Walking

Insomniac Weekend Update: Walking Slowly and Taking Breaks

/ Bethany / 1 Comment

I have had trouble sleeping this past week, and tonight is no exception. Since my body doesn’t seem to want to sleep, I am taking a break from sleeping to check in.

I’m feeling better than I did last week, but I still have some anxiety going on. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I process feelings and have trouble going back to sleep.

Despite difficult feelings, I’ve had a pretty easy time sticking with my habit goals. I love the fall weather, which is making it easy and enjoyable for me to get walking in. I’ve taken 2 trail walks with kiddo this week, and today I walked to the grocery store with kiddo (30+ pounds) on my back, and then pushed the stroller full of groceries and kiddo home (probably 70-90 lbs total).

Continue reading →

Inspiration: Try Something Tuesday (or any day)!

/ Bethany / Leave a comment

If you participate in any online health, fitness, or sports-related groups, you may be familiar with “Transformation Tuesday.” Group members often post “before and after” pictures, which tend to get tons of “likes” and congratulatory comments. I’ve seen some discussion that some people feel discouraged when they see these. Others find them motivating.  Others don’t like them because they find them overly focused on appearance and under-ly focused on the process and how sustainable the change is.  Others find them triggering of eating disordered behavior. I’m sure people have other opinions too. In fact, having an opinion about people posting pics on the internet probably means you are winning at life in general and don’t have bigger fish to fry. Go you! Or not. It’s totally okay NOT to have an opinion on Transformation Tuesday pics. This probably means you have bigger priorities in life in general and are winning at life, too.

My opinion? They are some of my least favorite posts I see in some of my favorite online groups. I don’t find them triggering from a disordered eating standpoint, but I do think they probably give false hope for many people. I think they put a more of an emphasis on looks and less on health, since you can’t always tell a person’s health by looking at them. They don’t bother me to the point where I would leave a group over it, but I wouldn’t miss them at all if they disappeared.

So, I was ecstatic this week on Tuesday morning, when one of my favorite groups on the internet decided to make them disappear. And the way they did it was just….so positive. Instead of issuing a “NEW RULE!!!! ALL TRANSFORMATION TUESDAY POSTS ARE NOW BANNED BECAUSE THEY MIGHT OFFEND SOMEBODY,” the moderators announced that they would be retiring “Transformation Tuesday” and replacing it with something amazing: Try Something Tuesday!

Continue reading →

Turning Back the Clock: Bringing Back an Old Habit

/ Bethany / 11 Comments

I am in my 30s, as are many of my friends. It seems like a common experience that some of us feel nostalgic for our younger bodies. We would appreciate them so much more, we think (never mind that we hated our bodies back in high school too….). We wish for the energy we had when we were younger and could stay out late all the time.

Of course, getting a past version of ourselves back is impossible. Even putting aging aside, so many of our environmental conditions and habits have changed.  The hormonal climates of our bodies are different. We have different habits, different pressures, different responsibilities, different perspectives, and different values.

Continue reading →