Coming back from my hiatus!

Today's theme is... PUSHEEN! I just bought a pusheenicorn stuffy off amazon as a present to myself. I guess I'm on a pusheen kick.

There have been some changes in my life recently, mainly that my boyfriend and I finally split up. It was a long time coming and it needed to happen. I feel really sad and lonely, its hard to be alone without having someone there all the time.

 At least now I feel like I can take some time to focus on myself and get my life a little bit more organized. I want to get fit and lose weight, since I've been back in school I've gained 5 pounds or so. I haven't been working out and my eating habits have been less than stellar. Well, I am ready to start turning that all around. I really lost myself there for a couple years, and I want to become the best possible version of myself that is possible.

My college education isn't really conducive to a healthy lifestyle. From stress, to late night studying, to working two jobs, to teaching yoga, to volunteering with a kids after-school program, to making time to perform, my life is crazy hectic. But I know that I can still figure out a way to eat healthy and make room for exercise, even amidst all the chaos. My philosophy is to go gentle on myself. Take baby steps. Don't try to change everything all at once. I have a long ways to go as far as personal development, my problem is that I always try to fix everything at once. Ultimately this results in a big disaster, I get overwhelmed and I give up. I tend to stress eat and the pressure to get straight A's in school is extremely stressful. Going to college for a bachelor of science is pretty difficult. Between anatomy, chemistry, organic and biochem, and biology, the material is pretty strenuous. I need to get straight A's so that I can get a dietetic internship when I graduate.

My issue is that I really have terrible time management skills. I get distracted easily and often. My living spaces get cluttered and I don't plan ahead sometimes. I wait until the last minute to study and then cram for a few stressful days. I need to learn to spread out my studying into smaller blocks of time, so that I don't get distracted. Then when the test comes around, I won't be freaking out.

As far as working out and eating well goes, I need to just take it one step at a time. I made a list of my goals for where I would like to be at in three months. To get myself there, I am just going to take it slow. For instance, today I finally had a night to myself. I just got done with two exams this week and nothing is really due soon coming up so I wanted to take the night off from school. I cleaned my room. Like, I mean I really cleaned it. Compared to what it was like in here before, the place looks amazing. It feels really good to be in here. And I think having clean spaces is vital to keeping a clear, clutter-free head as well. This was an important first step in making some changes and I feel really good about it.

Although I didn't eat great tonight, I decided to be happy about the things that I did accomplish today and forgive myself for eating pizza. I really did enjoy the pizza. It was Annie's broccoli spinach pesto pizza and I put black olives on it and dipped it in marinara sauce. Throughout the night, I ate the whole thing haha. I don't care either. Life is too short without pizza. For time time being. Today, I felt the strong desire to have some and so I did. Perhaps in the future, I will decide to cut cheese out of my diet completely.

But honestly, I am focused on my fitness first and foremost. Which is why I will be attending hot yoga tomorrow and going to soak in the hot tub at the womens club too. I am going to do some hula hooping and yoga as well. I think if I do that much tomorrow, I will feel pretty good about it. Its not too much to ask, and once I make my exercise habits stick in my brain, I will switch over to focus on food. I just want to feel good and get through my day without feeling tired. But I want to eat good food. I want to spend less money on food. I am going to try and make more meals at home, including desserts! I have some cute aprons that need to be worn!

My first nutrition related goal is going to be to drink much more water. I need to be drinking more water, I feel like I am chronically dehydrated all the time. No bueno! I am going to make a conscious effort to drink a little less coffee and drink more water.

So to sum it up, my short-term goals for this week are:
1. get more exercise. do a little more yoga, more hula hooping, and maybe try running once this week
2. drink more water
3. drink less coffee
4. do my homework and reading throughout the week instead of all at once
5. Spend less money on food, cook more meals at home and make my own healthy desserts

I think that will be enough to start off. Wish me luck!!

<3 Kat