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Me Time

I have been thinking a lot about this recently as it has been something I always mean to do but hardly follow through with.

Before my girl was born I felt like I made a lot of time for myself… I would exercise, walk home with my headphones blaring, maybe wander through the shops and pick up something nice,  Do a hair treatment..maybe even a facial or get my lashes done.

I had a healthy relationship with myself because I was kind to myself and made that special me time a priority.

Since having my daughter I have realised that I suddenly stopped all of that…not entirely but pretty much all those things came second or third or fourth to the daily mum/work/house life battle and I allowed myself to and I put no effort into making that time as important as everything else I do week to week.

I have come to realise now that a large chunk of my happiness came from this little tiny thing that I took away from myself.

Most days consist of me rolling out of bed to attend to my beautiful girl, feed her brekky, get her dressed and start my work. Unfortunately my days never start with a hot shower and usually consist of me running around in my raggety trackpants with my week old hair in desperate need of attending too, my pits stinking cause I’ve forgotten to put deodorant on once again and me praying that no one knocks on my front door and witnesses this tragic sight.

A terrible habit of mine is putting a massive amount of pressure on myself to have everything in order. I struggle with a messy house or things being out of place, I stress over the amount of washing I need to do or that the dinner needs to be cooked in time for my partner to get home. This stress I put on myself is so unhealthy that I put myself in such a bad headspace that I end up putting my negative mindset on my partner.

Cleaning and having order in my life and home has always been my go to way of coping/de stressing… I find that once these things are done I feel really good within myself and it sets me up for a great day/night!

The problem with it is that If something doesn’t work out…for example: my daughter is feeling a bit cruddy and clingy and not allowing me to get on with said tasks or the work line is going crazy, I haven’t a clue what to do for dinner and the house is a mess or all of the above.. I shut down. I feel frustrated, hopeless and annoyed at myself. I put so much blame on myself for not being able to do enough in the day that I don’t stop and look at the positives of what I have achieved.

I forget to stop, breathe and look at my beautiful daughter and remind myself I am doing amazing because she is healthy, sweet, kind, caring and for the most part a happy wee girl. I forget to remind myself I am doing great tackling working and Marls let alone the daily chores.

Today I made a start…. Its nearly 3pm here and I took the chance and actually washed my mop! I booked in to get my lashes done this Friday, booked my beautiful sissy for this Saturday to let my hair down with my man (Malrs first overnight…biggg step), I treated myself to a necklace and some online shopping (biggg step for me as I hate spending money on myself) And I have had a coffee! yippeeee!

I could go on and on about all the things I haven’t done today (food cough cough) but I think looking at the positives rather than the negatives is a healthier way to look at today! right? right? okay okay haha

Tomorrow is a new day and I am going to start by…you guessed it a shower before at leassstttt 8am!

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Realistic Views

 

 

I wanted to touch on a topic that is very dear to my heart. Dear because its something I have struggled with for a long long time, Dear because its something that rears its ugly head still now and Dear because I believe its a massive massive part of reminding yourself your doing great.

Its being hard on yourself when you don’t completely follow a plan that you make, its that inner mean girl or guy that tells us that we are not doing as well as we should. Fact is anything is better than nothing and trying is the most important thing.

This is has and forever will be my mantra. Yes I am not always going to be able to ignore that voice in my head but learning to pat myself on the back for the small changes I make in that direction is a great start.

Whenever I make a plan for myself for example “I am going to eat better” or “I am going to train “this” many times a week” I start off doing so well but then life bowls me over with a different plan and suddenly everything seems to fall apart. Instead of saying to myself that its okay I tend to get really down and out and for example if it was my meal plan I go ohhhh I’ve stuffed that up no point doing it again I’m clearly a big fat failure and I do the EXACT same thing with my training.

 

Since having my daughter I have come to realise that there are going to be MANY bumps in the road and you know what? I just have to roll with it.

This week has been a perfect example of that. I have been training and eating so well the last couple of weeks.. then my girl got sick over the weekend.. had two all nighters with her and one which included us not only being up til 5am but also missing a training session and getting behind in work.. now I am sick also and honestly I haven’t been remembering to eat in the day. When I do eat its pretty decent food just not enough and the battle between being sick, having a sick baby, trying to get her to eat let alone myself, finish my emails/work, cook dinner AND train has been terribly tricky.

I have felt so unwell that getting to the supermarket has been last on my agenda so I have been making do with what I have here and honestly rather than being down and out I am so damn proud of myself! I whipped up a yummy cashew chicken on cauliflour rice last night… the sauce has a bit of sugar in it due to being a few bottled products but still pretty healthy and kung pao chicken on brown rice tonight #winning!!!! – Thanks Pinterest haha

The point here is that no matter what is going on in your life or whatever changes you are trying to make please please remember that you are doing great!!!!

 

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The Start

I have procrastinated about doing a blog for some time now. I always felt like I wasn’t ready… the idea that maybe I wouldn’t have enough information to inspire, maybe I would lack interest and bore you to close it at the very first sentence or maybe my brain would shut off when I try to type.

So many excuses… so much time wasted for nothing.  But here I am! raw and real and ready to share mine and my partners journey!

I felt like if I documented this journey I would modivate myself to keep pushing on and hopefully inspire others… so I will start by telling you about myself, my family and where I am at now.

So Hi! My name is Jess, I’m 29 years old …from New Zealand and work full time as an Administrator for my partner Nick’s Roofing company and am also a full time mama to our beautiful, cheeky and oh so snuggly one year old daughter Marley.

I didn’t always live a healthy lifestyle… I was your typical teenager who lived for the weekends…parties and drinking. I never really put on much weight as a teen so I didn’t put much thought into what I ate and because I was partying til the early hours of the morning I was fuelling myself on…well shit. Mcdonalds, kfc, kebabs, heat n eat toppers, pizzas you name it.

In my early 20s I then decided to join a gym and that is where I turned things around slowly..I was still partying but  my mindset for what I put in my body (from Monday to Friday at least) changed. The more I trained the more my body craved it if I missed a session and the harder I trained the more my body rejected the smell and taste of unhealthy meals which then started to make this whole journey alot easier. I moved to Canada for a year during this time and that was when I was at my strongest.

I found it really easy to eat well and train frequently as being surounded by like minded people made it a walk in the park.

After my year was up I came back to New Zealand and thats where it started to go downhill for me. I trained still but not nearly as much as I use to and I wasn’t eating as well.

When I met my partner Nick… I was fairly fit still but being around him and his eating habits I started to take them on myself and this spiraled out of control when I got pregnant.

I thought I could keep training and eat as healthy as possible but boy was I wrong! From the early stages of my pregnancy I was sick every. single. day. I was unable to keep down anything except fizzy drink and crisps or chips which was weird for me as I never really drunk it often nor was I a big chippy fan. This killed me. The smell of meat made me naughtous, having a hot shower made me naughtous.. I felt like I was fighting a loosing battle… Then I got to five months and it slowly but surely got better and for a while there I was able to eat well again.. this is when I tried to incorporate a few training sessions in.

My body noped me again. I got Symphysis pubis dysfunction. I could hardly walk anywhere, get up without help let alone even train! I had dreamt of the first time I would fall pregnant and it all seemed to come crashing down around me.

Once Marley was born I figured I would try again… My body still hated me but I was able to still do a few things training wise.. the only problem was we had a Roofing Company and a newborn and this caused ALOT of stress on us… trying to please so many people and look after our little girl as well… I remember doing work in the hospital prior to giving birth and my partner calling clients to ease the tention… it wasn’t until well this very moment that I have realised how crazy that was….how silly that sounds.

When our daughter was 6 months old we finally moved out of our little apartment above my parents and upgraded to a townhouse of our own which at the time seemed alot better. It was a step down.. it was great having our own space our own little home but it was still small and very damp and I found us constantly getting sick.. I was stuck in a rut… not wanting to leave the house.. hardly eating and definately not training. Close to the end of living there I decided to do something about it!

A mama I follow on instagram brought out a home training programme when Marls was 11 months from memory and I started off with that.   For the first two weeks I did really well then hurt my neck and fell so far off the wagon I didn’t know how to start again.

Fast track to now… our little family have upgraded to a bigger home… there is a great little garage out the front and so far we are up to week 3 of training together and eating well.

I knew this would be hard on my partner as being a tradie its hard to get yourself out of the mindset of eating on the go… and eating whatever you could find that was quick and filling for the time being. I realised to make this work I had to find ideas for his lunches and make them and plan our shopping lists for the week ahead every Sunday. The change would have been a lot simpler had the veggies not have been crazy through the roof prices but so far we have done well.

The first thing we decided was to cut out fizzy drinks and heavily processed foods Monday- Friday. The second was to train at least 4 days a week for 20-30 minutes. We have aced both. I try to think logically about doing this for example the weekends I feel its okay to have a treat here and there and at family birthdays and functions how could I not eat the delicious food thats in front of me…. did someone say chop suey *drooling*haha.

Our training consists of small circuits. We don’t have a lot of equipment which makes it a bit tricky and we don’t have a complete plan involved so we start out every week by writing down some exercises we want to do and making a circuit out of them and listening to our bodies e.g what muscles hurt and which don’t and adapt our workouts to that.

We are not perfect… but I think so far we can be proud of ourself just by the small changes we have made to make this work for us.