I ate Cheetos and life is moving on.
You may have noticed that I’ve been a bit busy with my first ever live event. It went awesome, and I can’t wait to share more. But I can safely say, that this is the most intense thing I’ve ever planned or run in my entire life. As the many (many) crazy Instagram Stories have shown, I’ve spent more nights than I care to admit the last two months sitting behind my dining room table “desk” till late hours of the night.
All this time, I’ve remained pretty proud of myself that my self-care has stayed pretty solid. Though I could have benefited from more sleep, I didn’t find myself binge eating or comfort eating, or comfort shopping etc. I kept pretty consistently to my working out. And I’ve have been proud of all these things.
But now I’m exhausted. And it’s literally taken me five days to start to feel human again after Saturday’s event. Five days. This may not feel like a long time to you, but when you add in that my last workout was the Tuesday before BLW, it’s been around 10 days since I’ve been to the gym. For me? That’s a long time. Also, since Saturday, I’ve had a hard time focusing and, though I’ve been exhausted, haven’t been able to sleep through the night.
No judgments. I just want to share with you that, just like you, I’m NOT perfect and I am as real as they come.
My tiredness means I haven’t gone grocery shopping. Nor have I really had the energy to meal prep. I’ve been eating what’s at the house and, a bunch of that has been stuff that other people brought to my belated birthday party on Saturday night. Things that the group ate as a whole, that I wouldn’t normally buy, but have been surrounding me. Like… bagels. Or birthday cake. Or Cheetos. And a friend ordered pizza, and I didn’t have an alternative around so I ended up eating that as well.
Here’s the thing. This is just food. It’s not a “failure” on my part, and I won’t sit around and “feel bad” for how I have eaten. You guys… it’s food. Sometimes we do the best we can, and that is the best we can do, and that is simply all.
Which is why I say f*ck motivation. When we rely on “feeling motivated” to keep us going, we’re doomed to fail. You know what? I’m NOT f*cking motivated right now. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and its a combination of joy and energy and exhaustion and a billion tasks that I have to get done as a businesswoman. Motivation is the LAST THING in the world I feel right now.
What I do feel, is the reminder of love. The reminder that I am worthy of love. And the reminder that showing my body types of self-care makes it feel strong and loved and vibrant. And THAT is what I want. So I let that guide me.
So I remind everyone when I say that the commitment to living a greater life from the inside out is not anything with a start and an end. It’s not a diet. It’s not a two-month crash course. It’s a lifelong journey we decide to embark on. It ebbs and it flows along with us. And sometimes we feel like a firecracker and sometimes a slow-burning flame.
Perfection is bullshit. There is only the journey. Getting on it. Coming back to it. And finding ways to enjoy the process, as messy and beautiful as it is.
What realigning my body to self-loving actions looks like for me.
When you are looking a bunch of changes in the eye, it may feel overwhelming to do them ALL at once. Don’t try. Instead, find the small ways to “be greater” today than yesterday. Here’s an example of what I mean.
Two weeks ago, my life included all of these self-care actions:
- Sleeping enough hours at night
- Daily meditation
- Tracking /measuring my food for portions and to stay aligned with my macro goals (my personal choice here, you guys don’t have to do the same, clearly!)
- Removing of “processed junk foods and snack foods” like cookies, crackers, most bread etc. Making sure that the sugar I have comes from natural sources as much as possible, like fruit.
- Strength training twice a week.
- Kundalini Yoga once a week.
- Additional cardio once a week.
- Drinking tons of water and no soda.
Now. This may seem like a LOT to you, but it felt normal to me. The last few weeks have taken me a bit away from some of these. If I jump into ALL of them again right away, I might feel overwhelmed. So here is my plan.
This week:
- Drink a shit ton of water, no soda.
- Move; strength train again and do a 20-minute walk every day.
- Kundalini once a week.
- Sleep.
Next week:
- Pick up tracking my food – not obsessing over “hitting my mark” but coming back to the mindset of food honesty and awareness.
- Meditate daily.
The week after:
Pull the focus back onto my specific nutritional goals. What foods serve my body and energize me, what foods make me feel sluggish etc.
I’m sharing all of this with you for a few simple reasons.
First… because it’s important for me to remind everyone that a journey is not about perfection. We don’t “get it right” or “do it wrong” because when we do that, we put ourselves in the mindset of success or failure. This has nothing to do with dieting – this is a concept that can be translated to ANY personal change you want to make in your life. For example, if you are someone who is evaluating personal relationships with partners and you find yourself making a few steps forward and then one step back… chill. It’s OK. We aren’t linear. We are beautiful squiggles!!!!
Second.. because I want to reinforce that the idea is to just “be greater” and not try to do everything at once. I’m sure you have TONS of stuff going on in your life right now. Be kind to you. Set yourself up to SHINE.
Third… because honest dialog about anything helps remove all of our fear or shame. Right? So here’s what I’m going to be doing, no joke.
New on the blog! I’ve recently been connecting with Gwynnie Bee to explore how clothes help me to live in the STATE OF BEING that I want to feel in my life. Have you ever considered a clothing subscription service? I’m on a budget (truth) and have a changing body (also truth) so having access to lots of different styles of clothes for a set price point has legit made a difference for me in my wardrobe. Learn more about what I’m talking about in my latest post! Check it out here.
