orbitedbyerin

For the past month, my work has hosted a wellness event that has a focus on diet and healthy living. I am participating in it, partly because of the incentive, and part because of the difficulty I have with instilling healthy habit’s.

For my whole life, physical health habits have been the hardest habit’s to form. There are many seasons in my life where I can remember where I started, but inevitably fell off the entire attempt. There is a large amount of mental friction that comes with these choices for me. Working out is not my ideal way to spend my time, You also have to juggle work, energy levels, scheduling, etc. Working out always felt like more noise added to an already disorganized life, making it difficult for me to form the habit.

Cooking is also not my favorite thing. I do not do well with the patience and attention to detail required to cook meals along with cooking them well. I’ve always told myself if I were ever rich, a private chef would be an INSTANT luxury I would be greedy about. If my meals were prepped and ready when I wanted them, I would eat much better health wise. Unhealthy easy to prepare foods or take out have always been a huge issue for me. I rarely ever feel the desire to cook a meal weeknights, and don’t derive a ton of satisfaction or pleasure from the end result of my meals. It is the most difficult habit I have tried to tackle.

I am in another season of trying. I can’t guarantee any long lasting results here as this one is a big hurdle for me, but it doesn’t hurt to keep trying. There are a few things I have been trying to do differently this time around to hopefully make the habit more sustainable.

• My weight and my looks are not focuses for me during this, but overall health is. When I was younger, there was one year or two I did lose a significant amount of weight. In retrospect, this was not done healthily. I was insecure, and my brain was hyper focused on the outside that it was all I cared about. Thankfully this did not last long and I was able to recognize that. Since the habit’s from that had to stop because of the detriment, I didn’t have anything to fall back on. I have since grown far more secure in my outward appearance and simply not caring anymore, that this isn’t my goal anymore. General health and wellness is the goal, and I believe weight loss naturally comes with it, even if it’s at a slower pace.

• I am focusing on one habit at a time. My main habit I am attempting to build now is diet. Working out regularly is on the back burner until I find I can reliably eat well 80-90% of the time. In past attempts I would try to do both, and it contributed to this overwhelm that pushed me to fall off from it. Till I find what works in the regard, I will start incorporating working out more regularly.

• I am keeping my recipes as simple as humanly possible. I have to create less friction in the process of cooking, and so I stopped focusing on cooking intensive meals. Focusing on meals where I can throw things in a pot and heat for a little or requires no cooking at all are key for me to be able to do this.

• While working out is not the focus here at this time, I do try to do fun outdoor activities and walks to remain active.

I may or may not update in the future about my progress and if I was able to stick with it. So far so good though!

Stay Safe

-Erin