General Update

First things first:

Japan Trip got moved back a year. I am totally okay with this.  I think the added time will give me more time to get myself right mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I am emphasizing more mental/emotional well-being recognizing the huge influence they have on my physical well being. 

I have changed my goals too. I no longer am focused on a specific weight-loss goal, instead I am focusing on a new system of kinda being in general. This is with the support of my family/my therapist, and my nutritionist.

I am working on being more active, and living working on Health at Every Size. I am still only about half way through a book on the subject. I have a workbook ready for me to devour as well.

So far it seems like the tenants of this System is taking the morality, the shame, and the prejudice out of weight and eating. It focuses on mindfulness and being in tune with your body to understand when and how to eat from my own internal cues.

I am also attempting to cut as much "natural flavor" out of my diet.  I was already eating a lot more fresh foods and organics, but this is a new mini extreme. I am controlling what I can with it. I am finding a lot of Organic labeled things still have natural flavors. 

My biggest change I have done with this is switching from Chobani to Siggi's. It took me a few days to get used to the less sugar and the less chemicals, but I LOVE LOVE Siggi's now. I look forward to my vanilla/cinnamon yogurt every morning.

This avoidance is not all consuming for me. I still eat junk/trash when I make the conscious choice too. I just have noticed I feel better when I am eating cleaner.

I have been more active as well. I have started using classpass. Which I highly recommend! It allows me to explore multiple gyms/classes in my area Or anywhere around the country with my current plan I am at $30 a month. I have tried Red Hot Dance, Cardio Fusion, Zumba, and Hot Yoga. Which Hot Yoga is not for me. It has been a great motivating tool while keeping Me from getting bored.

I still am spending a lot of time in coffee shops, and the bulk of that is Starbucks. meh. It is an easy choice, but I still love finding the cool local joints to pass time or write. (Like I am writing this in one of favorites, Hothouse Coffee in Bryn Mawr.)

I tend to write a blog post, or write letters, sketch, read, or sometimes I fill out my habit tracker. (though that sometimes makes me feel a little uncomfortable.) I mean sometimes. I feel weird with my stack of Lisa Frank Stickers while writing letters too, but at least those are whimsical.

If any friends want random postcards/letters with a stupid amount of stickers feel free to drop a message with your address and I will add you to my letter rotation.

After a year of being home and working on myself. I am JUST now ready to start to go back out into the world. I have signed up for some volunteer opportunities, and I even applied to a part time job. I am really challenging my all or nothing thinking that sometimes dominates my mind. But I am starting with some very low stakes stuff, with little time commitments as I still have a barrage of appointments and feel like getting active/staying active is number one priority with regards to my mental health. But I also still have days when executive function stops. Or I have so little motivation it takes everything to get out of bed and feed the cat.

I am taking a generic version of Lexipro, and it has some weird side-effects, but it is still a huge credit to why I am volunteering and how I am doing classpass etc. I still get shall we call it "Dark Thoughts" but I have not been NEARLY as bad. not even close to as bad it got before Lexipro. PMDD is still part of my world, but again not as world destroying every week.

While I still have a ways to go, I feel like it has been a good progress even if it has been slow. I dont think this journey will ever REALLY end for me, but I think when I finally get to Japan I will be able to look back on this moment and realize how far I will have gone from here, and the lightyears I wiill be from where I was in 2018.