It’s taken me many, many years (I won’t say how many!) but I think I’ve finally discovered how I can be content in this crazy, chaotic world we find ourselves in these days. And I’m not saying what I’ve discovered is necessarily going to work for anybody else … but it works for me!
I think it all started when we had to shut down the world for a while a couple of years back …
Resetting my life
For me, being forced to condense my daily living into work and sleep (pretty much) for a few months gave me the impetus I needed to really think about what I was considering important each day. And after a while, even focusing on work and sleep alone didn’t seem to be as all-important as I had once thought it to be. I mean, don’t get me wrong – everyone needs to be able to work in order to survive in this world but I found that actually it wasn’t THE most important thing that I wanted to be my focus every day.
And then, once I had decided that I wasn’t going to let work and sleep be my sole focus anymore, I was able to strip my life down and focus on what I DID need to do in order to create a healthier and happier me.
One such thing was really focusing on my health and fitness. I mean, I feel like I’ve dieted all my life and tried to be fit all my life, but I hadn’t really been getting anywhere. But I have actually been really motivated in the last couple of years by a favourite actor. Now, before you groan and think I’m just fan-girling and idolising a hollywood star, it’s not like that at all. Somehow Candace Cameron Bure just comes across as normal and regular, and, well, human, and while of course we all know it’s mostly about her brand and getting people to buy what she’s selling, she somehow does it in a way that makes you actually want to improve yourself and be a better person. It certainly helped when we couldn’t really go anywhere when she would do things like share with us her daily work-outs or exercise regimes … not that I was able to keep up most of the time … but I have actually been able to utilise some of what she and her personal trainer would share with us into my own timetable and regime, and make it work for me. I think that’s one of the key things I’ve discovered in the last few years – there’s no set way of doing things; you need to find what best works for you and do it, but you also need to be willing to stick at it if you want to achieve what you want to achieve!
So, I’m trying to incorporate regular and daily exercise and fitness into my schedule … in a way that suits me best and in a manner that I can do.
The next thing I was able to work on was my eating habits. I have a really, really bad ability to demolish a packet of potato chips in a single sitting, and I was discovering that it wasn’t actually helping me to feel better about myself or how I looked and felt. I actually had to make a commitment that I wasn’t even going to buy potato chips in my grocery shopping, and on that note, I have also managed to only go to the supermarket every couple of weeks (another way I had to ensure I kept temptation out of my way)! And then, about a year ago, a discount code for a My Food Bag meal box also came into my life. The meal box was called “Fresh Start,” and it really was what I needed to give my eating and fitness a fresh start. Not only did I get the groceries I needed to cook my dinners each week painlessly delivered to my doorstep, the meals themselves were quick and easy to prepare and cook, and really, really delicious as well! I mean, how could you want potato chips when you’d just eaten a delectable meal of healthy, nutritious ingredients?!
So, with my new “fresh start” meal plans every week, and my commitment to daily exercise and fitness, I was able to set out (and nearly achieve) my weight loss goal for the last year. Now, this blog isn’t about weight loss or eating but for the stage of my life I was at, I felt that I really needed to work on that goal to start with (I mean, when you can’t fit your favourite rings on your fingers because they are too chubby, something needs to be done – haha!)
My new-life reset was well underway!
Contentment in a discontented world! 