Fit2BeMyself: Diary of a Woman Seeking Wellness

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...

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...

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...

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...

It isn’t easy to stay motivated doing anything, much less sticking to a workout routine. In the spirit of keeping this short and simple today, I’ll just say that in order to keep going you must be committed, not necessarily motivated. Motivation is fleeting the same way that feelings of love and infatuation are. It is the same as any other type of relationship. If you want a really good relationship with another person, romantic or platonic, to last, you’ll have to be willing to humble yourself at times and do things you don’t necessarily want to do. You’ll have plenty of fun times, but there will also be times when you simply don’t want to be bothered. It takes effective communication. There’s some nurturing involved and ultimately you have to decide if a relationship with the other person is really what you want. The same applies to your health. Effective communication with yourself could be journaling, meditating, using a fitness or period tracking app—paying attention to yours...

March 1 was the grand re-opening of Ride Or Die Spin studio in Charlotte, NC and I was fortunate enough to be part of the first class. It was also my first time on a spin bike in about three months. Thankfully, I lived through the ride despite my fears that I would not. I didn’t get my obligatory photo in front of the sign this time around, but I’ll be back. I was just so happy to finally be back on my favorite bike in the back row by the door. My workouts are usually meditative and despite whatever instructions the instructor may give, I’m in my own world back there. But what has kept me from going to spin elsewhere? I suppose the greater focus concerning this post is mental blocks regarding working out. Ride or Die recently came under new ownership, but there was a period of several months when classes would be canceled due to low attendance. I’m not sure why the previous owner couldn’t make it work, but that’s part of the risk of running any business. All I kno...

Everything is fine. No, it isn’t. Often, I’ll say that everything is alright, but it really isn’t. Concerning improving and maintaining good health, weight gain/loss isn’t the only area in need of change. Small habits, like even acknowledging when something isn’t right, are needed. There are several apps I use to help me keep track of my activities and hold myself accountable for my own well-being. I use the Fitbit app to keep track of my heart rate and active minutes. I use an app to remind myself to drink water. The third app that I use daily is called Flo, which is a feminine health tracker. Within the app, there is an option to list symptoms that the user might experience every day and based on those symptoms the app will provide relevant articles and information that may be helpful. For a while, I would go into the app and mark “Everything is ok” every day. I’d disregard mild cramps or stomach discomfort or mood swings, forgetting (or not caring) abo...