2021 is really giving 2020 a run for its money. The past couple of months have been some of the MOST trying. To say the least!
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The harder the situation, the further and further away I get from the goals I’ve set. It’s almost like self sabotage! The more I do the things that take me further from my goal, the more I give up and give in to those things that drive me further away. It’s a vicious cycle.
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For instance, letting my sweet tooth dominate my nutrition. I have one treat and then I let myself have all the treats! Then I feel like crap and do it all over again. I skip one workout, next thing I know I skip all the workouts! And the cycle continues.
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Today I decided to start with a renewed sense. I put the past behind me, gave myself some grace, and focused on my new goals. A baby step at a time. Today I chose to start my Day 1 with yoga. Yoga has always been a positive, calming, renewing practice for me. So, I found a comfortable space, pressed play, and completed a VERY imperfect yoga routine. The great thing is, I didn’t care one but it was imperfect. In fact, that’s lit a fire under me to keep working to get back to the calming center I once had.
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Check out one of my favorite, calming yoga sequences on my YouTube channel!

I’m breaking my routine.  I’ve always hunkered down and followed my routine, resisting anything that might cause me to deviate from the norm.  This usually means sitting on the couch and watching my shows.  Anything that I was obligated to do outside of this would give me anxiety.  I’d count down the minutes until I could get home and back on track.  Now, I enjoy doing different things.  And I don’t get upset, or thrown off if it’s not part of the routine.  Dinner in the middle of the week?  Sounds fantastic!  Moving my evening run to a morning run?  No problem!  It is actually a refreshing feeling to be free of my former self.  I never thought of myself as a high maintenance person, but now I’m seeing that on the inside, I really was high maintenance on myself.

I’ve been getting back into my running groove.  Slowly and surely, since injuring myself.  And then a bout of the stomach flu.  I’m not quite back to where I was, but I’m slowly getting there.  I realized, I didn’t post anything about my May race.  This one was a 5k that started at my old high school.  I ran it by myself, but my dad actually came up and watched me start and finish.  That was really special to me.  Then, we went for a huge breakfast.  I also recorded my personal best time in a race making it in under 28 minutes!  I have my June race this weekend.  It’s an obstacle course race that I’m doing with some friends.  It will be really fun and messy!

A quick update on me.  The accident prone, clumsy-ass that I am fell last Sunday while visiting my parents.  I have a micro fracture in my left patella, and a sprained right ankle.  I’m a limping, groaning mess.  I’m not able to run for a couple of weeks, but I hope to be back up and running in time to run my May race.  Fingers crossed.  I’m thinking of signing up for one in Arizona when my sister and I take our Southwest road trip toward the end of the month.  Here’s to a speedy recovery!

So, a topic that I've been meaning to bring up is about some of my health and beauty routines.  Back when I was attempting to rid my life of all unhealthy toxins I experimented with quite a few, interesting techniques. Everything we use on a daily basis, from our beauty routine to our cleaning supplies, is chock full of chemicals and toxins.  Since our skin is the largest organ of our body, and the first to come in contact with these chemicals, you can imagine the overtime our body has to take in order to detox and rid our bodies of these foreign molecules.  Many studies and experiments have been done on this subject and the results are staggering (I won’t go into them at this time, but you can easily google them).  Since I knew my body was working so hard to when I was eating clean, I figured I could help it out a bit by removing a few of these items from my lifestyle.   

For a short time, I did no-poo for my hair wash routine (I know it sounds gross, but google it).  I have since settled on a low-poo hair care routine that is much more manageable.  I’m slowly switching out beauty products and cleaning products to more natural versions (don’t trust the name, READ the ingredients label, people!)  And I went on a totally clean diet at one point.  Well, we all know how that’s going now with my gummy bear diet, and all.  I've actually restrained the sugar monster, some.  It’s a work in progress.  Anyway, I really wanted to become a much healthier person than I’d been.  I've read so much about how “you are what you eat” and so many chemicals in processed food contribute to anxiety and depression (something I know we are all familiar with) and the impact to the overall quality of life.  The main change that I've made and kept is with my dental routine.  I know what you all are thinking, that is a really risky routine to mess around with.  Trust me, I know.  I have an odd obsession with my teeth and I’m fairly proud of them.  So, I really did not want to jack this experiment up.  I believe my mom even said I would have to pay her back for all the dental work she paid to make my teefs look so pretty.

Alright, so you’re probably wondering, what did she change?!  Well, for one, I started making my own toothpaste.  It took a while to get used to, since the marketing and commercial world have convinced us that if something is super sudsy and foamy, then it must not be working.  Well, I hate to break it to you, but those suds and foams and bubbles are most added using chemical ingredients that have a chemical reaction when you use them, the by-product being the glorious lather.  The suds aren't serving any purpose to the effectiveness of the soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. except to invade your body with unnecessary evils that it will later have to work to detox.  Poison.  Why do you think it says to call poison control if ingested?  Not good, y’all.  This is the recipe that I pull from to make my own toothpaste.  Here are the ingredients that I buy from Amazon:

Bentonite Clay
Tea Tree Oil
Peppermint Oil
Himalayan Salt

​And another added bonus?  I save soooooo much money making my own.  With this version, I really just add bentonite clay, peppermint castile soap, and filtered water.  I switch it up each time.  Eventually, you will find your own concoction that you like best.

Okay, so that’s not the end of my dental care routine.  The most important part of my routine is possibly the most difficult to adjust to.  But, man, once you get used to is, you can’t stop.  So, I was always told (along with most Americans) that once your enamel has worn down, chipped, eroded, you can’t replace it.  Well, I’m here to tell you that that is all a bunch of hokey.  Sure you can’t remineralize your teeth if you’re applying harsh chemicals and abrasive crap to them.  I’m sure that’s what the ADA and Colgate would love you to believe.  Have you ever thought about how people kept their teeth clean BEFORE there were blue striped pastes and gels (don’t even get me started on the toxicity of the dyes they add).  No, they did not just let their teeth rot out of their head before reaching adulthood.  They used natural remedies to keep their teeth healthy.  One of these old as time techniques is oil pulling.  I started practicing oil pulling about a year and a half ago, and I've never looked back.  you want to know more about oil pulling, look here.  Or you can google it to find all the interesting, nerdy history stuff about it. Oil pulling is a method of dental and oral hygiene by pulling oil through your teeth.  Take a teaspoon or more of oil (high quality, unrefined oil) and swish it in your mouth for 15-20 minutes.  I know this sounds like torture, but you get used to it after the first week or so. It cleans, strengthens, and is even reported to help your body detox and rid toxins (something I know all of us could use).  If I do it every morning after I wake up.  While the timer is counting down, I pack my lunch, put away dishes, pick out my outfit, and I don’t even realize that I’m swishing.  And it’s not like you have to do the dramatic, forceful swishing, just move the oil around your mouth enough to pull through all of the hidden nooks and crannies that your toothbrush can’t reach.  When you’re done, spit the oil out in the trash can (never the sink!).  Oil pulling actually allows the enamel on your teeth to strengthen and remineralize.  Don’t listen to the lies of “once it’s gone, it’s gone.”  Now, I’m not saying that it will eliminate the need for a root canal or grow back a missing tooth, but I've read that it can strengthen weak teeth and even repair small cavities.  It also whitens your teeth (don’t expect them to whiten like you've dumped bleach or peroxide on them) and freshens breath.  What’s not to love?!

I use a good quality, unrefined coconut oil (you can find it HERE), but I've heard you can use unrefined sesame oil or other oils.  I buy coconut oil by the bucket because I use it for so many things that I will get to in other posts.  Coconut oil is naturally antimicrobial and kills bacteria.  What are cavities?  Tooth damage caused by bacteria eating away at the enamel of your tooth.  So, you all might be wondering what the dentist thinks of all this.  Well, you can imagine how nervous I was at my first appointment after making this switch.  I’m here to tell you and quote my dentist “my, this is one of the cleanest, healthiest mouths I’ve seen.”  I don’t floss, unless I have something stuck in my teeth, because the oil pulling acts like floss moving through your teeth.  It takes them no time at all to clean my teeth (and this is after waiting a bit longer than the recommended 6 months for a checkup). I've had two appointments since I've started this routine and each time he has just raved about the cleanliness of my teeth and I appreciate the no cavity report!  I’m scheduling my third checkup soon.  I will keep everyone posted.

So, there you have it.  I oil pull for 15 minutes every morning, and follow up with a once over with my tooth brush and homemade toothpaste.  I brush again before I go to bed and that’s it!

Okay, so this is just one of my little secrets for living a healthy lifestyle.  I've even gotten my sister hooked on it!

Keeping with my goal for the year, I ran my March 5k.  Actually, this was my second 5k for March, but the first one was unofficial, and I did not register for the race.  Gasp!  I know.  I ran for free.  This particular race is called the Firefly.  It starts at night and everyone wears glow sticks and flashy lights and runs the race.  I ran with a couple of friends who are trying to get back into the running lifestyle after taking some time off.  We had a great time despite the crowds, late start time, and my belly full of Tex Mex.  Note to self, DO NOT eat a big meal before a race no matter how long you think you have to digest.  Heartburn city!  Here are some pictures from the race!

I’ve made a point to get to know the new me and begin doing things that the old me never could or would have done.  One of the activities that I’ve picked up is running.  I always have flashbacks of the one time I joined my high school cross-country team because my friends all did it.  I walked home sobbing, feeling sorry for myself, and convinced that my body was not designed to run.  Then, I tried again after I broke my leg in 2010.  Not having the use of my leg really brought me to the realization of how much being handicapped flat out sucks!  I gained a whole new outlook on not having the use of a limb, as well as the shocking revelation of how rude people really are to those who suffer from a handicap.  Anyway, I digress…

Since 2010, I attempted to pick up the running habit, though never making it longer than 5 minutes straight running or the equivalent of a quarter mile.  It’s not that I didn’t possess the fitness level, even being extremely overweight, I still maintained a regular fitness regimen.  I kept trying, even after I picked back up my smoking habit that I’d kicked to the curb in 2009.  Since I was never able to regulate my breathing when running, the smoker’s cough further impeded my attempts at running. 

After I lost 50 pounds through diet and exercise, I came to the conclusion that the weight had been holding me back all of those years and I should have no problem running.  Lo, and behold, I still could not run.  I’d practice every day and just couldn’t break through to that “other side”.  I’d see women gracefully jogging down the street with a smile on their face, healthy glow, and not an ounce of sweat dripping from them.  Oh, how I loathed those women.  So, I quickly told myself that little lie, “I just wasn’t made to run” when in reality, I couldn’t break through the mental block that kept me from succeeding.

Since living a healthier lifestyle, I’ve learned a lot about myself.  I’ve found that I always made excuses, never giving it my all at anything I ever attempted.  Whether it was school, or running, I would complete a task to the point of “just good enough” or spend more time creating the illusion that I had worked diligently on something without actually learning, excelling at, or retaining anything I’d just done.  I would make excuses and push back until I could get out of accomplishing something to my full potential.  What I didn’t know was that all of those years of lying to myself, manipulating situations, and deceiving others, I was really cheating myself.  I did it out of fear of failure.  Fear of realizing I’m not good enough.  And fear of seeing what I’m truly capable of doing.  Well, no more excuses!

I’m not sure when or how I started running, again.   I don’t remember lacing up my shoes, or telling myself to start running.  I think I was just out for one of my walks around the neighborhood to get a little bit of cardio in.  I think I just started chopping and realized that I had been running for about ten minutes. I guess the frustration I had for not living my life to the fullest got me going. The next day, I hit the trail by my house.  When I hit the ten minute mark, I assessed how I felt and told myself to go for another ten.  Before I knew it, I’d run for two miles.  I broke through that mental barrier that told me to stop after a couple of minutes.  Now, I’m not saying that I look like those glowing, smiling women.  In fact, I’m a dripping mess, with a red face, swollen feet, and painful grimace.  That really doesn’t matter to me.  The fact that I am out there running, and accomplishing one of the most difficult physical and mental feats of my entire life is what keeps me going.

I’ve decided to run a 5k every month of this year.  I think this will be a good way to hold me accountable and get me out meeting people and experiencing life.  I will make a point to update the blog with a description and picture of each one.  I’ll give you a hint to the one for this month, it includes donuts :D

I’d like to share this quote from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: The Story of Success” since it really hit home for the theme of this post:

​"Those three things - autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us."