I cannot fail

Dear reader,
I am sorry for not writing for such a long time. I am sorry for not telling you about the rest of my 10 week makeover. In fact, I did not succeed at my first try. I got quite sick in the middle of trying and until now I haven’t really recovered completely. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by all the high standards I had set for myself that I completely stopped working on a better me. My main focus was existing through this tough period of my life.

But I am back. I will never give up on myself. I will start over and over again until I succeed. With different approaches, or with the same approach again. I cannot fail, I can only start again.

Life update

So since I haven’t posted here for so long, I’m going to quickly sum up what (positive) has happened to me in the meantime:
– I passed every exam from last semester yay 🙂
– I got myself an internship for the next holidays
– I got a new, better job I can do remotely and whenever I want
– I got a side project that gives me joy (and a little extra $$)
– Today me and my boyfriend have been together for exactly a year
– I lost about 4 kilos… half positive, half negative I don’t know…

That’s it fo now! I will soon be back with an informative article and my new plan!

Weeks 2 to 4

I know, it’s been a while. And I know, I messed up. But weeks 2 to 4 were finally essential for improving in the long term. Here’s what I did:

Week 2

The rules: No carbs after 6 pm and trying the Wim Hof breathing method every day.

In week 2 there were no strict changes or anything particularly hard to do. Still I began to mess up. Long work hours made me come home after 6 and I had to eat! At this point of the 10-week-makeover I wasn’t mentally strong enough to only have scrambled egg as a whole dinner, so I sometimes had “usual” dinners with pasta or potatoes. Not too bad, because I prefer a good overall feeling over a strict diet.

With the breathing I couldn’t really get along. I got so dizzy after doing it and even felt a little sick, so I made up excuses many times. I’m not so proud, but honest. In week 2 I realized that I might have tried too much at the same time.

Week 3

The rules: breakfast without sugar and meditating

I spent this week in Portugal, because it was basically the only week this year when I would not have to study, work or do anything else concerning uni. So… holidays are kinda unfair, because all of that yummy food, right? “Lucky” I got kinda sick in my stomack/gut and couldn’t really eat (without throwing up) the whole week

Anyways, what I learned from this week is that I don’t need a sweet breakfast and this is really amazing! All my life I NEEDED my chocolate muesli in the morning like others need coffee. I just got really moody without my morning sugar and could never be happy with something like a cheese sandwich. But as I barely ate anything in week 3, it was easier introducing different eating habits for breakfast. By now I’m only eating toast with cheese/ham for breakfast and I don’t even miss my chocolate.

In week 3 I decided I would do the nutrition thing and the mental thing one after another. It is hard enough to add one habit per week, let’s not double the amount of willpower needed, because there’s other stuff to do!

Week 4

The rule: No sweets!

This week was obviously hard for someone who has such a sweet tooth. Plus, my BIRTHDAY was in week 4 and of course I had a piece of cake, or some more than one. I was really close to giving up, but because I now run this blog I got this public pressure and I’m glad I did not give up in the end. Because after some time I now stick to all of the rules from the first 4 weeks. I think I should not be so strict with me, even if I make some small steps back.

Motivation to go on

I know it’s actually already week 6 and I haven’t told you about week 5 yet, but something really amazing happened in week 5! I was able to really feel what it means to be an ex-addict to sugar, experience it with the way my body reacted to a small slip in the diet. This keeps me going through the harder weeks that will come!

10 week makeover – week 1

In the first week I had two first rules to follow:
1. Replace all drinks with water (or unsweetened tea, protein shakes are okay)
2. Only cold showers and cold showers every day

Nutrition

The first week was a really easy start for me. I mostly drink water anyway. It’s just been in the weeks before the makeover project, when I was at my parent’s and enjoying holidays, that I got tempted to drink some coke occasionally. But back at home I started using my 0.5L rechargable alu bottle and filled it with tap water three or four times a day. Easy, even drinking enough was no problem most days. After the first week I felt on a really good way and was very excited about the upcoming changes in my nutrition.

The other stuff

I started having cold showers about back in December 2017, but stopped after I moved because of convenience. In general I don’t find it that hard to take an ice cold shower, it’s way harder for me to make it a regular part of my morning routine. In the first week I made it for about 30-60 seconds every day, when I washed my hair I had to bear it even longer. At least it has reduced the time I waste in the shower, though I’ve never been a person that takes showers longer than 10 minutes. So far, easy challenge. But this was only the beginning!

Benefits

1. My bf told me (and I think it’s true) that my skin is very clear at the moment. I count it towards the hydratation I gave my body lately (usually I never drink enough, so just the amount of liquid I take in made a huge difference already).
2. I feel more awake in the morning. I’ve already been a morning person, but damn those cold showers kick right in my brain!

That was all I can tell about my first week. The second week got a lot trickier, though…

 

My 10 week life makeover

It’s been quite a rough time lately. Exams got me really stressed out (I’m not even done yet, duh) and I lacked motivation to workout properly, so I felt more and more sluggish. But in the last few days/weeks I did a lot of research on life changing plans, motivation, fitness, nutritional habits etc. because I hope that by making my lifestyle a healthier one, I will be able to deal with life’s obstacles a lot better

My motivation/goals

In the first place I feel the strong need to overcome my sugar addiction. I hate the cravings I get, especially when there’s not much time and a lot to do…  I read a lot of blogs about getting rid of sugar in your daily life and the benefits seem to be endless: more energy, better skin, losing weight, less cravings, more overall health (especially good when treating candida, which is something I’ve been struggeling with for about five years now), looking younger (or staying young for longer, as for me ageing is not really a problem, I mean I’m close to 20, not 40)

In addition to that I got kind of a vain goal for myself: back when I had more than 10 kilos less my abs were very well visible. And although I’m much stronger and curvier now, which I appreciate a lot, I somehow liked my abs a lot and I wish to get to a point where they become more visible again (without losing my other beautiful features, like my first class butt :D), so it’s obvious I want to lose a certain percentage of body fat (right now I’m at about 23-24% I guess).

Last but not least (and as I know I can be too hard to myself sometimes) I want to be good to my body: help it heal, give it some rest, boost my immune system, tame my mind, all that spiritual stuff.

Based on my goals I’ve developed two different plans I’m going to follow at the same time: One is focussed on nutrition, the other one on the mind and well-being.

Nutrition plan

I haven’t planned out every week in detail, but rather thought about a concept for gradually increasing “difficulty”, so I won’t want to quit right away. I came up with simple rules to follow each week. Every week there will be one rule more to follow, but it’s going to be easier because I will already be used to the last rule:

Week 1: replace all drinks with water (and drink about 2 litres each day)
Week 2: no carbs after 6 pm (but no other restrictions regarding the amount)
Week 3: have breakfast without added sugar
Week 4: replace sweets/candy with fruit, yogurt or nuts
Week 5: no added sugar at all allowed (keep an eye on every ingredients list!)
Week 6: no more fruits (this is going to be hard, but it’s temporarily necessary because of the candida thing)
Week 7: no white flour (switch to wholesome grains: bread, pasta, rice…)
Week 8: a whole week without carbs (DAMN, I don’t wanna do this one, but I read some literature about this, allowing your body to learn ketosis again, so it can burn fat better)
Week 9: reintroducing wholesome grains and starchy vegetables
Week 10: reintroducing fruits (maybe only not so sweet ones, but still yay)

Wellbeing plan (only 6 weeks though)

Week 1: (ice) cold showers only, cold showers every day
Week 2: starting Wim Hof (the iceman) breathing method (check it out on youtube)
Week 3: daily meditation
Week 4: morning stretching/yoga/…
Week 5: evening stretching/yoga/…
Week 6: trying a different kind of meditation (mantra meditation)

Right now I’m actually already in week 2, I’ll write an article about week 1 soon!

My workout routine

Of course I have a workout routine in addition to that, but I had it for quite some time (I just haven’t consequently stuck to it…). On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I go running. On Tuesdays an Saturdays I train legs, butt and back and on Thursdays and Sundays I train arms, abs and chest.

 

 

The importance of a breakdown

Why we can’t stick to good habits

(Or rather: why we can’t stick to new habits.)

What’s about habits?

I bet all of you have already heard of the following basic rule about habits: It takes 21/30/90/… (I don’t really care about the exact number here, it differs in different sources) days to install a new habit or break an old habit. I’m not so sure about this. Let me give you an example: I’ve been meditating for many days in a row some months back. I used to workout following a habitual plan (from Monday to Friday, always the same procedure during training sessions). Yet, some events in my life (like moving out) made me immediately stop this. And just as sudden I installed habits like eating junk food because I couldn’t cook and was too lazy to learn it. Those are habits that were EASY to adapt or to break. But why is that?
I personally think that with certain lifestyle changes like a new space or a new person you live with or a new job there comes a period of changing habits to adapt to the new situation. In this period it’s easy to install new habits, so we could use this to improve our way of dieting, fitness or selfcare. But why is it still so hard to stay on track with those for most of us, while getting into the habit of eating a whole chocolate bar as a movie snack?
The point is basically, your brain is not your friend. What you consider a good habit (e.g. go running three times a week) is an energy-consuming, willpower-sucking big NOPE to your brain.

Befriend your brain

So you have to trick your brain into teamworking with you. How is that possible?
What your brain loves, is hormone-stuff like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, so that is what you want to give it. Those hormones are released when we feel good, that is when we eat, love or do whatever we have learned is a joyful activity. And that’s the point! Your brain can learn to release those hormones when you repeatedly do something that brings you joy (which is why addiction to things besides drugs, like gambling exists). So here we must fake it till we make it. Connect your good-habit-activity (gha) to a positive rewarding feeling. This can be an actual award (like a cheat meal for your diet once a week, a hot bath after a run or time with your partner after studying in the library), which I would recommend in the beginning. It’s safe to have an actual source of hormones when your long term goal doesn’t excite you enough. When you’re really good though, you can do positive affirmations and vision boards, and plans for measurable goals that make you happy when you get closer to them. However, that’s too much for this blog entry, so I’ll return to this on another day.

The path to perfection is never straight

You can’t expect your brain to help you right away with your goals. It’s going to take weeks, months and years. Mabye with every new habit. You’re going to want to give up. You’re going to make mistakes. You can have a bad day, a bad week, a bad exam season. BUT, and this is very important: It will get easier. Step by step. If you’re really committed, you can just go on after a mistake.
I had to learn it during my teenage years in quite a rough way: Beating yourself up for doing things wrong will NOT make you better. It will only hurt you and make you feel even worse. Move on, look ahead. Tomorrow’s a new chance to start over.
In the last week I ate meat three times. I didn’t make it. But I don’t hate myself for it. I’ll just continue watching my daily intake and gradually choose more and more alternatives.
Instead, I’m focussing on what I have achieved so far. It’s been almost 40 days without alcohol, and I’m stressing less than last exam season. If this isn’t an improvment, I don’t know. All I care about is feeling more put together, more sane, mentally and physically. And this is a very beautiful self-image I see.

30 days without alcohol

First résumé

I spent the last 30 days without alcohol. Basically even without going out at all. So here is how I feel physically and mentally:

Short version: Simply great!

Longer version: I feel way more productive than I did when I went out to get some drinks, especially on the weekends I get so much more done. I wake up earlier, study more focussed and just feel “superior” if that makes any sense. Last weekend I met up some of my study colleagues in the uni library on a Saturday at 8 am and we studied like crazy. Felt way better than lying in bed, hungover from a mediocre “party” night.

Second point: I can enjoy my freetime with less guilt! Because I still have structured days on the weekends I can get up early to study and later on go to the lake with my boyfriend or watch three hours of youTube bird memes in a row (yes, this is what I do). I was at the animal shelter again for the first time in months (you can pet the cats there, which is very, very, very useful for taking a day off).

A con: I feel socially more isolated. I didn’t even attend a party, because I didn’t want to feel too tempted, plus I can’t really stay up long when I’m sober… So I only met my friends for study sessions. I wasn’t really able to meet new people, but this is something I really want to work on when not drinking.

What my bf thinks about it

I have to admit he was not soo strict about not drinking, but compared to before he really minimized his alcohol intake! He also kind of stopped smoking and he says he feels way healthier now. He’s finally grateful haha. I think we are on a good way to a healthier lifestlye, especially now that we haven’t had meat in 10 days!

The Veggie-Experiment

Today is the start of a new week and the beginning of a new experiment. My boyfriend and I will be vegetarians for three weeks.

Why

I know this blog is about fitness and what’s best for your personal development in terms of nutrition, eating healthy and stuff like that. And I also know that eating meat is something people debate  a lot about. Is it healthy or necessary? Can it cause cancer? I guess it’s the same as with all things in life: Too much of a good thing…
So the health aspects won’t be discussed today (maybe they will in a future article). Instead, this rather has ethical reasons for me – and it’s a challenge for my boyfriend (who is eating meat like every day).

I used to

be a vegetarian for about five years, three of which I even spent as a vegan. So to me these three weeks are not supposed to be that hard.
Why I began eating meat again in the first place? I don’t really know, it’s probably been a mixture of “I have moved out and don’t know how to cook” and “the kitchen in my shared flat always looks disgusting” and “premade vegan snacks are so expensive” and after moving together with my boyfriend, also “I found somebody who enjoys cooking, so I can just as well eat whatever he cooks”. That’s basically it. But now I’ve convinced both of us to eat less meat, starting with a rather extreme step.

 

 

My Fitness Journey pt.1

A honest “before”

On this blog we’re completely honest with each other. So today I’m sharing where I start. Well, not actually start, I have done fitness before and go running from time to time. But like, this is supposed to be a “new beginning” in fitness. I’m planning to try different things regarding working out and eating better than I do now and as I’m going to discuss those topics on my blog I thought it was a good idea to also keep track of my progress.

My body so far

I’ve never been overweight or anything like that. So my story might not be one of these motivational “she lost 50 kilograms in 18 months” success stories. In fact, I’ve always been really skinny and most people I know would be jealous of my body. In high school I often heard girls say they wish they had legs like mine and let’s not mention what a lot of the guys said! But still, in my teenage years I had very low self-esteem and I hated my body for not being good enough. At my lowest point I had 48,5 kilograms at a height of 1,68m. That’s not very much. I felt so fragile and weak that I even started hating my body more and more, but I didn’t know how to change that, as I was practising Kung Fu almost every day at this time. Since then I gained 13 kilograms and a ton of self-confidence and I appreciate my body now! But although mostly muscles, I still gained some amount of fat and I have never looked less shredded than I do now. My goal is to keep about the weight I have now, but lose some fat and gain some more muscle so that I am the best version of myself I can possibly be!

My body in numbers:

Height: 1,68 m (5’6″)
Weight: 61 kg (134 lbs)
Bust: 77 cm (30.3″)
Waist: 66 cm (26″)
Hip: 95 cm (37.4″)
Biceps/Triceps: 27 cm (10.6″)
Thighs: 50 cm (19.7″)

And here’s the brutally honest picture. When writing this article I realized I still don’t LOVE my body, but it’s okay, we’ll work on that 🙂

 

How to quit drinking alcohol

My experience with alcohol

I know, I’m not even legal in the US, but here in Germany you can buy beer and wine at 16 and harder stuff at 18. I had my first drink with 17, on the last day of high school, which actually is quite late here. Most kids start trying alcohol around 15 I’d say and so did my friends. Because I never wanted to drink I never got invited to parties and I kind of lost connection to some of the people I used to hang with, just because their new hobby was drinking on weekends.

In the past two years I only enjoyed alcohol about 20-30% of the times I consumed it. Nothing would really taste me and I almost never figured out how to drink properly. Either I felt like throwing up before I was even feeling drunk or the effect didn’t really last until I started to feel bad again. The only reason I kept drinking was that it was suddenly SO EASY to talk to people! Usually I’m very uncomfortable with people I don’t know and situations with loud surroundings like parties. But with alcohol it really was easier. I was finally able to enjoy myself at conversations and meet new people instead of always sitting home and studying or watching YouTube all day. So that’s the upside for me.

Nasty hangover days

You sure hate them. Yet, still on recovery on saturday afternoon you can’t refuse the invitiation to the next party this evening. Or maybe you have to go to uni or work the next day, because college parties are on Wednesdays. And honestly, I hate feeling like shit when I got actual stuff to do. It’s not just the physical hangover. To me what’s always almost worse is the regret of wasted time, the regret that you should have preferred your tasks over that evening of semi-fun with 80% strangers you’ll never see again unless they’ll show up at the next party. I periodically hated myself and that’s one thing I intended to stop on this journey.

So here comes the action plan:

How to resist the temptation

First of all, if you enjoy alcohol more than I do and you still need a strong push, I recommend watching and reading about the effects alcohol has on your body, especially when you’re into fitness. I promise, if you’re only half-serious about progress in fitness you’ll want to stop drinking. Plus, of course, that liver stuff. If you live in the US there’s a good chance you will be financially ruined if you need a new one. 🙂

So now that you’re super motivated you’ll face the next situation in which you’d usually drink something confidently.

BUT: There are gonna be people who  don’t understand. Who will want you to drink with them. Who will call you killjoy. Who will make you feel bad for your decision. I know it’s hard to not give in. And it’s probably even harder to have fun with a bunch of really drunk people when you’re sober as fuck.

So what I recommend is:

You can either drop your “friends” if they’re only people you go drinking with anyways and they don’t mean a lot to you personally. Don’t keep anyone in your social environment whose presence doesn’t give you joy in the first place. (I admit this is rather drastical, so just skip this point if you need your folks.)

If you’re on a larger party or event there will be people like you or people who are less drunk. Maybe you have never talked to them before. If so, that’s a great opportunity to challenge your inner anxiety and meet someone new. Otherwise you might revive old friendships, which is also awesome.

Get yourself some support! This one is very, very important if you’re not so good at resisting (I definitely am not). You could set someone up for a challenge, which is what I did with my boyfriend. The obvious benefit is that you don’t have to be awkward alone. But it can also be very motivating for a certain kind of person to win every challenge… especially if a reward is waiting if you’re better than the other person.

Another thing you can use your supporter for: if you’re at a house party he can sneakily get you some non-alcoholic beverage when nobody’s looking. If he’s pouring himself some alcohol nobody will really keep an eye on wheter the soda in your cup is also mixed. This is a good thing if you want to stop drinking but you don’t really want everybody to know. You can start from here.

The challenge

I challenge you. Go 30 days completely without alcohol. If you don’t usually drink at least once a week, go 60 days. Ask yourself why you drink in specific situations. Is it flirting? Meeting new people in general? Feeling less embarassed when dancing? Not being the awkward person? No matter what it is, face that feeling and do something in this situation to cope.

Just talk to that person you find nice (if they’re drunk they’ll probably find it even cool). Dance. No one cares. And start a typical “drunk” action whenever someone wants you to drink, like speaking very unclearly or talking about you childhood stories or whatever. I promise, after some time they won’t ask again. You just gotta rock it.

Starting over

Hey there,

thank you for coming here. This is the very first blog post I’m writing and it’s already getting very personal today. This blog is about my journey. From sugar addict to clean eater, from procrastinator to achiever and from wallflower to Mrs. confident. At least that’s the – modest – goal of this blog. You will be a part of my progress and I’ll be completely honest with my flaws. This is for you to get inspired to get up everyday, to never give up because of one bad day. Or week. Or even month.

To the purpose of this: I’ve always been very good at every thing I started. Whether it was school, playing the violin, doing ballet or martial arts. I easily graduated as best of my year in high school, I spent most of my free time training and achieved quite some Kung Fu belts (even black, yes). But now it’s been two years since my graduation and something has changed.

I moved out to study in another town, I left all my family and friends behind (except from one, but I’ll talk about him in a second). I did no sports, didn’t really find any new friends and sucked at what I studied (biomedical science). My mood was at an all time low, even though I’ve been struggelling with dark thoughts for quite some time at that point. I wasn’t myself anymore.

Luckily, today I’m feeling better again. I switched majors (now I do Maths), met a nice guy in the first week, who now is my boyfriend. I escaped the mentally abusive relationship with my former friend, who was my flatmate back then and I finally started to work out again.

Eventually my former motivation and strive for perfection came back. I watched a lot of motivational YouTube videos, read thousands of uni-related blog posts and got myself to this point where I found my long lost desire to write again.

I’ve always known that there is better for anyone who tries.

This is where you come into play. Do you think you deserve better? Do you think there’s more inside you than others can see? I feel you. This is why you’re here. Let us explore our possibilities together. I will try different approaches and tell you about my experiences so you can decide what’s for you: Whether that’s polyphasic sleep, running half marathons, eating clean, speedreading, intermittent fasting or whatever will cross my way. I’ll try everything that sounds even slightly promising. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message.

Lots of love and positivity