Heat Wave and Other Updates

We are having a heat wave here in Middle Tennessee. At 9 am it was 91 degrees! Despite that, I did get my mile in yesterday. I have yet to do 1.25. My kids were being little boogers and fighting loudly on the porch. Living in an apartment community, I try to have them keep it down. It’s not always possible.

Tuesdays are grocery day around here, and we were up extra early fighting through traffic in downtown Nashville this morning. We had to pick up my hubby’s Jeep where he’d left it the night before when he drove home my BRAND NEW MINIVAN!! Yup, still excited about that!!

I am now waiting for the weather to cool just a little more and I promise, I’m running tonight. I did fall back into a little carb habit over the weekend. I found out some unexpected and momentarily stressful news. It’s stressful for now, but in the long run it’s going to turn out great for my family, my work, and definitely the kids. We will be moving to a house here in town. We have just out grown the tiny 2 bedroom apartment and need more space and a yard. We thought our next move could be to Florida, but with a new home school  year approaching, we definitely need the space and ability to put the kids in separate rooms. I’ve already begun the packing and purging process.

So my daily blogging goal may be more like every 2 days, but I’m still committed to it! It is definitely helping me stay accountable. Just pray the stress and carbs don’t find me!!

Week 1 Complete

Day 6. I did it! 1 whole week! 1 mile every day for a week. Tomorrow I rest. I have an exciting day tomorrow!! It’s the It Works Green Carpet, which I’m super sad I could not make it there in person. *Cue the water works* But I get to watch the event live and my team who is attending knows I’m there in spirit.Next year when Liam is older and we live IN FLORIDA the drive to Tampa won’t be a big deal.

But today I am getting my bathroom cleaned, some laundry done, coaching my team, and maybe even having coffee on the porch later and watching the rain. I almost never check the weather, but it looks like it will rain. Ha!

For lunch I’m planning a big salad and dinner will be baked chicken with quinoa and corn. I’ve been doing really well with my nutrition, and making it a point to remember my Greens and Thermofit. All in all, despite a birthday week, it’s been a good week! I’m proud of myself. Next week I up my mileage to 1.25 a day. Wish me luck!!

When What You Love Doesn’t Work

5 Days!!

I’m not gonna lie, folks, when I made this resolution it was kind of spur of the moment and I was not even really sure it would stick! I’ve made resolutions, I’ve kick started fitness plans. A few have lasted, many more have not and there really isn’t any magic formula for what works and what doesn’t. When I started my resolution at the end of 2013, it lasted over a year and was fueled by a love of HIIT workouts. This time around I started with the idea that I’d jump right back into that style of workout, especially since I did them through my last pregnancy, but I just have not been able to get myself into them. I’ve been doing Yoga and really enjoy that, especially for the back problems I’ve had post partum, but I needed some cardio and running seems to feel right. Which is weird, because historically I HATE running.

So I guess my realization for today is, if something isn’t working, don’t just give up. Try something else! Try something you tried before and it didn’t work before, it may work this time! Really anything that gets you moving is a step in the right direction. Get up every day and push past the excuses. Today is my birthday AND it stormed half the day, I thought I had a pass, but when the sun came out this afternoon that pesky little voice urged me outside to run. And you know what? I took pride that it’s my 5th day in a row and loved that the weather was a little cooler. I enjoyed myself. I am glad I put my 15 minutes in.

You never regret having done a workout. Once you get past the first 5 minutes and the endorphin starts surging, you remember why you do this.

Happy 5 days in a row on my 31st birthday! Happy making good on my resolution! Here’s to making my 30’s FANTASTIC!!

Perspective

If you followed my journey back in 2014, you would have heard me talk about the scale and how it’s my nemesis. Me and the scale go way back, and it’s never been a happy relationship. The scale always told me I am 20ish pounds heavier than I feel I look and it has really messed with my self worth through the years.

We are a society that measures beauty on the scale. I hate it, and there are a lot of great people out there working to change that, but for now it’s still true. Beauty and self worth cannot be quantified. They can’t be measured on a scale and they can’t be charted on the BMI chart. (Which, by the way, the BMI chart is the scale’s best friend, and they are both a couple of mean girls!)

I just got on the scale this morning. At this point I really don’t put a lot of stock in it, but it can be motivating for me when I keep it in perspective. I’ve been fluctuating between 227 and 220 for several months now. The last couple weeks I’ve been on the upper end of that and had to do some self scrutinizing, which led to my new resolve to be more disciplined with my eating habits and run my mile every day. My weight has been inching down this week, which is good, but it still isn’t to my lowest post 4th baby weight of 218 or my pre pregnancy weight of 215.

Now, my point to all this is not to obsess over numbers. My point is that all those numbers above are big numbers. I’m 5’8″ and turning 31 tomorrow. I’ve had 4 full term births and I’m a busy mom of 3 living children with a home based business. When I looked like this, I was 215 pounds:

 

That is in the “obese” range for my height. Clearly I was not obese 2 years ago, in fact I was the healthiest and fittest I have ever been!

Fast forward 2 years and another baby later, and I’m practicing daily habits that are even better than 2 years ago, I’m just waiting for my body to catch up. The scale mocks my efforts. It would throw my self esteem right out the window if I let! But I learned quite a while back that the scale DOES in fact lie, and quite frequently. It doesn’t commend you for drinking plenty of water that day, or building new muscle or having healthy babies and breast feeding them (which requires growth of breast tissue, by the way). So I take pictures and measure. I take note of how I feel. Long story short, I keep it all in perspective.

So this morning, as I was looking in the mirror and feeling a little down about the slowness of my journey, I realized I had not taken pictures in a while and I snapped a few shots and then scrolled ALL THE WAY BACK to the beginning of the year, back to when I started getting serious again about life improvement – physically, mentally, financially, all of it!

Yes, I have a long way to go. I go back to my mantra. “It’s a journey, not a race.” But today I’m grateful for progress, even if it sneaks up on you, it’s still progress. I’m grateful for my business that has helped me surround myself with amazing, motivating, positive people!! I’m thankful for the products that have made this journey, slow as it is, much quicker than my last post partum journeys.And I’m thankful for perspective.

Just Start

3rd day in a row that I didn’t allow myself to make excuses!! Can I just take a sec to give myself a big hand?? *Claps hands in an epic slow clap*

I actually had a legitimate excuse that I was ok with today. It’s grocery day! That’s always a crazy day for me. But I ended up getting up earlier and starting a good hour and a half earlier than usual so not only did I get groceries done, I got some house chores done too! Which put me at the deep heat of the afternoon and there I sat, with free time on my hands.

Well, I’ve never been big on waste, so I got my running shoes on and despite the 92 degree heat and 46% humidity and super fresh asphalt in its deep black and pungent glory, I actually did my best run time. I’m already feeling better and stronger and with every day the excuses get weaker and my will gets mightier!!

I know this blog is helping. I don’t know if anyone is really reading it, (except you mom!! I know you are reading it!! I heart you!!) but writing it down every day is helping me be accountable, knowing SOMEONE might be watching. You may be at a really low time where motivation is hard to come by and you are trying to muster up the courage to start.

Just start!! Do it! That’s the first step! I promise you, this has not been easy for me! Every second of that first run was grinding on every nerve in my body and begging me to go back to the excuses. Just keep running! I came to a point today where I normally stop running and begin a walk break and on only day 3 I realized I did not NEED to stop, I kept running a whole other lap. Just 2 days ago I did not think that would be possible.

Surprise yourself! Just start. I just keep telling myself, “It’s only one mile, it’s only 15 minutes.”

Our sweaty selfie! You can’t tell how sweaty and out of breath I am, but I promise you I was!

The Little Voice Made Me Do It

Day 2 of my no more excuses resolution and can you guess what my sorry self tried to do?? Uhg! I’m beginning to think we are excuse makers by nature or something.

See, yesterday as I was sweating my life away running the loop around our ample parking lot at the apartment complex I live in, I thought, “I can do this. This is just like a track at a school, I can do this…”

Then I woke up this morning and saw the maintenance staff towing some poor guy’s car away, and I remembered they were starting the pavement resealing project that they were going to do last week when the storms interrupted it. And my beautiful little loop was taped off on both ends.

Isn’t it amazing how something so simple can play tricks with your mind? Seeing that yellow tape fluttering in the breeze, I was just like, nope. Can’t. Then, as the sun climbed higher and all semblance of coolness left the earth and the acrid smell of fresh asphalt permeated everything, I kept hearing the little voice saying, “Really, Tosh?? It’s only day 2! It’s not even raining, girl!” So I mixed up some Greens and drank them, thinking that would quiet the little voice… it did not.

Crap! So after feeding my kids and before nap time was fully upon us, I threw on my running shoes and looking ridiculous, I ran kind of a modified T shape in the piece of the parking lot that was still accessible. And you know what?? It was hot as Hades! And one of my neighbors walked by shaking his head and said, “It’s way too hot to exercise!” and I said, “I agree!” But I kept running, and 16 minutes later I was done! Boom! My mile was in and I didn’t die. And bonus points, I ate a salad for lunch and have already drank over half my water for the day. I’m calling today successful!

The kiddos wanted in on my sweaty selfie, which always makes for a beautiful blurry photo with no smiles/weird faces.

No More Excuses!

So, I’m not sure that it’s a big secret, but I have not been super happy with my fitness routine lately. I mean, I started this blog back up to keep me motivated and accountable, and I can’t even seem to remember to blog. I know, it’s pathetic!

But I had a moment today, and I snapped a picture and captioned it with this:

“That moment you realize that having no time, or the mid day heat, or a bad back (that hasn’t gone out in months), or no sitter for the kids – those are all just excuses! YOU have the power to change your reality, Natasia!! You have the ability to put the kids on the porch to play and watch you while you run around the parking lot at home. You don’t need a gym, you don’t even need to drive to the park! Now fill up your water cooler and and stop crying about your circumstances!”

Don’t laugh at my non bicep!! Ha!

I’m fairly sure that most people I know would have their eyes bug out when they look at my life and then hear me say I am just making excuses. I mean, my own husband had that reaction. (He’s a gem! He knows what I deal with every day and thinks I keep the world itself spinning in motion.) But I have been!

At the end of the day, the only one I have to blame for not producing results is me! I could cut out way more cheat meals, I could get up and be more active, I could manage my time better and definitely watch even less TV. There! I said it! I’m being straight up honest here!!

I definitely can’t go to the gym most days, and I definitely have lots on my plate with kids and my business and another year of home school right around the corner, but lately I’ve been focusing on what I CAN do in my business, and I’m just going to bring that right into my fitness routine, or rather, lack there of.

I CAN run a mile every day. 15 minutes. That’s it! I can survive 15 minutes, so can the kids. Running will help me take in the water, and I find I make better food choices when I’m well hydrated, and I’ll be setting the example for my kids that is super important to me.

When  I’m actively exercising I think about this blog, and it will help me reach that goal too! So here I am! I just started. No more excuses. I didn’t even wait for Monday. Now, I’m off to shower and make a salad.

New Beginnings

So…. I realize no sooner did I commit to a daily blog than I fall right off that wagon!

But here I am, and my word today that I’m meditating on is Grateful. I’m ALWAYS grateful for new beginnings, new days, new weeks, new friendships… I love clean slates and starting over.

Last night middle Tennessee was witness to some incredible thunderstorms! The thunder was louder than any I’ve heard and the lightning flashes were constant. And it lasted sooooo long!! Had it been during more forgiving hours I would have enjoyed it, but it was in the middle of the night and I’d already had a very long day. I would have loved sleep a bit more.

But when we woke up and the world was quiet and the grass and streets were glistening clean with water, sparkling in the sun, I had to admit full appreciation for nature’s way of creating new beginnings.

And today as I look at myself, having been disappointed with my diet over the holiday, or my lack of work outs, or even my performance with work or parenting or house chores, it all just disintegrates into the realization that I can just start over. I can do better today. I can have a better attitude, or a better focus, and just be better today than I was yesterday. I can just write a blog post even though I missed quite a few days. I can just choose a healthier lunch instead of the carb heavy pasta I ate yesterday. I can drink my greens and get my vitamins and probiotic in instead of skipping and giving in to the energy crash.

Anything we want, we can be! We can go out and do! We don’t have to be defeated by yesterday, we can just start over! 

Not Quitting

Goals! I’m all about goals these days. Work goals, life goals, fitness goals, I have a clear picture of what I want and what I’m shooting for. This is, in case you did not know, a huge accomplishment! For anybody!! But especially for me. I tend to put everyone and everything above myself and my own desires take a back seat, so much so that I often just leave them completely behind.

Really, I should say this WAS the case, up until the beginning of this year. I started this year and I don’t know, something just clicked. I knew I did not want to spend another year floating around and waiting for life to happen to me. I want to happen to life! And that means I need to know what I want and go make it happen!

I don’t believe in luck. We make our own luck, and it takes the right combination of opportunity, effort, and perseverance, and heavy on the effort and perseverance. So to make sure I’m channeling that effort and perseverance into the right place, I figured out what I want most and wrote down my goals. I made a dream board, and I hung it with my goals right in front of my desk where I can look up and be inspired every day while I work. When the moments come that my goals seem too far away or too hard, I look up and see my goals hanging there in front of me.

Nobody wants to be labeled a quitter. I’d rather be known as an unrealistic dreamer than a quitter!! At least 20 times a day something comes up that makes one or more of my goals seem so far away that I consider settling for something much less. But I have done that most of my life, I’ve settled because I was afraid of failing, and THAT is why people quit. The fear of failure begins to loom greater than the desire to reach your goal.

I’m done settling, I’m no quitter! My long time mantra is still alive and well, “It’s a journey, not a race.” Even the slowest person will cross the marathon finish line if they just keep moving forward.

So my strategy is not to work harder and harder, because the intensity cannot be sustained. Not at this stage in my crazy life. My strategy is to work as hard as I can each day, and one day that will be tons, and the next day it may be ounces, but if I just keep going, I’m going to get there. Probably sooner than I think.

 

I’m back! No, really…

Most of my readers were my Facebook friends, so they know my life got crazy while being pregnant with my 4th baby, and then after having him! Yup! I just realized I left off posting in December, just a few weeks before I found out the gender of our surprise bonus baby. Can you believe he is already 1?? And walking??!!

If you followed my blog through 2014 you watched my fitness and health journey in real time. I managed to become the healthiest, fittest me I had ever been! I stayed fit and active through my pregnancy and felt beautiful for the first time in 4 kids, and it was amazing!

Then I had my baby, and he’s awesome sauce, but life with 3 young kids was cray-cray! THEN!! I became a home school mom. THEEENNN!! I started working from home. Not my art, that was more a hobby than a business, but a serious work-from-home-every-day business.

Needless to say, I’m just over a year post partum and my body goals are far from realized. I’m learning to be gentler with myself and I’m in an amazing place mentally, emotionally, and well on my way financially! Those are great goals! I’m super happy with my progress there! But I need to focus on my fitness goals and learn to integrate them. Because let’s be honest, if I wait til I have more time to work on me, I might as well just make a tentative appointment with TLC for the next weight loss surgery show.

One thing I realized in 2014, the daily blogging truly kept me accountable. It helped me to keep track of what I was doing, gave me a reason to exercise, so I could talk about it, gave me a reason to eat healthy, so I could share pictures and recipes.  It’s not about being a famous blogger or bunches of people even reading this, it’s about writing it and being accountable.

So I welcome you to join me!! The posts will be short, I don’t have tons of time to write pages a day! They may even just be a line or 2, but I’m committing to writing a post every weekday (at least).

So without further ado, (because it’s grocery day over here and I’m filling my cart with protein and veggies and kicking out the carbs! Again!) I will leave a couple current pics and officially begin. There is no time like the present, right?

Phillip Liam born June 3, 2015. 8 lbs. 11 oz. and 19.75 inches

The most recent picture of my crew! Faith (6), Liam (1), and Gavin (3)

This is where I am right now. 1 year post baby #4, 220 lbs. and a ridiculously messy house.