I know, I know I just posted a marriage update. But I’ve been thinking about posting this for a while.

I decided that 2021 would be a year of self care after reading a memoir/self help book to the same effect. The author chose a monthly theme with the focus being on self care (like doing daily push ups or stretching).

I started in the middle of November of 2020. I didn’t want to wait until January and make it yet another resolution I didn’t keep. So technically my title should say month 4.5 lol.

My “themes” were:

November- planks & pushups

December- Whole30

January- morning routine

February- foam rolling/stretching

March- put the phone down

I did November really well. I went from like 3 knee push-ups to 15. My planks unfortunately never got much better lol.

December did not bode well. I ended up with some miserable stomach issues from Whole30 and I stopped doing that. I instead moved up my foam rolling stretching February.

It all took a turn when I realized that focusing on self care allowed me to be aware of what I needed... and wasn’t what I originally set out to do. I realized after a long honest look at myself that I needed to really up my weight loss. My husband and I have had many arguments about my eating over the years. Before anyone gets up in arms it because he is very worried about my health. I had gestational diabetes 3 times and all signs were pointing toward me becoming diabetic in the next 2-3 years. He was also looking at his dad who nearly lost a foot because he refuses to change his eating. It hit me that I’m addicted to sugar. And that for the sake of my health and my marriage I needed to do something about it. So my focus became dealing with that. I did overeaters anonymous (I went through a great book that outlined the 12 steps). I’ve been sugar free for 35 days! I’ve also lost about 8 lbs since I started the process again (total I’ve lost about 30 but it’s been in start and stops - it’s been a year since I’ve lost anything).

Also things that have happened this year of focusing on taking care of me:

  • went to the doctor for my anxiety and got antidepressants

  • went to a podiatrist for foot pain and working with them on healing some old injuries

  • working through all the emotional baggage not eating sugar has been bringing up. Who knew?

  • doing a daily Bible study/devotional

  • gave up drinking alcohol when I realized it doesn’t do anything good for my health and made me feel terrible

I wrote all of this out because 1) self care may look totally different than you expect (yes I do a lot more of the “indulgent” things too, but this has been hard work!), 2) being open to seeing where you can improve is vitally important, 3) I’m really proud of my work and wanted to share with you lovely ladies who are so supportive and amazing, and 4) maybe it will inspire someone else to evaluate where they need to up their self care.