Tag Archives: wellness

Well HELLO! Let’s catch up!

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Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Literally WHO IS THIS!?

I figure there is no better time to [finally] blog again than when I am home sick with COVID. *womp womp* Is this what it takes for me to get my blogging act together??

Yes, actually, it definitely is.

I am very grateful to say that I have only been moderately sick with flu / bad cold symptoms this week. Started with a mild cold, then to a high fever, lots of fatigue, and all that traveled down to lower respiratory symptoms, which is where I’m at right now. The pesky (to say the least) virus appears to be making its rounds a little more again where I am. I hope you and yours are staying well ♥︎

Anyway, onto more exciting things. Let’s catch up! At the end you can find a montage of photos and videos of life recently.

Easter

He is Risen! Happy Easter season! And almost May!

I keep telling people that, starting from Easter weekend, it’s like all my weekends are going to be filled with plans after plans all the way until mid-June. And then it feels like the year is pretty much over at that point. It might as well be Christmas already; that’s how quickly it feels like time is flying.

I had the opportunity to spend Easter in Boston with my beloved friends who are still living up there since we all graduated college. All of my closest friends are still the ones I met through the Boston University Catholic Center (and now their new friends who they’ve made since then!). If you are a seasoned reader of this blog, you know I am pretty obsessed with them.

To love Him more and more

This is my petition to Jesus for this year especially. It’s simple and it has always been my petition, I guess. But more explicitly now, I desire to love Jesus more and more deeply, truly, and completely from all those small and perhaps imperceptible places of reservation in my heart. I am a slow work in progress, but He is helping me a lot.

What a pitiful state of humanity to need so much help just to love Jesus who has Loved us to death, but thankfully, He doesn’t mind us asking for the help.

Work

Can you believe I’ve been working as a doctor of physical therapy for 1.5 years already!? Neither can I.

I am still working at an outpatient orthopedic clinic, helping people with things you’d expect: neck, low back, shoulder, elbow, hand, hip, knee, ankle, post-op rehab, concussion (a fave of mine to treat!), headaches, vestibular dysfunction, balance/gait dysfunction… The list goes on. I’m learning a heck of a lot, and I hope to continue becoming the best clinician that I can be.

Training

Well this week training has been a big wash due to having COVID and not really loving the feeling my trachea gets when I try to do any sort of physical activity. Just these past couple of days I have been able to do some lower intensity KB things with lots of rest in between sets. I am grateful for that.

Otherwise, I am still training with kettlebells at home, though I recently joined my high school friend’s gym that he owns to start picking up the barbell again and to use other pieces of cardio and conditioning equipment that I don’t have at home. I am indebted to KBs and all my friends who have taught me how to use them, because they certainly have made me stronger and faster in ways that 6+ years of working out on my own could hardly do.

What am I training for? As cliché as it sounds, I really am training for life and work. My struggles and successes with strength and aerobic training (mostly strength though…aerobic I need to work on) help me to truly understand what I am asking of my patients and to give them the best cues for motor learning. It also makes my actual physical job easier!

I train 3-4 times per week for 15-60 minutes, depending on how much time I have. Making it work!

I would do another Spartan race perhaps… (I did a Spartan Beast (15 miles!) back in October and I am just now realizing that I never mentioned it on this blog! It was a grind but it was so fun.)

Eats

Check out the video below for a peek at some of the things I’ve been eating. I would no longer call myself a “healthy living blogger” based on the merit of my nutrition, but I would call myself a “healthy living blogger” by virtue of how much I don’t overanalyze my food anymore. I think it’s relatively nutritious, but ask a registered dietitian. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, I do still love peanut butter and banana though. And dried figs with Greek yogurt. Some things don’t change.

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Here is the little spring montage covering life as of late. I created this because my media storage on WordPress is nearly full. I used to embed my Instagram posts on here to spice things up with media, but I decided to make my Insta private because creepy accounts/people abound on the interwebs, and it’s not worth it to me to keep my profile public, since my goal is not to grow a huge following. Instagram is way too palatable and addicting of a platform (as opposed to WordPress) with all of its algorithms that draw cool people, yes, but alsoooo unwanted eyes, so I’ll just keep the bubble closed.

Hence, a montage here to keep things exciting. Enjoy!

When I am not sick at home and when I am working, life is quite full to the brim. I expect that to be the same moving forward into spring and summer, but with Sunday school being over, I hope to add a couple more posts per month to this ol’ blog (which is 9 years old this year!). No promises, but I’ll try! I still love doing this.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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So tell me:

What is a highlight of your spring so far?

Have you returned to any activities recently as things have opened up more?

Anything exciting coming up for you in the month of May?

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The Great and Small Things I Learned This Semester {Last One Ever!}

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Here we areeeeeeeee!

The learning never, ever stops, but dang it feels cool to be done with being a full-time student…. okay, technically I’m still a full-time student, but no more lectures and exams! All I have left is 22 weeks of clinical experience.

Here’s what I learned during my last semester of classes EVER (I don’t think I’m going back to school again, but who knows?).

1) Training up mileage too quickly may result in a stress fracture. And apparently my right femur is a weak boi.

2) Don’t give into peer pressure to run a race for which you didn’t really have a desire to train throughout a muggy St. Louis summer.

3) How to teach an inclusion hip hop dance class.

4) How to search the literature up the wazooooooo.

5) People LOVE podcasts. And I have also taken a liking to podcasts in order to stay a little more up to date with current events.

6) Living with three international students (one from China, one from Japan, one from Ukraine) has been an enjoyable experience. We all cook and live very differently but can still keep the kitchen a (mostly) clean and organized space.

7) I become my worst, most complain-y self past 11pm.

8) I should avoid bringing up serious topics with anyone past 11pm.

9) I should probably just sleep at 11pm, but I still have a poor sleep schedule.

10) Eye masks are a GAME CHANGER for being able to sleep longer in the morning.

11) I truly should never take my family for granted; they are the bees knees, cream of the crop, top of the line. I love them and cannot thank them enough for what they have done for me and continue to do for me day in and day out.

12) Make the phone call home or to a friend. Don’t let phone calls die.

13) Focusing on form and using my b r a i n during each rep of an exercise (i.e., thinking about the energy, power, control, speed, external/internal cues necessary to perform the exercise properly) makes all the difference in how fatigued I get and also in how quickly I gain strength (not a research project; this is just how I perceive it).

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14) Everyone experiences some privilege, but everyone experiences some sort of marginalization as well. “Treat others the way you want to be treated” is never too cliché.

15) The fight to remain steadfast in the good practices and truths (e.g., always pray, working out will probably make you feel better if you’re stressed, it is good to look up and sit in silence on public transportation sometimes) that you know is a never-ending fight, especially if you’re like me and you have very little self-control and you tend to form poor habits more quickly than good habits. Fight that goooood fight.

16) Avocado egg toast and overnight oats still haven’t failed me as staple foods in a pinch (or every day, honestly).

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17) Swimming was a big fear of mine (not because I can’t hold myself up and move in water, but because I had no idea what I was doing…literally how do I put on a swim cap), but I have found it to be a fun challenge and a killer workout that I enjoy even post-stress fracture healing. (Thanks, Abby!)

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18) I can make time for the things that matter. I like to make excuses to not see a friend, for example, but there usually aren’t any good ones when it comes down to it.

19) In some moments of my life, I am the person who I never thought I would be (for better or for worse), which has taught me to be more understanding and compassionate towards others in their points of weakness. We should all call each other higher but without judgement, because I could be you and you could be me by the flip of a circumstance switch.

20) Nights never used to be a huge issue for me but these days I need to CHECK MYSELF when I get home exhausted after a long day, because all ya girl wants to do is eat and go on her phone, which is fine, but sometimes I turn my brain off and do too much of either.

21) I can tolerate finely diced red onions in my tacos. I used to despise raw onions, but I can appreciate the little sum’n sum’n they add.

22) This crew is loyal and I love them.

23) How to guest lecture (thanks, Evan!).

24) People say that I am a good teacher and a good public speaker. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just some info for the ~future~ I guess.

25) God’s delight is to be with you.

I’m distracting myself with youtube videos and can no longer think of other things to type, so this is the end of this post. Thank you, as always, for reading along and for your support of this blog, even as it ebbs and flows.

So tell me:

What are some things you learned this fall?

Do you have plans for the holiday season?

 

 

 

 

What I Loved and Learned at Blend Retreat

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Guys, I have enough snacks to last me the rest of summer.

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Just kidding, more like the rest of this month. Nevertheless, it is clear that Blend brings swag game to an elite level. This isn’t even all of it.

First of all, there are several people/places to thank for this year’s successful Blend Retreat:

  1. Janetha, Lindsay, and Lauren for being the most hardworking, badass, and helpful hosts! You ladies are awesome.
  2. The bloggers/blog readers/Instagrammers who attended. You’re inspiring, and you made the retreat a fun time!

    Processed with VSCOcam with f2 presetMy roommates (all Instagram stars)! Meredith @MeresNuttyKitchen, Amy @Clap4Fit, Aly @RunningHealthy13, Colby @EatClean_LiveStrong

    Processed with VSCOcam with g3 presethiking with Laura from 50 by 25 (she’s run over 100 marathons, it’s guatever)

  3. The sponsors for their work and for providing an insane amount of goodies for us.Processed with MoldivProcessed with Moldiv
  4. Chautaqua Park and Boulder, CO for providing cozy cabins and beautiful grounds for our retreat.Processed with Moldiv
  5. My family for letting me come and then coming with me to Colorado 🙂
  6. YOU, because you’re reading this.

Blend was an amazing experience. There were plenty of aspects that I loved:

  • Getting to meet other bloggers (duh)Processed with MoldivProcessed with VSCOcam with t1 preset
  • Being able to talk about health and wellness as much as I wanted

  • Doing active things

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  • The laid-back, no-judgement, supportive atmosphere and community

  • Eating good-for-ya and good-to-ya foodProcessed with VSCOcam with f2 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

    Processed with Moldiv

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  • Learning about health and wellness brands

Clark from the Quest team (his arms are almost as big as my legs, it’s fine)

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  • Being in the presence of the Colorado mountains

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  • The perpetual stream of swag

And there were plenty of things I learned:

  • Mental and physical investment in health and wellness varies significantly among bloggers in the healthy living blog sphere. Not everyone is equally “into” it as one another, and that’s all good.
  • I am so not in tune with the whole working-with-brands thing.
  • I’m not one to eat too many protein bars, but a lot of them are tasty!

    Processed with VSCOcam with f2 presetfirst Quest bar ever

  • I sometimes forget that not everyone who is a healthy living blogger is recovering from an eating disorder. It made me slightly anxious when people were talking and thinking about healthy food/nutrition facts all the time, but I was inspired by my roommates who know how to eat well and trust their bodies.
  • I don’t really want to talk about health and wellness all the time.
  • You won’t get to talk to or hang out with everyone at Blend, which is kind of a bummer, but it’s still fun to at least say hi to most people!
  • The altitude still gets me, even after being here for a week.

All in all, I am happy I attended Blend this year. It was a fantastic opportunity to be with fantastic people. And now it’s time to go to sleep and head back to reality on the east coast today. I’ll miss you lots, Colorado! xoxo

So tell me:

If you went to Blend, what is one thing you loved and one thing you learned?

Do you like protein bars? Which is your favorite?

Do you want to go to Blend next year? I’m not sure if I would go again, but I definitely recommend going at least once if you’re even a little interested!