Healthy Living

Since I wrote this post last week, I've really increased my efforts to adopt the lifestyle I want. I think blogging about what I'm working on is a great reminder to continue to work on these things!

In case you forgot, here's what I'm trying to incorporate into my life:

1. daily green monsters

2. yoga

3. more water

4. less processed foods

5. multivitamin and probiotics daily

(btw, this is a helpful article on the different types of probiotics and what they do)

Right now, this is what it looks like... on a really good day:

Get up. Drink a glass of water. Do some slow, gentle yoga to get my blood flowing. Make my green monster. I'll drink them at any point in the day, but I find that I feel best when I drink them in the morning. Eat a little bit of granola. Then, later in my day, I do an hour-long yoga workout (or part of an hour-long workout). I take my multivitamin and probiotics in the evening, and I try to make my meals at home... which is a lot easier to do when our kitchen is clean!

It's funny how all aspects of your life can really work and flow together. If one area is out of whack, all areas can be out of whack. This has been especially true for me lately. And sometimes it really freaks me out. It makes me feel really pressured to keep everything running smoothly and perfectly. And that leaves me feeling overwhelmed, which usually leads to me becoming inactive in almost everything. Right now, making my health a top priority seems to be helping in all areas of my life.

This week, a couple things clicked for me. It occurred to me that most of my thoughts are stressful thoughts. I can be thinking about putting moisturizer on my face before I go to bed, and that leads to, "Oh crap. I'm almost out of moisturizer. I need to buy more. Ugh, but it's expensive. I hope we have the money. Maybe I'm using it too quickly. I suck." Or I can be thinking about how I'd like to use a peach in my green monster, and that leads to, "Shoot. We've had those peaches for a few days now. I should have put that last one in the refrigerator. It's going to be moldy. Crap, why did I forget??! I suck."

UMMMMM, no thank you!!! No wonder I feel like I'm falling apart physically. I live in a stress bubble! And stress is a MAJOR factor in health issues. So anyway, this realization made me think about how you try to focus on your breath when you're practicing yoga. It occurred to me that I can do that in other moments too. When stress-y, negative thoughts start to creep in, I can slow down, breathe, and focus. I can literally breathe those thoughts out. It takes discipline, and I am certainly not the most disciplined person, but I'm really trying. I'm trying by doing all of these things, and I'm trying by being more gracious with myself. If I keep going, I'll get there, and where I'm at today is where I'm at today. And that is OKAY.