tribe and keep adding to it.

What gets YOU out of bed in the morning — or, what gets YOU to a workout in the evening? Find that motivation, and remember it. If you miss a day, if you sleep in accidentally, so what? Either get it done later or start again tomorrow.

But never miss a Monday. Monday sets the tone for the rest of the week. You got this.

MONDAY IS YOUR DAY.

The post Never Miss a Monday first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.

Before True Consistency

A few years ago, I subscribed to another C-Word. That word is comfortable. With a splash of coffee (sorry–had to say it). I sat around drinking a lot of coffee. I consistently yo-yo dieted. I felt sluggish and lethargic. My clothes didn’t fit, and I consistently went up in size (but I blamed the clothing manufacturers instead of my habits). I liked sugar, I liked being comfortable, I liked joking about fitness actually meaning “fitness this pizza into my mouth” and other such fun Pinterest-y sayings. In fact, some days I really miss being that way.

Wake Up Call

I logged in to Facebook in the fall of 2018 and lamented that another mom had posted our field trip photos–not of my kid–but of me. My comfortable lifestyle was not only making me lethargic and sluggish, it also had more visible physical symptoms, which were now made embarrassingly public. I decided after Christmas I would make some changes. I joined Weight Watchers. I refused to exercise, claiming I was allergic. I still irregularly walked the dog. I ate “better” …which means I didn’t eat much at all…but I guess that is better than eating too much.

A year later, COVID-19 hit the world with full force. My meetings and accountability came to a sudden halt. Gyms closed, Drizly opened, DoorDash got my full support, and I fell off the wagon with my diet consistency. My friend started selling ZYIA and posting about workout challenges in her Facebook group, so in an effort to have an excuse to leave my house, I started sharing photos of my dog walks daily. This led another friend to suggest that I try a fitness group called Camp Gladiator. So I signed up for a free month. The first month I went 3 days per week. Then I got talked into 5. Now I consistently exercise 7 days per week. Here is what I have learned about consistency.

What I’ve Learned

I don’t want to exercise every day. There, I said it. Most days, I crave the extra sleep. Waking up before 5 am every day gets old! But I also don’t want to go to a workout at the end of a long, tiring day. So I choose to roll out of bed early to avoid doing it later. If this is the case, why have I accumulated 500+ workouts in less than 2 years (not including the running, walking, and yoga on my ‘rest days’)?

• Find out what motivates you and work with yourself, not against. For me, knowing people expect me to show up, or the external accountability, is highly motivating. It’s why I choose in-person workouts with a trainer and friends who also consistently show up.
• Make a decision. Then follow through. You would do anything for your best friend or significant other or your child. You would get uncomfortable and be up early for a kid’s medical procedure or an early work meeting. You would fit that in somehow — why not fit in something that makes YOU better?
• Motivation is fickle. This is why making a decision is so important. You won’t always ‘feel like’ getting dressed and beginning an exercise regimen. I rarely, if ever, “feel like” going! I just …go. I show up. I rarely regret it.
• Set realistic goals. Don’t let unrealistic expectations make you decide the process isn’t worth it. Set small and attainable goals and add to those as you grow.

If I had to choose the most important lesson, it would be make a decision and stick with it. You can do more than you think you are capable of. Decide to do it — whatever ‘it’ is — and go for it! Stop making excuses and start making progress.

The post The C-Word first appeared on Sore Not Sorry.