Tuesday 24 June 2014

The end of the road.

What a long hiatus in blogging. 
One might think that the author of this blog is negligent and apathetic.
Perhaps this is true in many ways.
However, I should share, there have been many thoughts that have kept me back from this particular form of expression. 


First of all, I have REALLY been enjoying the work of a dear friend. Barb Janicek is an incredibly gifted researcher and writes so beautifully about fitness trends, reviews products and explores the hills and valleys of the weight loss journey. With that kind of talent on the board, I have been happy to take a step back and be a reader, not a writer. Read her stuff here, it's good I promise : http://www.myguttellsme.com/ 

Next, I have been working A LOT - I began selling Epicure recently (3rd job on the table for those who might be keeping track). If you know the products you will know that they really align well with my journey to "health" - with food making up more than 80% of the results we experience in fitness, preparing meals quicker, eating healthy and ENJOYING food has been wonderful. If you are an Epicure junkie like me, or you'd like to know more, check out my website (or shoot me off an email and let me give you my quick commercial, I promise I'm not a pushy sales woman, just a passionate lover of knowing what is in my food). http://aliciabecker.myepicure.com/

(Here's my one and only flashy plug) Ask me about: 

-Cooking a juicy delicious chicken breast or fish fillet in 2 minutes
-Healthy, AFFORDABLE, natural, low sodium, gluten free, nut free alternatives to grocery store products you use every day.
-How to get a free shopping spree!!


Finally, I have struggled over the last few months with the continued emotive, drag myself through the gutter kind of experience of blogging my journey while I live in the valleys. How helpful is it for you to continue to hear about my bad days (or weeks, or months)? How helpful is it for me to express my goals here on these pages when I so often miss the mark (read: unrealistic expectations I set for myself)? My psyche has taken a beating, my own doing, because I have often not had the will power or the desire to meet my own targets. It's been a long journey the last few months, of self discovery and learning to live "in my own skin." 

They say when you turn 30 you finally get it. You learn to love yourself and you stop caring what other people think. I've been dreaming of that day for YEARS. I would love to say it just happens, and that when you wake up on the day after your 30th birthday your whole perspective changes. That's not true though. 

What is true? (Gosh I love lists)

1. After 30 years of living with myself I've realized that I often allow the small voices to speak most clearly, and they're mean little assholes.

2. After 7 years of being more intentional about my health and fitness I've realized that I need to be content at EVERY moment, wherever I am or I will live in a pattern of self hatred and disappointment. I need to learn to be me in EVERY body, EVERY size and in EVERY situation rather than allow the small voices to tell me that I'm less than okay.  The last 7 years have been a journey in, "I'm almost done" - implying that I'm not fully me yet. I'm fully me, whether I'm a size 12 or a size 6. 


3. I am obsessed with indulgence. I desire over-stimulation and over-indulgence and I am killing myself slowly by allowing that obsession to rule me more often than my will. (This is a hard one. Over-indulgence is okay every once and awhile, but lately - again - I find myself filling any sort of emotional void in my life with stimulants that do not include exercise and tasty healthy food. It doesn't help that my life is in hyper-drive all of the time, it's one of my greatest triggers. I work hard, therefore I deserve a treat. Un-sustainable, un-healthy and un-productive habits are born from such sentiments).

4. After a few weeks of thinking like this I've realized that I've got a LONG way to go until change really sticks. Dangit. 

The drive to move myself forward has been lacking so much the last few months, but I think that this new big of self-understanding launches me on a new trajectory. I can no longer consider myself an ugly lump on the way to being beautiful. I need to claim what beauty I have and allow myself to believe that it is worth sharing or at least living in. I need to coax MYSELF out of the dark and into the light and I need to stop blogging about being healthy and actually just DO it. 

So. I believe this is the end of the road.
I may be wrong, but I'm usually not... (just ask Cliff)

To all of you who are with me on this fitness journey, be encouraged - because if you're on the journey at all you are doing great things. I have LOVED hearing your stories and reading your comments. If anything has encouraged me to keep going it is seeing the progress and the hard slugging work of all of you!

The community of people who have read this blog has been so supportive and caring, and for that I Thank You. Please don't be strangers, walking the journey alone is so isolating, but walking it together with all of you has been my greatest joy. 


Keep moving ;) 

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