Welcome to my blog! Whether you are a friend, family member or you stumbled upon this as a happy accident, I am happy to have you.
You’ve got to find yourself first. Everything else will follow.
CHARLES DE LINT
Finding yourself is never a task that is complete, with each day we learn something new about the world and decide if that is something we want to adopt into our everyday or not. These decisions you are making constantly will define who you are.
Making the Decision.
When you ask a three year old what she wants to be when she grows up she will tell you the honest truth. I want to be a princess, I want to be a police officer, I want to be a unicorn. She honestly believes that she can be any of those things. As we get to high school that question slowly starts to hold more weight, and as graduation day approaches it is a bolder that is almost impossible to lift.. at least it was for me.
In high school they make you take an aptitude test to see what you should be when you grow up… my test suggested that I be a stand up comedian or a garbage man. Oh GOOD.
I changed my major 3 times in college and I still had no idea what I wanted to do when I grow up, but I did know what I wanted to be, happy.
I struggled with depression for my entire life and this seemed like the most impossible goal.
Click HERE for my post about my battle with depression and anxiety.
Humans are adaptive creatures.
We learn to thrive (or survive) in the environment that we are settled in, as the environment changes we change with it. If we don’t change we feel stuck and that is a miserable place to be. Feeling like there is no room to grow, no where to move and not seeing any reasonable way to get yourself anywhere new.. .when you acknowledge that feeling you can rise above it, and that, my dear readers, is where we will start today.
My Story
Unfortunately, I have found myself in this situation so many times that I have gotten very good at just leaving. When it gets hard I am the one that says “see ya!” I’m sure that you don’t expect me to say that is an effective method and end the post right here. (cause It’s not).
This is the case in most aspects of my life, like changing my major in college. I started as a 2D design major, my professor didn’t like a drawing I worked on for 18 hours and I ended up failing the class.. that was the end of art school. Next on my list was business, which was good, until I had to take calculus.. then it was see ya later business school. I ended up leaving that university after switching my major to public relations and I graduated 3 years later with a degree in communications.
I have an extensive list of experience on my resume, not that I have ever been fired from a job but when it would cause me to have anxiety or if I had a fight with my boss or co-worker, it was on to the next one. The one that has gotten me to quit again and again and again in my life is fitness and nutrition programs. Dear lord I have tried them all.
I was always a big kid, ever since I can remember. Its very rare to see a 7 year old on Weight Watchers but here I was eating celery and baked chicken gaining weight. I had high cholesterol, heart issues and weight issues that started when I was 6. My life was try this diet, go see this doctor, get this blood work, see specialist after specialist after specialist.
When I was 11 I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). This explained why I was having so many issues, but it proved to be impossible to lose weight. This is when my obsession with studying fitness and nutrition started. Things that worked for “regular” people didn’t work for me, my body worked differently and no one seemed to have answers.
Fast forward to high school and I was heavily involved in Marching Band. I was in the colorguard and was active for at minimum 20 hours a week. We were a competitive guard, traveling around the country to preform. This was the only time in my life my body was behaving like a normal humans, I was able to lose weight. Well working out 20 hours a week post graduation was virtually impossible and the weight snuck back on the minute I went away to school. I worked out every day at least once, I joined a dance team and the marching band but is was not the same as it was in high school and I was not getting any results.I was frustrated and gave up multiple times, switching out my healthy salad for chili cheese fries and chicken fingers because what was the difference anyway?
Enough of the “woe is me” bullshit. Life is hard, we know this. I am not trying to tell you my life is any better than yours, or that I am a saint for battling this my whole life. What I will tell you is it is a much better way to live if you become a warrior instead of a whiner. A Phoenix is born from it’s ashes just as humans are grown in hardship. The minute I stopped complaining and started learning I became a warrior. In this blog I will share with you 3 things,
1. My knowledge of fitness and nutrition formulated especially for women with PCOS, insulin resistance and other health issues.
2. My knowledge as well as coping methods for dealing with mental and physical chronic illness.
3. My journey and things that have worked and NOT worked for me.
4. My life and things I feel like writing because you are here and I am telling you things.
Hope you enjoy!
xoxo,
Carly