Fit2BeMyself: Diary of a Woman Seeking Wellness

  I was browsing my local Dollar Tree after I had already picked up what was on my very short list. I like to see what's available and then try to resist the urge to buy it. Since Dollar Tree increased their prices from $1 to $1.25, the overall quality of the products they carry has seemed to improve. I'm still hoping they go back to $1, though. I saw this B.pure Calming Vulva Cream in the store and it piqued my interest. (This review IS NOT sponsored.) Back Story You can skip ahead if you want to get straight to the review. I wanted to share a little back story in case it helps anybody in any way, even if it is to only bring some level of comfort to the person who thinks it is weird or shameful to occasionally itch in private places.  Moment of transparency: sometimes my vulva itches. Last I checked, I don’t have any STDs or STIs. I take a probiotic daily and drink lots of water. I’ve never experienced itching or supersensitivity on my vulva before no matter what type of fabr...

Sorry it's been so long. Life has been life-ing. I can't guarantee that I'll be back here on a regular basis, but I did have the bright idea to start posting reviews for the products I've tried but couldn't find reviews for. Now these will primarily be reviews for health and personal care products, as I still would like for this blog to remain about health and personal care. I write reviews all the time, all over the internet for all types of products, including book reviews which I normally publish on my blog, Life in a Few Words . I feel like I have changed and grown in the years since I started this blog and I have so much information to share. Hopefully, what I share going forward will be a benefit to someone who takes the time to read it.

There's no set schedule for this. My plan is to be 40lbs lighter by the end of 2021. I have done it before and I know the steps I need to take to do it again. It isn't easy. It wasn't easy losing it the first time. Sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock to 2018 when I was doing fairly well financially and I was in the best shape I had been in for quite a while. However, time has to pass and life has to happen. Admittedly, it was easier to stay consistent when I had a trainer, but that whole quip about life proved true and I don't have a trainer anymore. Let me backtrack to 2019 though. You can skim past this to the actual plan below if you're not interested in reading my entire spiel or you could try my workouts. I have an entire program including videos that I created in Google Classroom called Fit2BeMyself Masterminds. Join my class here . Sign up using your Google account. A little background... In late 2018, my personal trainer thought I had the potential ...

I recently posted an essay to my main blog, Life in a Few Words  that I feel also fits in with the theme of this blog. Here's a snippet of it: Trigger Warning: There is some discussion of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and depression in this article .  The views expressed here are my own. Recently, I watched some  videos on YouTube  about the DeBarge family. Several of the family members had some success as the musical group  DeBarge  in the 1980s. I have seen other documentaries and read articles about the history of this family, but this telling of the DeBarges’ story sat with me different. The YouTuber I watched is a good storyteller, but even if she had been terrible, the Debarge story is sensational enough to have had the same effect. In short, the children suffered unthinkable abuse at the hands of their father. Most of them grew up to become addicts, marry abusive partners, and even abuse each other.   Like many people, I u...

Here's my pandemic/over-the-road driver body that I acquired in 2020. A lot happened last year for everybody, but I had my share of personal victories. Unfortunately, the pandemic and the time I spent on the road took away a lot of time that I would've spent dancing and strength training.  The past few weeks I've been reacquainting myself with my yoga mat (I have a cuter one now) and I'm not quite as graceful as I once was. Anything that requires me to "ground" or "root" myself throws off my balance, which, I think, is one of the reasons such asanas exist. A reminder to steady yourself. It'll all come back together soon enough, my weight and athleticism, I have the gift of muscle memory on my side, but I must say that this is the best I have felt in a long time.

We all have our reasons for why we may fall off the exercise wagon. My reasons were the Covid-19 quarantine, a job as an over-the-road expediter, and most recently, taking a month to help care for my uncle who was battling cancer. Long story short, my yoga mat has been missing me, the weight has piled on, and now I have lower back pain.  The past year and a half has taken as much of an emotional toll on me as it has a physical toll. It has been killing me mentally to not be able to go to the dance studio as I was once able to because of everything that has gone on in my life. Although the job I had brought in a nice salary, it left absolutely no time for anything else, not even the ability to be a present parent. Now that most of the dust has settled, I am going to pick up where I left off in reclaiming my body and treating it well. I started by going back to the basics: a brief yoga video on YouTube that is led by yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley. When I first saw her I immediatel...

Where have I been? Where am I now? Those are very good, potentially philosophical, questions. I have been away from my blogs for quite some time, but I have still been writing. As of the writing of this little personal essay, I was touring Paisley Park yesterday and I am leaving my hair behind in a hotel trash can outside of Minneapolis after I decided on a spur of the moment big chop. Click here to read the rest of this post on my main blog.

At the time of this post, Covid-19 is still rampant and I'm trying to social distance as much as I can. I still go out for walks 2-3 times per week, but if you've read my other posts, then you know that yoga is my thing. Try this stretch with me. I'm in a shoebox-sized space with a five-year-old sleeping just a few feet away from me, but I told myself there would be no excuses. There's always room for a good stretch! View this post on Instagram It has been a while since I posted a video of myself. I'm currently in a shoebox-sized space, but I still make room to stretch as much as I can and keep my yoga muscles in shape. It also helps me sleep better. No excuses. #yoga #yogaeverydamnday #plussizefitness #plussizeyoga #stretching #stretch #treepose #warriorpose A post shared by LeTara Moore (@fit2bemyself) on May 5, 2020 at 7:19pm PDT

I have seen many memes and jokes over the past several weeks about how 2020 has been a terrible year so far. I agree. This year began with my mother passing away from heart failure and a laundry list of other ailments on January 9, 2020. I wasn’t expecting the death of Kobe Bryant to affect me as much as it did considering I wasn’t a basketball fan, but just knowing that he and the others who died with him had families, dreams, and lives to live, and the fact that it happened the same month that I lost my mother, made it an extremely emotional event for me. Now, as of the writing of this post, we are amid the global pandemic COVID-19. Finding any type of normalcy since my mom was first hospitalized in July 2019 has been a task I have been failing at. My workouts fell by the wayside. My suffering finances suffered even more. My mental struggles almost got the best of me on a few different occasions. Now, as you may have heard from numerous sources, is a time to...

I have lost count of the number of times that I've pressed the reset button on my life. It used to something that I'd beat myself up about, but I've realized that if I want to continue living that I'd have to start over as many times as necessary.  Life isn't always the way we would like for it to be. I think almost anyone who has ever lived would agree with that statement. I started this blog with great expectations but things happened. I haven't even been to the dance studio in months because of those things. Between being a caregiver for my sick mother, being a mother myself, trying and failing to pay all my bills on time, and having my own brief stint in the hospital, this past year has not been worth bragging about. However, I'm still here. I hope that despite whatever struggles you have had, you will continue pressing forward, too.  Many grand ideas have crossed my mind over the years, but executing has always been an issue. I thought...

I recently published a new blog post on my other blog Life in a Few Words . I normally post poetry and book reviews there, but the topic of self-care is very important and it is worthy to be shared everywhere. Here's a link to the post. I hope you find it useful. Also, if you're into poetry and books, check out the rest of the blog. Staying Motivated When Life Gets Tough - https://letarawrites.wordpress.com/2019/08/25/staying-motivated-when-life-gets-tough/ If you enjoy this website and want to support, you can either  buy me coffee ,  buy my book , or  shop in my eBay store .

Some days I eat ice cream for breakfast. It is definitely not the healthiest habit that I have, but I have so much love for ice cream. The entire purpose of this blog is to be real with myself about my health, fitness, and spiritual/mental well-being and my ice cream habits are related to all of  those.  How so?   I genuinely enjoy ice cream. The coldness, the creaminess, the sweetness. I like desserts, period. It is hard not to. I love them so much that I’d even consider myself a sugar addict who has been battling the habit for years. I have gone on sugar fasts for several days in the past to see how I’d respond and if I could detox myself. Doing that drove me crazy. It would overwhelm my thoughts, trying to decide whether I’d make that trip to the grocery stores for a pint of ice cream or to Starbucks for a  Frappuc cino .    There are times when I feel I have a good handle over my habit. For instance, last year, after learning from so...