Beachbody Exercise & Nutrition Programs

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www.beachbodyondemand.com

As I talk about my Beachbody on Demand (BOD) kick, I’m currently going through an exercise program called LIIFT4. It’s weight lifting combined with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Other than 80-Day Obsession, I don’t know that I’ve been this consistent with an exercise program.

I took my progress photos, took my measurements, and recorded my starting weight. I’m slightly discouraged because I’ve only lost 9 lb since January 2022, and wish I could make better progress. I’m beginning to dial in my nutrition and focus on eating more vegetables in my diet. I’ve tried the 2 nutrition plans they have, Portion Fix and 2B Mindset, but I’ve only had real success with Portion Fix. 2B is an easier plan to follow. There’s a plan but the main rule is to drink 16 oz of water before a meal and have mostly veggies. I’m a carbavore so I’d rather take a few carbs in my Portion Fix container than find a meal that has nothing but veggies and a little bit of protein. That’s just my preference.

The other problem is that I eat out a lot. I do not meal prep. I don’t like cooking and my husband doesn’t like cleaning up the dishes after I cook. I need to learn how to grill chicken so I buy salads and throw them on top.

(Oh, and btw, I like vegetables and fruit with pesticides, thankyouverymuch. I’m not against organic stuff but they’re more likely to have bugs in them.) And really, what does organic mean anyway?

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Developing My Exercise Habits

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I’ve been a member of Beachbody on Demand (BOD) since August 2, 2017. At first I didn’t really use it and then somehow got into exercising at 3 am and did programs like 21-Day Fix and 80-Day Obsession. I actually stopped 80-Day Obsession in 2018 because of pregnancy but ruined my habit of regularly exercising by not doing the prenatal workouts.

After I had my daughter in 2019, it was really hard to get back into the habit of exercising again. Even after the newborn stage. I considered canceling my BOD membership because I was so inconsistent and “undedicated.”

Fast forward to May 2, 2021. Somehow I decided, right then and there, that I’d make a commitment to exercising. We went on vacation, and I still tried to exercise in the morning while the kids were asleep. I tried to exercise as much as I could in our new home that we moved into in late 2019. BOD dubs 21-Day Fix as a “beginner” program, but it’s actually quite difficult. (I’d label it as Intermediate, if you ask me.) It started out as 7 workouts to repeat over the course of 3 weeks, but now they’ve re-recorded it for “real time” as if you’re doing a different workout for each of the 21 days. (So 21 new episodes that provide variety instead of watching the same 7 workouts on repeat.)

But I started out with 21-Day Fix (not real time) and completed the program. What was next? I think I did T25 for a bit but didn’t really commit to that program. Then came Morning Meltdown 100. 100 different workouts. Could I commit?

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An about-face

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I’m done having kids, especially for the sake of my mental health. If I were to have an accident, I would have to terminate the pregnancy. It really, mentally, is life or death for me, and I have to choose my life.

What a turnaround from being “pro-life”! What happened that I’m now pro-choice?

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Audience of One

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A painting by Sophia Foutres
Art by Sophia Foutres

I went to a Pride event over the weekend to support my church, and my elder, Sophia, who was selling her art. I glanced over her art, mostly deciding to observe and not buy.

Then I saw a piece of art titled “Audience of One.”

If you wonder why this piece of art struck me and spoke to me, please scroll to the top of this blog and look at my tagline.

I attended a prayer meeting at my church last Tuesday and it’s named “Prophetic Prayer and Worship.” Definitely lots of worship. We did some praying but my prayers were mostly self-centered.

  • I am too blessed to be here.
  • Everything is going right in my life. Other people need prayer more than I do.
  • I don’t deserve to be here

I decided that once the meeting had ended, I would slip out quietly and alone, as I usually tend to do.

Sophia saw me from across the room and came over to welcome me. I exchanged words with her briefly before a woman in the Children’s Ministry came over to me and said, “I have a Word for you.” I stared at her, baffled, because I had no idea what that meant.

She said, “God told me to tell you that ‘he hears you, he sees you, he loves you, and he is with you.’ Does that mean anything?”

And in a few minutes, I was crying because those were all of the things that I felt like God wasn’t doing. I cried for quite a bit, but it’s something I needed. God could’ve chosen anyone else in the world to talk to. But he chose me. Or even if it wasn’t “God,” the lady felt compelled to tell me those things out of everyone else in the room.

So I’ve been seeing God’s hand in different things and speaking to me in different ways ever since.

So when I came across the painting above, I definitely knew that wasn’t a coincidence—that was God speaking to me in the most important way he knew how.

Signs and symbols are different for everyone, but God knows just how to speak to me and reach me.

He hears me. He sees me. He loves me. He is with me.

No expiration date

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I should probably do a review of previous blog posts and strike out anything I don’t believe anymore. This blog is 13 years old and I’ve evolved, changed, and grown, especially on the topic of homosexuality.

I started this blog after depression introspection to talk about all things personal. Nonsensical and random, really. Depression introspection focused solely on the topic of mental health. This blog was about me. My thoughts. My feelings. It still IS about me no matter how rarely I use it.

These past few years have been a whirlwind. I’ve blogged about it here and there from time to time, but a full update is overdue.

I have 2 kids: a son and a daughter. My husband and I have been together for almost 19 years. After going through a season of infertility for so long and trying to conceive, it is weird to be in a stage of life where I’m no longer actively pursuing building a family. My family is built. And I feel complete.

I left a job I was at for 5 years to pursue a new opportunity that I thought would help me grow. It did help me grow, and I’m grateful for the experience, but…I didn’t even last a full year at the job. It wasn’t a good fit for me. But I learned new things and expanded my knowledge so I don’t regret my time there.

Now I’m at a new job where I’ve been working for a little over 3 months. I…love it. It has a great work/life balance, I get paid more, and the people I work with (from bottom to top) are completely awesome. I love my boss and his boss and his boss. No one in my department seems too haughty to work with, and I appreciate that people—especially upper management—are available and accessible to everyone. And everyone seems to have a vital role and isn’t just there for the sake of being there.

I mentioned this in early 2020, but we bought a house. It’s open concept and spacious, but it feels kinda small (in terms of bedroom space) ever since the pandemic. My office is open office (like an office setting, I suppose), which doesn’t allow for much privacy. But I make it work somehow.

I’m thinking about getting a dog. My son is deathly afraid of dogs and needs to get over his fear. He is scared to wait at the bus stop because one of the parents of a kid at the bus stop walks their dog at the same time. Of course, the one dog I introduced him to at 3 was not a dog friendly to kids and that has traumatized him ever since.

I just finished potty training my daughter. She still hasn’t gotten the hang of number 2, but she’ll get it in time. I’m never potty training a kid again.

I’m sure there’s more news that I’m not thinking of, but that’s the update on my life. Myself, job, family, and home.

Friends? They’re around somewhere…

2022 Goals

~ K ~ 3 Comments

@vikayatskina on freepik.com

The last time I posted an entry to this blog was July 5, 2021. It’s now June 4, 2022, and I’m posting my goals mid-year. I’ve had an urge to begin blogging again, but I’ve set my mind to it before and have never been able to commit. At least for now, I will post my 2022 goals. For a long time, I’ve struggled against having goals because I was focusing too much on trying to survive and be a full-time working mom. What did goals really matter in the end anyway? The days of reading 500+ books in a year and attending conferences were no longer a thing.

But why can’t I bring them back in a revised fashion?

A few things from my 2020 goals (since I didn’t post goals for 2021):

  1. Read 6 full books for the year.
  2. Exercise 1x per week for at least 10 minutes.
  3. Meditate 3 days per week.
  4. Eat 1500 calories or fewer 2x per week.
  5. Blog or journal 3 days per week.
  6. Morning devotions (Bible reading & prayer) 1x per week.
  7. Duolingo: 4x per week for at least 15 minutes.
  8. Go to church 4 times this year.
  9. Visit New York 4 times this year.
  10. Self-care once per month.

Updated 2022 goals (ambitious for only 6 months left!):

  1. Read 1 book in its entirety this year. (And I’m making sure that’s The Doctor by C.S. Poe.)
  2. Exercise 3-4x per week for 15 minutes or more. (Currently doing LIIFT4 on Beachbody on Demand and looking forward to LIIFT More in August!)
  3. Pray 3-4x per week before exercising.
  4. Track my nutrition on MyFitness Pal and BOD tracking (Portion Fix).
  5. Blog 1x per week. (Let’s see if this is attainable!)
  6. Journal at least 1x per week. (Stuff you’ll never see. Muahahaha.)
  7. Go to church 2x per month. (I attend a new church!)
  8. Schedule 2 massages for the rest of the year.
  9. Do the best that I can at the job I have. (This is a vague, nonmeasurable goal, I know.)
  10. Learn to be as productive as I can from other women who are inspiring. (This is also a vague, nonmeasurable goal, but it’s here.)

Here they are. Let’s see what happens by January 2023.

What’s wrong with being confident?

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What’s wrong with being
What’s wrong with being
What’s wrong with being confident?

– Demi Lovato, “Confident”

Trying to figure out why I’m not very confident in myself and who I am. I’m a pretty badass person if I think about it. Yet I still struggle with depression and feeling worthless and not valuable when I’m not working. I tie my worth to my job and as wrong as I know that is, I don’t know how to separate my worth from my career.

A lot of things matter: my kids, my husband, my family, my friends. And yet, I’m still here struggling over my purpose and why I’m here and what the whole point of my existence is. It’s hard to accept that I’m just a cog in the wheel of this big world. Especially when I look at people like Beyoncé, Rihanna, and even Michelle Obama, it’s like, how am I impacting this world for good? They can do it on this massive global scale. And I can’t even do it on a local scale.

Evolved thoughts on race

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I no longer agree with nearly anything I wrote in this post: The Inflated Race Card and the New Era of Racial Inequality. Somehow, I’ve done a complete 180 and my views on race since the early 2010s have completely changed. Maybe it’s so I gain acceptance within the Black community? Or maybe it’s because how I’ve seen violence is perpetuated toward people of a certain skin color.

It’s suddenly occurred to me that I have trauma from Black spaces. So much the opposite of what most Black people encounter. Although I guess I do have trauma from white evangelicalism. So much trauma and stuff to unpack.

Losing my religion

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I’m trying to figure out when the deconstruction of my Christian faith began.

Was it as early as March 2011 when egalitarian seeds began to plant inside of me? Was it as early as April 2011 when I began to question the existence of a literal heaven and hell? (Was Rob Bell ahead of his time?)

What about December 2012 when Rachel Held Evans prompted me to read the Bible through the lens of a modern-day woman? Maybe April 2015 when I ruminated on my dalliance with Catholicism? Or perhaps November 2015 when my church foundation bottomed out and I felt adrift, with nowhere to hold on to?

Or even maybe as recent as October 2019 when I discovered the #exvangelical community on Twitter?

It is now January 2021. And I hold to 3 basic beliefs:

  1. I affirm a living, loving, and everlasting God.
  2. I affirm believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God.
  3. I affirm a belief in the Holy Spirit who serves as my conscience.

Yo. Everything else is now game. What a departure from when I first started this blog in 2009. And even more so, depression introspection in 2006.

Here I am. Standing at a road where I whole-heartedly agree with everything in this post. Don’t mind me while I quote some notables:

My leaving is not leaving God. It is leaving the people who claim to speak for him.

I believe…
1. God is love.
2. To show love is to be godly
3. If God is God he will reveal himself in his own way to anyone who seeks to love and through love know him.
4. Women deserve a seat at every table including the clergy and that separate but equal is not equal at all. Male headship is patriarchy and an unfair burden for both men and women.
5. I reject purity culture, and any form of spirituality that forces an individual to choose between their sexuality and their spirituality. Wholeness and health does not come through cutting off one part of yourself to appease another.
6. I affirm all of my LGBTQ siblings fully and completely and without caveat.
7. I reject all efforts to use faith to gain or preserve influence and power.

I agree with all of this. In an era where people like Josh Harris, of I Kissed Dating Goodbye fame, comes out as no longer Christian, anything can happen.

In which a college guy dates a teenage girl

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Photo by Godisable Jacob on Pexels.com

I’ve decided that for a while I’m going to write about things in my past. For example, when I was 17, I got involved with a 21-year-old college male. We never had a physical sexual relationship but now being a 38-year-old woman realize how odd and strange it was. From a teenager girl’s point of view, it was a dream—to be dating a college guy! Looking back as an adult, I realize how stupid I was. But teenagers don’t realize this. They just want to be grown up and they think the way of growing up is to get involved with an older guy. Especially college guys because college guys are cool.

I didn’t really have any trauma from it. He was a nice, sweet kind man and respected my boundaries. We did do some intimate stuff, probably stuff I shouldn’t have done as a new Christian, but it was exciting to do something different I’d never done before.

I remember his name. His full name. He has a unique Ukranian or Polish name so I’m sure any search results for him would pop up instantly. But I purposely haven’t looked him up. Would he remember the teenager from the 90s? And why of all things should I try to contact a man who thought it would be a good idea to date a teenage girl? I’ll always wonder what happened to him but I choose not to find out.

Decade of Blogging

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June 29, 2019 marked 10 years of having This Journey Is My Own. I still haven’t bought the domain name. I probably should but I’m rather lazy and I don’t have that much readership.

Over a decade, I’ve blogged about God, Christianity, faith, employment (in general), career, infertility, parenting (after infertility), family, goals, books, Haiti, politics, LGBTQ+ issues, my identity, music, current events, race, and other thoughts. Everything is always random. Nothing makes sense. There is no structure to anything. My views are ever-evolving.

How far back can I go to blogging? Well, I have a LiveJournal that dates back to September 2, 2001 but that’s private and I haven’t touched it since 2012. Public blogging? Depression Introspection was begun on July 21, 2006. Technically, I have almost 20 years of blogging under my belt.

So where do I go from here? What topic is left to explore or re-explore? What pisses me off so much that I want to rant about it again? Nothing right now. I’m not passionate about much right now. I just want to survive. That’s all I’m trying to do these days. Is survive. Between work and my personal life (parenting, new house, commute), I’m just trying to survive. Self-care has gone to the wayside. Survival is my new hobby.

Painting Pictures of Egypt

~ K ~ 1 Comment

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

—Sara Groves, “Painting Pictures of Egypt“

I recently moved to a new home. A house. My husband and I are first-time homeowners. I have 2 kids now. A lot has changed. I was in our apartment since I first moved to Pennsylvania in 2006. We moved to our new home in December 2019. 13 years there. 13 whole years. That’s over a decade and time to plant yourself somewhere. Especially for renting.

Now I’m in my new home—house—I miss my apartment. I miss the memories. I miss the familiarity. I miss the convenience. I lived right across the street from the train station, was near a nice library, and around the block from good friends. Everything was in walking distance with access to various restaurants. It was a walkable town. It felt more like the suburbs of Long Island in which I grew up.

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2020 Goals

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dreamstime_2020

I haven’t had goals for 2019 mainly because I just have kind of given up on having goals. I’m not sure why. I guess I don’t care about giving my life much direction anymore? Has my ambition gone to the wayside?

In a feeble attempt to revive my blog (at least twice a year) and give myself goals to pursue, I’m coming up with a few goals for 2020. (Time to ring in a new decade!)

  1. Read 6 full books for the year.
  2. Exercise 1x per week for at least 10 minutes.
  3. Meditate 3 days per week.
  4. Eat 1500 calories or fewer 2x per week.
  5. Blog or journal 3 days per week.
  6. Morning devotions (Bible reading & prayer) 1x per week.
  7. Duolingo: 4x per week for at least 15 minutes.
  8. Go to church 4 times this year.
  9. Visit New York 4 times this year.
  10. Self-care once per month.

Still need to flesh this all out a bit more but my goal was to publish this on the first so here I am.

Blog Reboot?

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Thinking of doing a reboot of my blog. So much has changed in my mind and in my heart. My perception on evangelicalism, Planned Parenthood, and change.

In 2019, I’ve had a baby. I’ve moved as an adult from an apartment into my first house. I watched a coworker get let go.

And then there’s 2010-2019. An entire decade. (And really, which is the true decade? 2010-2019 or 2011-2020? Maybe 2010-2020?) In the past 10 years, I have:

  • Had 2 children
  • Had 3 pregnancies
  • Moved to a new home
  • Had several different jobs (2 part-time, 1 self-employed, 2 full time)
  • Underwent fertility treatment three times
  • Been in intensive outpatient twice

I’ve become more stable. My bipolar disorder is under control. My meds work. I have a fantastic therapist. I enjoy my job for the most part.

So for 2020, where do I go? What do I do? What new goals do I set? What is my goal in life? What’s my goal for 2020? What’s my goal for anything at any time?

I’m almost 40. I’ve evolved. I’ve gone from spending most of my life wishing I were someone else to finally appreciating and being thankful for who I am. I like me. I like my life. I like my kids (my son drives me nuts, tho). I like my husband and wouldn’t trade him for anyone else. I like my friends. I like my income. I like my home. I like my job. I like my close family. I feel very fortunate and blessed to have the things I have and enjoy the things I enjoy. This phone. This app. Direct deposit. Steady income. Private health insurance. I could go on.

But I thank God every day for everything He’s given me. I cannot complain. I do, but I shouldn’t. I am blessed financially, socially, emotionally, mentally, professionally, spiritually, and intellectually beyond all measure.