Tag: nature
12 months later…
Sometimes, I don’t feel as energetic or as pain free as I’d like to be now, even after being diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylitis. Then I remember where I was just one year ago! I am so thankful for the improvements and positive changes that I’ve had over that time.
I started recording my walking and workouts on the app Map My Walk in June 2018. How do I know this??? LOL I looked it up yesterday because I went walking at one of my favorite local places. And it was FAST; well fast for me. I looked at the app to check whether I had ever recorded a mile pace that fast.
And NO I had not! 🤩
Yesterday’s pace was a 23 minute mile. I was listening to music and imagine my surprise when the music diminished and the voice of the app stated the one mile mark with the pace time! I even went back and checked last year’s workouts when I was struggling just to get out of bed. I didn’t have the exact date but I did have a couple of times listed for February and both one mile pace times were over an hour!
AND, I was still walking with the cane then!!! 😧
I am so thankful and grateful for the opportunity to pursue better health and to actually feel better. Days like this are a wonderful reminder of progress. And thank you for rocking with me throughout this journey!
Finding balance
I’m sitting on the beach at a lake in Ohio. As my brother jokes, this has become my new favorite place. 🏖 and in a way, it is. I can get outside, enjoy the sun and disconnect for a bit before going back into the business of everyday life.
And I’m thankful that the beach is only 30 minutes away!
I decided to bring a book today along with my usual snacks. It’s called Body on Fire by Drs. Aggarwal and Rao and I’m already hooked on the first few pages. It goes along perfectly with my desire to find balance, or homeostasis as mentioned in the book. And for me, that’s everything at this point. So many times, I’m going from one thing to the next all day and not resting until it’s time to sleep!
And I’m on a such a mission to regain balance that I recently put in my notice at work without having another job lined up immediately. There’s a travel component that is just too much for me physically as I learn how to manage Ankylosing spondylitis. But the wild thing is that once I made that decision and put in the notice, I started receiving TONS of interview requests; and while that’s a post for a different time, it brings a level of validation that others positively view your skills the way you see your skills but your current place does not.
But, I digress …I am finally saying yes to myself and all that entails. And my yes may look very different from your yes, and that’s okay. Each of us is so unique and it’s time we celebrate our uniqueness in healthy and balanced ways. So as I continue to read, and begin class again next month, I hope to hold this moment to look back on when I don’t always have a moment to pause.
Wishing you all the best from the beach! And check out the book 📖
Less Stress – Wellness Wednesdays
Over the last couple of years, I have purposefully been looking for ways to de-stress. I would only take self care seriously when I went on vacation but that’s not enough to sustain a stress free lifestyle. As variety is the spice of life, below are things that I started incorporating more regularly.
Yoga – I have taken one on one yoga classes to learn how to modify various techniques. The breath work in yoga has helped so much. I even did a yoga workout on PBS this morning that is chair based. It also helps with flexibility concerns so it serves as a win-win.
Massage – love love love to get a massage, especially deep tissue massage. That has helped so much with the arthritis symptoms as well as serving as an outlet to destress.
Prayer – some call it quiet time or contemplation time. This is so essential for me to bring stress down. It helps me to keep life in perspective. I tend to get a little hyper or think “what if’s” and this helps temper those.
Meditation – this is the most recent addition for me. I use a meditation app at night to just relax and breathe. And it helps me to fall asleep. Meditation is a great way to lower your blood pressure too.
Exercise – aerobic exercise is your friend. Walking and hiit workouts are such good ways to just get the stress out of my system. I love being able to just forget about what bothered me before the workout.
Beach. Outdoors. Nature – the ultimate stress reliever! Nature is a such a good way to disconnect from stresses, work, pressure. When it’s nice outside, I try to get out almost every day. Reconnecting with the earth keeps you grounded, research shows.
What things have you incorporated to reduce stress? What works well for you? See you next week!
Exercise – Wellness Wednesdays
Welcome to Wellness Wednesdays! Today’s focus is exercise. Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.
For most of my life, I’ve tried to incorporate some type of exercise. As a teenager, I ran track for a couple of years. I tried out for field hockey and made the initial cut to do conditioning but that level of running left me exhausted. Looking back, this should have been a stop sign to find out why I was so exhausted. In college, I worked out fairly consistently my freshman year and lost about 25 pounds. But when my course load increased sophomore year, physical activity decreased. After graduating, I worked at an hmo and went to the gym there several times a week but it seemed that I toned more than lost weight. And the saga goes on and on. Frustrating, yes?
Around 2011, I started having issues with my hip and so I chose yoga and stretching to help ease the concerns. And it worked! Another clue but I still hadn’t taken the time to put all of it together. I walked a good deal and did other higher impact aerobics but was just maintaining weight. Then I started following doctors and nutritionists who focused on PCOS. That was a game changer.
Basically, I had been doing a lot of the wrong type of exercises for me. While exercise is wonderful, the body believes there is stress and increases cortisol- your fight or flight hormone. Well with pcos, that hormone is hard to get back down and that increases the storage of fat and inflammation, especially in the gut. So I’ve changed to longer, slower walks and always stretch at the end. I try to do a yoga or Pilates based workout twice a week. Weight training probably once per week. I limit hiit workouts to maybe twice per month. Sometimes I cycle or do the elliptical at the gym, when available. And that’s it! After years and years and years of thinking that the harder I went, the more I would lose 🤯 I don’t have to do that. How amazing to have that revelation! And I have still lost 97 pounds in the process! 🤩
So I encourage you to find the workout that is best for you. Comments, questions? Drop them below and share what works for you. See you next week!
Grass, trees and trails – oh my!
Allergic to alll greenery outdoors but I love walking and exploring so do it anyway 😂😂
I’m always looking for good walking areas and I found a couple of locations to go to: flatter trail closest to home and a split trail that goes to two parks about 10 minutes away. With the advent of the coronavirus, the walkways been more congested than usual so I try to go at odd times and hotter parts of the day. My joints LOVE heat so this is a win-win.
Getting outdoors allows for a change of scenery and can produce endorphins to make you feel better. And I love warmer weather so getting in a sweat is a plus! My acupuncturist is all about walking outdoors as nature, especially green and trees, relaxes the body. And with stress levels through the roof, who doesn’t need a way to relax?!
I truly hope this finds you well, safe and healthy. Have you found a place to get away? If so, drop a line below; I’d love to hear from you! 🥂 to your good health.
April Explorations
So I’ve been in social/physical distancing for 7 weeks now…. and when the weather is great, I go out for a walk since our gym is closed. Thankfully, my apartment complex has been posting suggestions of walking trails that are still open during this time. Today, I decided to check out the Riverwalk in a neighboring town.
Riverwalk is actually part of a walking trail between two parks and can extend to a local mountain area. Now, I didn’t walk that far! (I wasn’t thinking recently, ate food with paprika which is a nightshade and aggravated joint pain.) It’s a really pretty area, a bit hillier than what I am accustomed to. While I wore a face covering, I only saw one other couple that had on masks so the next time I go, it will definitely be earlier in the day for fewer people.
I truly believe walking and just being in a nature is therapy. Well, it is for me. And it’s great exercise…and with heavy pollen winding down, it’s a great opportunity to get outside of my four walls and get a change of scenery.
Below are more pictures from exploring today.
How has your physical distancing been? What have you learned from it? I am doing a series of chats with friends of activities or ideas that they have been involved in during this time; we will be on Instagram. I chose that platform so that I can have another person on with me. If you are interested in checking it out, my IG is msinternationalsuperstar. This time may be difficult for some and let’s all be a help to one another by connecting. As always, until next time….
Fantastically 40-ish 