True Confessions

How is everyone's wellness by the week going? I stuck to the drinking more water each day last week, and I must say it feels good just to know that you're doing something good for yourself!  This week, turning in early and establishing a bedtime routine. This one is different for me since I work until 0330 four nights a week. But I'm still applying the suggestion. Immediately upon getting home, I wash my face, and do my whole bedtime routine, then I wind down as I watch tv or read a book. I used to do it the other way around. I'd wind down and waste time for hours, then get ready for bed, frequently not getting to bed until around 7am. I found the previous two nights that by getting in a bedtime mood sooner, then unwinding I'm almost always asleep by 5, and I wake earlier and more refreshed. Good times :)

Now on to the full disclosure. This week I'm also starting something else in the way of being healthy and a whole person. I'm doing an herbal cleanse in conjunction with a healthy eating training plan. It's not a diet, and it's not one of those crazy 'drink only juice for a week' things. It's eating 5-6 small meals a day packed with fresh fruits, vegetables, turkey, chicken, fish, and healthy fats. And the cleanse portion entails a fiber drink with vitamins and probiotics. The first time I remember struggling with my weight and body image was in 5th grade. The truly sad part is that looking back I can't think of a single one of my girlfriends that didn't battle with their body image in some way or another. There were periods of time in middle and high school where I would not eat a single solitary thing during the week days. I was busy enough with school and after school activities that I thought I could get away with it as long as I ate on the weekends when I was spending time with my family. There were periods of time when I would eat nothing but carrots, and bring lettuce sandwiches to school. I had friends that ate nothing but the occasional bowl of rice. And ya know what, we were all beautiful girls! Clearly, we weren't quite healthy, but an outsider would not be able to justify our 'need' for extreme dieting. Thankfully, we've all become healthy beautiful young women. Yes, we're thirty and I'm still calling us young.

My attitudes toward my body image and the need to diet to get my weight under control have continued. I've tried almost every diet out there, unable to dissociate the way I look from my self-worth.  It's been a long road, but over the last few years I've been slowly able to accept myself for what I am. Self-perceived shortcomings and all.  I am what I am. I vowed to stop dieting and have worked instead on adopting a healthy lifestyle.  Even now for the last few months, while I've worked on everything else there are days when all I eat is a couple bananas, or an apple. Or a box of mac 'n cheese. Or a few cheetohs. And it's not because of the body issues so much, it's because I hate grocery shopping, and putting together homemade meals and planning and shopping for one is a LOT of effort, and I just don't do it. Until now. I deserve to eat real meals, and I am worth grocery shopping for so that I can have healthy foods! I've come to the blissful realization that I am beautiful and worth investing in. It's taken a lot of work to be able to go to friends' weddings and have photographs taken without feeling like I need to starve myself the few months before to look better in the pictures. I've accepted what I am fully. The key difference though is in accepting myself and accepting that I'm worthy and deserving of a healthy lifestyle, and not accepting what is and just giving up and laying on the couch all day. I am worth eating breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. I am worth drinking lots of water. I am worth living in a clean apartment, I am worth eating healthy and fresh fruits and vegetables. I am worth putting makeup on and getting ready for the day, even if I don't have any plans. I am worth clean sheets on my bed, and a scrubbed clean bathtub. And I am worth getting daily exercise and putting only good things in my body. And it's not about loosing or gaining weight. It's about being healthy. Healthy mind, healthy body, healthy soul. And being happy. I deserve it. And so do all of you. So let's keep on with the wellness by the week challenge, and adapt whatever you need to in your life to obtain a healthy body, mind, and soul. We're worth it!