Happy New Year, Everyone! I hope you all had safe and happy holidays with your friends and family. I enjoyed being in Indianapolis for Christmas. I laid low for New Years Eve, but it was nice to hang out in my new place with my cat, Leo, who finally moved in with me.
I'm not going to lie, I was pretty happy to see 2013 go away. It was a difficult year with deaths and breakups, but I have to remember the positives that came out of the year. I moved to Denver, I survived off of freelancing and part time work, I've started volunteering, I had a transformative month at Green Mountain, and I started on this wonderful new journey of self awareness and real food enlightenment. (I don't know what that means exactly, but I thought it sounded good.) What I am trying to say is that I have begun to see myself and the way I treat my body differently. I have stopped eating dairy and fried foods because I finally realized how terrible I felt after eating them. I have starting making my meals from scratch. Real, whole, natural foods. And who can forget that I RAN 3.1 MILES IN A ROW! Without passing out!
I am excited to start 2014 with this all of this knowledge to back me up. I can start to see success in my future in terms of my health. I was too scared to admit that I was in a relationship with someone I love dearly that was unfortunately never going to pan out how I wanted or needed. Being a month and a half removed from the breakup, I am still quite sad, but there is a glimmer of light ahead. I can now see how stressed I was making myself by not being completely honest with myself about the relationship. There are things in life that I want that the relationship just wasn't going to give me. Beyond my sadness, I do feel the weight of my stress lifted. I know stress can hold back my efforts at a healthier life style. I have seen first hand how stressful jobs have added pounds to my body, so I am ready to move forward with my life with my focus 100% on me.
My New Year's resolution this year is to be kind to myself and not feel sorry for myself. I am very aware these days that the moment I allow myself to feel sorry for myself, I sink into depressing thoughts and turn to food for comfort. I know I don't have any regrets and I know that I can change things that get me down. When these thoughts creep in, I plan to stop myself and think of something positive or go do something positive.
As for my eating and exercise habits... I want to try to lower my carbohydrate intake as I know carbs just make me hungrier and for my body type, they just go to my middle. This includes being more aware of how much sugar I am eating. I won't cut carbs or sugars out completely as I don't believe in deprivation, but I want to be more sensible about them. And good news... I have been on a strict Only Carbs and Sugars diet since the breakup so my home is almost exhausted of all tempting foods. I have signed up for Nature Box, which is a monthly box mailed out full of natural, healthy snacks and foods. I have found that I have a hard time figuring out what to snack on these days, so hopefully this box will help me out. I will report when I get my first box. I am also figuring out ways to eat at home as a single person again. Yesterday I cooked two large chicken breasts in my crock pot with some chicken broth then I cut it all up and put it in my fridge. For dinner last night, I just cooked up some rice and added some of the chicken. For lunch today, I added some chicken to my Walnut, Goat Cheese salad with raspberry vinaigrette. So now I have lots of chicken cooked and ready to be added to many different meals. Makes life a little easier. I also plan to up my seed and nut intake. I have enjoyed them on my salads this year and I know they would make good snacking options.
During this cold winter, I plan to try out some workout videos at home that I have found on both Netflix and Amazon Instant and there is a gym at my new apartment building that I will try out. But really, I just want to get outside and walk. I'm not up for running again just yet, but getting out and taking a walk is a great way for me to recharge and get fresh air. Thankfully, it is usually sunny here in Denver, so it makes getting outside very enticing. While I haven't walked much with my Charity Miles app this last month, I still plan to reach my goal of 2000 meals earned in a year.
Finally, I just want to thank everyone for your support during this whole year. I love getting comments from my family, friends, and my Green Mountain pals. This blog has really helped me to work out my thoughts and feelings as well as help me to stay motivated. I am a lucky person with lots of people who care about me. I am super excited for many visitors coming to visit me soon. My friends Jenny and Kevin will be in town for work in a week so we plan to meet for dinner. My friend Julia is coming from D.C. after that for a week and I can't wait to show her around Colorado. Then my friend Laura from Indy is coming to accompany me to the show Mama Mia using tickets my parents got me for Christmas. And finally, my sister Ellie is coming out in February from Boston the week of Valentine's Day and my birthday. It is also the anniversary of her boyfriend's passing so it will be wonderful to be together to support each other during the hard week.
I am excited for what 2014 can bring. I hope to continue my journey of self improvement and I hope to be in a better place physically, emotionally, and mentally by the end of the year.
