Meet Norman.

This is my friend Norman!  Norman is a terrific fitness trainer and is amazing and deserves a shout out on this blog.

I met Norman just before my marriage ended.  I started working out with him twice a week and was somehow able to continue doing so while the divorce was settled.

Looking back, I'm not sure how I managed to drag my depressed and devastated ass to see him twice a week.  But it was a time that I rarely bailed on.

My time with Norman was healing and FUN!  BTW, ask Norman what he thinks of the word "fun".  :)  We chatted while we worked out and I got my mood lightened each time I met with him, at least for that hour.  We also got to do Ballistic Therapy whenever I needed it, which consisted of me hurling medicine balls at a concrete wall and cursing out my ex and the mistress.  I always felt much better after that!

Norman is working at the Lifetime Fitness in Savage now.  If you are a member, stop in and say hi to him!  He oozes fun and enthusiasm and is a great person to know.

If you need a trainer to help you meet your living healthfully goals for 2014, consider Norman!  Even if you don't have a membership at Lifetime, he can find a way to work with you.  If you do have a membership at Lifetime, check out their training options.  They have added some more reasonably priced options for poor folks like me.  I recently had to put my membership on hold but Norman is still going to create a strength routine for me and hold me accountable, for a very reasonable price.

If you want his contact info, send me a message!

Also, Norman is single!  He is looking for a girl who loves the Renaissance Festival (bonus points if she has her own costume) and who loves to stay in shape (but isn't psycho about it).  He's a catch ladies!

2014 has been the best year ever!!!!!!

Well, so far at least!

I have a plan.  My much awaited, much dreamed about plan.  It all materialized the other day.

Ready?

1. A daily walk of 30 minutes.  5 minutes to warm up, 5 minutes to cool down, 20 minutes of active walking.  I am tracking my distance for those 30 minutes.  At the end of January, I hope to have doubled the distance I did on the first day in the same amount of time.  This is where the magic happens:

Motivation to last me all year!

2. I start each morning with a fruit and veggie smoothie.  I got a Nutribullet for Christmas and it just might be the best gift ever!  I fill it up with two cups of spinach, one cup of fruit, some flax seed, hemp seed and almonds.  Sometimes a little vanilla protein powder.  Delicious!

3. For either lunch or dinner, I have a raw meal shake--it isn't the tastiest thing around but it's edible.

4. Have a reasonable lunch or dinner.

5. Track calories via the LoseIt app.

6. Track steps using my FitBit.  Aim for 10k per day.

It's been two days.  I feel great.  I am focusing on these 6 things.  I am fighting every urge I have to do it perfect.  I am trying to be reasonable and persistent and forget about the perfection.

Also, I forgot to post my weigh in yesterday.  Decided to start over--what was I thinking, trying to start losing weight before Christmas?  So stay tuned for next week--it will hopefully be evidence of all my hard work!

Weigh In Wednesday

Okay, I hopped on the scale and broke it!  Kidding, although not really.

I have the number so today that number is 0.  Each Wednesday I will report back--hopefully the number will get bigger each week!

Goal is to get to 20 by March.

Onward!

Tenacious Tuesday #1

Here we are!  Tenacious Tuesday, first installment.

I am not tenacious.  Tenacious is defined as tending to keep a firm hold of something; clinging or adhering closely.  I am resilient and enduring; I am not tenacious.

My daughter is tenacious.  When she wants to learn a new skill, she goes all out.  She wanted to learn how to swing so she did it without stopping until she figured it out and mastered it.  Same with learning to swim and dive.  She does not give up.  

I am not like her.  I am scared to fail so I rarely make progress towards my goals.  By not making progress, I haven't really failed, at least in my mind.  You can't fail if you never start!

Yes, I understand that is a terrible rationalization but it got me here so I guess I should be thankful?

Anyhow, this is how we got here.  A month into my year of progress with very little progress.  Tenacious Tuesday will be my way of keeping accountability to my goals.

Win: I met with a financial planner, twice now!  We put together a budget (I am now on a cash plan only).  She said my situation was not nearly as bad as I think it is.  We will meet again in a month to see how my first month of budgeting went.  

Win: Right after I went to the ATM to get my cash out for the week, I found 5 bucks in the snow!  Yay for me! 

Win: I am making homemade chicken noodle soup for my kids tonight! 

Win: I have been hard at work creating my goals for the next year for my life and business.

Fail: I logged my lowest amounts of steps this week.

Fail: I had to put my gym membership on hold due to the budget.

Fail: I still haven't cleared my driveway of all the snow.

Fail: I haven't worked out in quite some time. 

Well now, that wasn't so hard!  Feels good to have an equal number of wins and fails.

Tomorrow I will start Weigh In Wednesday.  Weight loss is a huge goal that has been holding me down for many years now.  I feel like if I could just conquer this obstacle, everything in my life will sparkle and be perfect!  So not true, but that is how it feels.  I am not one of those women who hopes to love herself once she loses weight.  I do love myself most of the time and just want my insides to match my outsides.  I do want someone to love me one day as far as a romantic partner goes and I would like to offer my best self.  

Speaking of that, I had a great idea for a coaching product: Best Life Yet.  So in order for me to coach authentically and not feel like a fraud, I need to get to MY best life yet.  As a coach I sell myself and clients will know if I am legit or not!

In the future I hope to set more mini goals for myself and then tie them to Tuesdays.  Hold me accountable!

getting focused

So here I am, nearly one month into my year of living healthfully.  I've gained back all the weight I lost on the detox and then some.  I've got nearly zero traction towards any of my goals.  Ugh.  This, unfortunately, is not a surprise.

This is my pattern.  Make big pronouncements and plans.  Then do nothing.  Over and over.  Then I wonder why I'm exactly where I was before.

I think accountability may be the answer here.  That isn't something that I really have, except for this blog.

So tomorrow begins a new feature!  Tenacious Tuesday.  On Tuesdays I will provide updates on what I've been working on.  If I fail to do this, please inundate my inbox with comments and threats!

And Wednesdays will become Weigh In Wednesdays.  I will not be posting my actual weight because it is far too horrifying.  But we will start with 0 and hopefully get that number up to 20 by the time I leave for Disney in March! 

Please keep me accountable.  I need help.  I have no adult in this house to keep me focused (and truthfully, that didn't help even when I did).  Gather around me and kick my ass forward!!!

Also, if you'd like to join my Facebook group, click here!

the most wonderful time of the year?

This holiday season is proving to be a tough one for me.   My ex asked for the divorce on December 23, 2011 around 10 PM.  Nice timing.  No thought at all about how it would impact the kids and of course it was MY fault for making him tell me that night.  Never mind the fact that he had been ignoring me for a week and spent each night in the bathroom till 2 AM texting his girlfriend.  But I digress.

I thought the holidays would be hard last year since it was my first year alone.  But I was so excited about how good life had gotten that I felt pretty upbeat and positive about the whole thing.

This year is not so good.  All the beautiful lights, the songs, the décor--it all is bringing back very painful memories.  And that makes me irate.  Seriously.  Why do I allow a person like that to steal my joy?  Why do I allow his crappy choices to affect me still, two years later? 

I am blessed to be out of that marriage.  I am blessed to parent my children on my own.  I am blessed in my new life.  I know all these things.

He and I had a huge text fight the other night and I had a total emotional meltdown.  After sobbing on the phone with my mom for a while, I made an appointment with my therapist.  :)  Clearly the work is not done!

All I can do is hope that I find true healing at some point and that all this grossness will help me in my business as I coach other women through this. 

But I still wish I could snap my fingers and make it all better.

irrational

I have been feeling irrationally irritated the last week or so.  Not entirely sure why.  It's the holiday season--normally I feel joyful and peaceful.

So what's my problem?

One major source of discontent is the amount of crap in my house.  Seriously, this house is overflowing with crap.  Everywhere I look I see something that should be given away.  A massive purge is on my agenda for 2014, culminating in a garage sale in May.  I hope to reduce the amount of crap by half--how's that for a giant goal?

Another source of discontent is my kids.  I love my kids, just like every other parent out there.  But sometimes being a single mom is exhausting.  I am playing too many roles and it is wearing me out.  I get 7 hours away from my kids each week.  7 hours.  That is when their dad has them so during that time, I spend it running errands, cleaning, working and sometimes visiting with friends.  Not much time.  The rest of the time I am on duty for them, even when they are at school.  If the nurse calls, I am the one who has to drop what I'm doing and take on sick kid duty.  If there isn't school, I am on duty. 

Don't get me wrong--this is what I wanted from the divorce and I don't want it to change.  I would feel adrift if I didn't have daily, meaningful contact with my kids each day.  But once in a while I would like a clean house for more than a few hours, I would like a shopping trip to Target that doesn't end in badgering Mom hard enough to make her snap, I would like to be able to focus on my business for more than 30 minute blocks of time.  Just once in a while.

I need to figure out some solutions so that 2014 can be even better than 2013.