New Year's is a perfect time to take a step back and evaluate your life, goals, priorities, health, and fitness. It's a great time to think about an elimination cleanse, adding a green smoothie to your morning routine, cutting back on some of the processed foods in your pantry, or starting a workout routine.
For me, the new year marks the start of a fresh, new 12 months full of endless possibilities and fun things to fill the days, weeks, and months with.
The last few months have been a little stressful, and although I try hard to separate work from my personal life and keep my stress levels low, it's not always doable. Keeping things in perspective helps, and sometimes I just take a mental step back and think "This is not a big deal. Just take a deep breath and switch gears." I have little conversations with myself (hopefully silently :o)) as a way to stay in focus.
I don't usually set New Year's resolutions, but for 2015 I think I will work on a few ones for myself. I would love to hear what your resolutions are, and hopefully one or two are health related ones.
- Continue the Body Beast workout challenge with my husband, but commit to 4 consecutive days each week for at least 90 days. This has been something really fun we have been doing together. We started in November and are somewhat slowly working through all the workouts. It's hard to carve out time that works for both of us. Some days we start at 5am and others days we end with a workout. We have to be flexible by fitting it in where we can in between sore muscles. Even on days we don't really feel like it, we need to do it. I absolutely love strength training and am excited to see myself getting stronger. I never thought I would be able to hold a plank or work on push-ups after my mastectomy surgery. But I am slowly getting there, and it's great to feel strength and endurance.
- Complete a sugar elimination challenge for 21 days (an initiative that PPE will be doing that will eliminate "added" sugars from your diet). I have done this before, and it's a great sugar awareness initiative. It's amazing to see just how many food products have added sugar when you start looking at the labels on your foods.
- Be more organized at home. At work, I am a list maker, and I am typically on top of my game. At home, not so much. I tend to be scatterbrained and forgetful. Chemo brain takes over, and I am not so on my game at home. I find procrastination isn't good for a chemo brain person. I need to be better at doing things in the moment when I think about them, because procrastination turns into forgetfulness.
- Start and maintain a dinner meal plan. Planning my meals with any regularity is so not my personality. I know there is a benefit, and I know my entire family would benefit from a more organized meal plan. I have gotten away from my Sunday meal prep, which means dinners are last minute and quick. Not planning makes it easy to pick up the phone for take-out, which is not ideal when you are trying to eat a clean and healthy diet. Plus, properly planning dinners will ensure we have leftovers for lunches or other days of the week.
- Take time to really just be in the moment. Some days I feel like all I do is run around, or maybe I physically am not running, but my brain is constantly thinking about other things I should be doing. I am a person who sits when I am tired, but rarely just sits and enjoys a cup of coffee at home without opening my laptop or checking emails. It's like I have an inability to relax and just enjoy a good movie or TV show without feeling guilty that I am not doing something else. I need to enjoy life more, and embrace a guilt-free, relaxing time. I am pretty lucky I have time, because there are things like cleaning and laundry that I don't have to do myself. And I will be honest, I rarely go grocery shopping since my husband assumed that responsibility back when we had our daughter and never really gave it back to me :o). So, you would think that all this would free up time, which it does. I just fill it with other things that probably shouldn't take priority to family things I could be doing.
- Start oil pulling at least 5 days a week. I have read and heard all about the great health benefits of oil pulling and I even tried it a few times. If this is something new for you read more here.
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