Monthly Archives: January 2018

My Word For 2018 (or Time To Be Fearless)

Posted on January 3, 2018 | Comments Off on My Word For 2018 (or Time To Be Fearless)

Most of my posts this week will be all about new year stuff. A new year brings a lot of new beginnings, and this is another one. This is all about my word for 2018! I’ve been doing a word of the year for a few years now and I always try to pick something that seems really positive and powerful. Those are attributes that I know I need to work on and the words I pick seems to be things that I feel like I was lacking the year before.

Last year, after I had picked my word for the year, I found a bracelet from MantraBand that had the word on it. This year, I knew I’d want a bracelet so I decided to use the MantraBand website as my inspiration for what words I wanted to consider. I had a few different ones that seemed to be really perfect for me and I took time to think about what they all meant to me and what seemed to represent what I wanted to accomplish in 2018. And I finally decided on one just before NYE.

There is so much that I am scared about and I want to work past that. And the word fearless works so well for so many different aspects of my life. I know that being fearful can hold me back so I want to make sure that I don’t use that as an excuse to not try. This is for sure something I struggle with and I know that working to get beyond it really will be life-changing for me.

I love the idea of being fearless and just going for what I want or what I love. I love the idea that I won’t be second guessing myself or worried that I might do something that can ruin something for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be scared to see what would happen if I take chances in my career, my recovery, or my life.

I know that this isn’t as easy as being a warrior or being strong, but that’s one of the reasons I picked this word. This not only means making a positive change but changing a negative one that I already have in my life. But because it is going to be more difficult to do, I think that means the results are going to be so much more powerful in the end for me. I have the little voices in the back of my head telling me I should be fearful of something or to hold back from trying something new and I need to find a way to make them be quiet. And once my fearlessness is louder than the voices telling me to be fearful, I think that so much will be possible.

I think that I have made a lot of steps in 2017 to being a bit more fearless already. Getting back into the dating word is a huge step and I put myself out there so much. I allowed myself to be hurt which is something I avoided for a long time. It’s tough for me to be fearless with dating and take chances since in my past someone told me that I would never be loved by anyone. I always have a fear that the date that I’m on might be the last date I have the rest of my life. I know that the chances of that happening are pretty slim, but it’s very tough to believe it when someone told me otherwise for so much of my life.

But if I didn’t put myself out there, I wouldn’t have had the positive things as well. And I know that I want more of that feeling in my life. It’s scary to have faith in yourself and believe that you are going to get good things to come your way, but I’ve finally started to experience that and I know that I am worthy of the good and that the bad are the rare things I have to deal with. I don’t deserve the bad, but sometimes I have to weed through those to find the good. And I’m no longer as fearful of the bad because I know the good is out there.

When I got my MantraBand bracelet, the packaging has a little blurb about what the word means. And I love the one that they have for fearless.

To be fearless is to do what scares you, to take a chance, to make a change. To love again. And to get back up after you fall. To be fearless is to know your fears, but never let them stop you.

This is so perfect. I know what scares me. It’s getting beyond that and doing things anyway that I need to work on. I’m really hoping that this year I can learn how to become more fearless so I can see what possibilities are really out there for me.

So here’s to what will hopefully be my year of being fearless and seeing what amazing things can happen to me when I stop being scared and start living without fear!

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My 2018 Goals (or Pushing Myself And Being Gentle With Myself)

Posted on January 2, 2018 | 1 comment

I think that my goal setting for each year always takes an interesting twist. I get so ambitious with what I want to do and then I get so fearful that I won’t be able to accomplish them. I know that not succeeding at every goal is ok, but I do also like to set myself up for success. So when I was thinking about my goals for this year, I did a lot of reflection on what has worked in the past and what hasn’t worked as well. And I think I created a pretty good set of goals for the year.

My first goal for 2018 is a Orangetheory one. I like setting a workout goal for the year because it helps me stay on top of things. And when I have an annual goal, I can break it down and know what my monthly goal needs to be as well. Last year I did pretty amazing with my workout goal so I want to push that just a bit further. I want to do 199 workouts in 2018. I think it should be possible because I’m pretty much doing 4 workouts a week every week. I need to make sure that I do that again this year. And there’s a chance I might have to have a few 5 workout weeks to make up for things. But I know what I need to be doing each month to accomplish this so I can keep checking in with myself as the months go on this year.

My next goal is to find at least 1 5K race to do. Neither of my regular races are probably happening this year, and I don’t want to have a year that I don’t do at least one race. It’s been a long time since I haven’t had any races in a year and I don’t want to make that this year. It was weird enough only having 1 race last year. I would like to try to have 2 races, but I am picky on what races I do and since I have no clue what will connect with me I don’t want to set myself up too much for that to not work out. Hopefully I’ll have more than 1 race, but I’m going to make sure that there is at least 1.

The next goal could be related to either of the previous goals. I want to set a new PR with my mile time. It’s much more likely that it will happen at Orangetheory when we have a mile challenge than in a race where I need to pace myself, but you never know when it will happen. I know what my mile PR is and I know it will be very difficult to beat it. But I think that having that as a goal will help me work harder on my running so that the goal is much more possible at some point this year.

Next is something I also had last year. I want to get my debt down to a number that is a goal in my head. I missed hitting this goal last year but I also had some financial setbacks (mainly having my hours cut back significantly at one of my jobs) that I think really contributed to me missing the goal. But now with my current financial status I think I can hit that goal and maybe even get a bit further than that. It won’t be easy, but I’m really going to try. I know that no matter what, I will get my debt down more and that is always a victory. But I’d really like to hit this goal this year!

And finally, I set a recovery related goal. It’s always tough for me to pick a recovery related goal because this is where I can really set myself up to feel like I failed. As much as I’d like to say that I want to be in recovery by the end of 2018, that is not realistic. And the baby steps in recovery aren’t easy to measure (or at least, not easy for me to measure on my own). So when I was thinking about what I wanted to do in my eating disorder recovery this year, all I could think about is how I can’t just keep doing what I’m doing. I need to make changes to see changes. And that idea inspired my goal. I want to try new recovery methods and ideas this year. I don’t know what methods and ideas they may be, but I want to be more open to new ideas and see what sticks. Trying new recovery methods doesn’t mean that they will work, but I won’t know unless I try which is the idea of this goal.

So there are my goals for 2018. I think that I’ve set some things that I should be able to do and things I will need to strive for. And I can’t wait to see how these end up getting accomplished this year and I know that before I know it I will be writing my post updating you all on how it went!

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The End Of My 2017 Workouts (or Finishing With A Whimper And Not A Bang)

Posted on January 1, 2018 | Comments Off on The End Of My 2017 Workouts (or Finishing With A Whimper And Not A Bang)

This post isn’t going to be like my typical workout recaps. It was an interesting week of workouts for sure, but not at all what I thought it would be. But I am still proud on how I finished out my workouts for 2017!

My first workout of the week was Wednesday. Monday was Christmas so the studio was closed. And Tuesday they had a limited schedule and all the classes were during times that I worked that day. So Wednesday was my first workout since the Saturday before. That was a long break between workouts and I didn’t like it. I know that I’m going to work on not letting that happen again if I can help it.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we had 4 blocks on the treadmill and 4 blocks on the floor, with all blocks being 5 minutes. All the treadmill blocks were a similar format starting with a push to all out, then a walking recovery, and ending with a push, base, all out pace. For the first two blocks, I was able to run the push and all out paces and was very happy with that. But I got a bit tired and wasn’t feeling my best (a preview of things to come) and ended up walking the last two blocks.

On the floor we had 3 blocks on the floor and one block on the rower. For all the floor blocks we had 2 moves. The first block was power jacks with shoulder work and knee tucks. The next block was low rows on straps and knee tucks (technically they were supposed to be pikes but I can’t do those). And the last block was power pull ups on the straps and rotation sit ups. And when we went to the rowers we had the same pattern of what was done on the treadmill.

My other workouts this past week were on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (I’m also doing a workout today which will make 4 workouts in a row). But none of those 3 workouts went the way I thought they would. On Thursday, I started to experience some pretty horrible PMS symptoms. My body does not react well to hormone fluctuations and that is why I went on birth control when I was 18. But since I can’t have any hormonal birth control now, I have to deal with my natural cycles and the issues that come with them.

While I do have medications to take to manage these symptoms, those don’t always work. And from Thursday evening through now I have been dealing with some extreme nausea and debilitating cramps. I am so lucky I work from home because I don’t think I could go to a job right now. I’m going to keep working with my doctors to see what new medications I can take or what other options we can try, but I also know that this may be my reality from now on and I need to learn to deal with it. I can’t let 25% of my life be wasted.

So even though I was feeling pretty awful on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I still went to work out. I couldn’t walk on the treadmill because that made my nausea worse, so I stuck to the bike. Rowing was difficult and I couldn’t even work half as hard as I normally can. And the floor work was sometimes ok, but if I had to lay down or do something in a plank pose I couldn’t always do it.

I don’t really have a recap for any of these workouts because I don’t exactly remember what I did and I didn’t really do anything that great. I didn’t even really sweat at all on my workout on Sunday. But what I’m trying to focus on is that I was consistent and went to class. If this is what things will always be like each month (and I hope that isn’t the case), I need to learn how to deal with it.

But even though my workouts for most of this past week weren’t that great, I still ended 2017 on a great note! I managed to do 196 workouts for the year!

I love that I went beyond my goal for the year because I feel like things weren’t as good this year as they have been in the past. I dealt with a few different injuries plus all the hormonal issues I’ve been having. But this is proof that I did put hard work into my workouts! And even if my last workout of 2017 was not my best one, I’m glad that I was able to work out with some amazing coaches and other class members! Have great people in class with me helps me focus on something better than how I’m feeling and keeps me motivated.

And now I feel ready to start my 2018 workouts and see what those may bring!

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