Starting my Journey to Becoming Healthier

Being on this journey to self-improvement… I have been going through all of the aspects of self-improvement. I have been working really hard on the Mental, Spiritual, Emotional, Social, and Moral aspects, but I was hitting a roadblock when working on the physical part. I know what I should do and what I have to do, it was just hard because I didn’t know where to start. Today I want to share how we are becoming healthier.

A part of me was just going to go cold turkey on everything, but I knew I wouldn’t last going that route and I needed to set myself up for success in the long run. We started with subtle changes. When I say we I mean my fiance Mike and I. I always had discussions with Mike about how we aren’t getting any younger and we need to change our lifestyle to suit the life we want down the road.

What prompted this journey to being healthier?

Why do I need to do this?

I have written a post before about how I found out I have PCOS. Once diagnosed things just started to make sense. I have tried multiple diets before and I am pretty active. I mean I’m not super into fitness, but we love long hikes in nature, playing hockey, and riding bikes/rollerblading. Mike is waaaayyy more active than I am, but having PCOS makes it difficult to lose weight and I needed to lose weight not only for myself but I would HAVE to in order to have a baby. My doctor won’t do anything until I lose 10% of my body weight.

It was one of those things that I wasn’t sure if I wanted kids, but once finding out I had PCOS which makes it very difficult to get pregnant. I have been dealing with this for over 3 years now and have decided I would like at least one child of my own. I need to spend the rest of 2020 losing weight and making this change a permanent lifestyle.

Why does Mike need to do this?

As for Mike, he came to me a couple of months ago and said how great he felt after having a smoothie rather than an energy drink. He wanted to start making them at home because the one he got cost 9 dollars and he wasn’t going to pay that every time he wanted one. We spent the money to buy fruits from our local farmers’ market. We spent about 25 dollars and made 30 smoothie packs for the freezer.

This is great for him because now I can toss in some other greens in it to help him get more vitamins because he hates vegetables. The only ones he will eat are corn, green beans, and peas from cans. He DOES NOT LIKE fresh vegetables.

Mike is getting older and he said it has been bothering him lately that I showed him this video of Gianluca Vacchi. He is 52 years old and has the body of a 20-year-old. That is what Mike wants to look like when he is Gianluca’s age. Mike has some issues though, He had a neck fusion in 2012, and has a problem with his rotator cuff right now. He is always somehow, someway hurting himself. Although He is active, he doesn’t take care of himself the way he should.

Hell, neither of us are and neither of us is getting any younger. We both just need to work on becoming healthier.

How are we starting?

As I said earlier, I thought about going cold turkey and Mike thought the same thing, but we don’t have lots of money to just get rid of the food we have and buy all new healthier food. We were going to do our own health journeys separately. He got a gym membership at Planet Fitness and I was going to do at-home workouts, but ultimately decided to come together. He asked me if I wanted to join him at the gym at first I was like “uuuuugggggggghhhhh, I don’t wanna”

I love Mike and he asked me to go. So I went. Let me tell you throwing on a chill upbeat playlist and walking on the treadmill watching HGTV just fucking cleared my mind. You know how last week I was talking about being mentally and emotionally exhausted… This little workout helped so much. Those endorphins man…

Eating habits

So now that we have the gym, next on our list is our eating habits. We have the chips, the cereal, the Easter candy, and the mango habanero coconut ice cream. We are going to eat it but in moderation. One scoop of ice cream instead of Mike filling the bowl. Like tonight I had just a couple of spoonfuls of ice cream. Not a lot to overindulge, but just enough to hit the sweet spot. This seems to be working and we now have each other to bounce off of and having that accountability really helps.

Staying hydrated

This has been hard for me. I don’t like the taste of plain water unless it’s super effin cold. Mike drinks water all day every day at work but reaches for the soda most of the time at home. We like our Dr. Pepper Cream Soda and Orange Vanilla Coke. However, we are reaching for them less with subtle changes. I only put a certain amount of those drinks in the fridge. 2 for me and 2 for Mike. I have put more bottled water in the fridge for now till we get a filter for the sink. We started buying the sparkling flavored water from Walmart. Mike hates it, but Mikayla and I love it. It’s like drinking a soda, but it’s water. My favorite is Pineapple coconut.

Give me some rum to go with it, man! JK not really though. I would try it.

Find a buddy

I know this one may no be easy for all and I am lucky to have a partner who is here to help me and I can help him. Having a person who you can vent about your frustrations or how you are feeling about working out and eating healthy. They listen to you and you listen to them.

Find someone you know won’t make you feel bad if you slip up, but someone who encourages you to forget that it happened and move on. Slip-ups will happen. You are changing the life you have lived for so many years. It will not go perfect you have to retrain your mind and habits. It will be hard when you start creating new habits.

Accountability and motivation

Having that workout buddy really helps with accountability and motivation, but you can’t solely rely on them. You also need to put in the work when it comes to becoming healthier. Although Mike and I are workout buddies I don’t expect him to always be the person to suggest going to the gym. He kind of works out while at work lifting cones and signs. I need to take it upon myself to do those home workouts just to put in the extra effort for my own damn self.

Your buddy is there to help, not to be your crutch. You show them you are motivated for yourself and they will do the same and then you both are motivating each other just by doing what you set your mind to.

Becoming healthier will not be easy

Changing your lifestyle after you have been living a certain way for a long time is rough. It can be done, but it is not easy. Start off slow with subtle changes nothing too shocking to your body. You don’t want to send yourself down a path of withdrawal and just give up.

It’s okay to have the cookie, it’s okay to have the cake. Just in moderation. Don’t deprive yourself of the things you love, just get a better relationship with yourself and food.

Have a better relationship with food and exercise

Growing up my mom ate whatever she wanted when she wanted and that is how I was raised. I have a horrible relationship with food because of that. Always labeled the fat chick and it was hard to lose weight or want to lose weight since everyone around me just ate whatever.

I knew I was getting heavier but couldn’t bring myself to change my ways when I was old enough to buy my own food. Oftentimes, I would eat feel bad for eating it and just beat myself up for being weak. I made myself feel unloveable because of my weight. I had all of these negative thoughts because I was fat. Lazy and unmotivated.

My mom wasn’t active at all. I joined the volleyball team in high school to be active and social. I had to quit the same day I made the team because my mom didn’t want to take me to practice. The same thing happened when I tried out for Colorguard made the team and had to quit. All my attempts to be active, make friends, and become healthier were shot down.

Don’t let anything stop you from becoming healthier

I shouldn’t have let that stop me but I did. Just accepting the fact I was meant to be fat. It doesn’t bother me if I am a little thick. I just know carrying all this extra weight is not good for me, my bones, and my muscles. I know I have health issues because of it. Find the why and make that your motivation. The thought of a mini Mike & Michele running around. I want my own child. I should have done this journey sooner, but with my PCOS symptoms and the medication they put me on I had side effects so they took me off of it. So I just gave up for a year and a half.

If I would have stuck with it. I could have been pregnant by now and that hurts my heart. I made that my WHY. It will always be my why until it happens and then after it does, my why will be to stay healthy to see our kids grow up and live their lives. I want to be around a LOOOOOOONNNNGGG time.

A little recap for becoming healthier

Figure out your why and make it something personal not just I wanna lose weight. If you put more of a personal reason behind it you will want to stick to it more.

Get a gym membership if you want to, if you cant afford it don’t be discouraged there are a lot of workouts on youtube. (Go join my Facebook group I will be posting my favorite at-home videos over there)

Change your eating habits slowly. Incorporate new ways to eat healthier each week and eat the sweets, but in moderation. Create a better relationship with food and think of it as fuel for your body. What you put into it is what you will get out of it.

Drink the damn water. They say to drink half your weight in water. Let’s say you weigh 200lbs you would drink 100 ounces of water a day. If a bottle of water is 16.9oz you would have to drink almost 6 bottles of water a day. I tried it and it’s a lot harder than it sounds, but work slow you will get up to it.

Find a workout buddy. If you cant again head over to the Facebook Group. I will be your buddy. I will talk with you if you need to and I will post motivation and share what I am doing so you guys can keep me accountable. Just know it won’t be easy, but it is so worth it.

Join us for this journey. If you are interested I created a weight loss tracker inspired by my favorite show Doctor Who check out the freebies tab to sign up for our email list to get exclusive access to all the worksheets I make. You can download one or all of them. Go check out what I have.

Until next time, have a great day!