Health + Fitness Journey

 Greetings fellow humans,

What a weird way to start a new blog that is not going to be about anything except what I do - making this the first entry would be super lousy from a marketing perspective, haha. This is not a health and fitness blog, nor will it be in the future. I am going to write about whatever I feel like writing about and I have included some pages that I intend to fill out as I have the time that will document things I think that are worth documenting.

That being said, HI, my name is Melissa, I'm 37 years old and I guess that makes me an elder millennial? I do not have student debt, I do have a 4.0 GPA though. I worked my way through school and when the world returns fully to normal again, I'll be going back to finish my Masters. That is not what this post is about though, this is about my new life journey. I guess I just wanted to include some background about myself for context maybe.

The other day, I looked at myself in the mirror. I did not like it. I have had a weird relationship with my body image for a majority of my life. When I was a teenager, I was severely underweight because I ran track and ate hardly any food. I liked the way my body looked, but I hated my face. I thought I was so extremely ugly. I kept thinking "my face doesn't match my body" meaning, I had a good body, it was toned and really slim, but I really did not think I was pretty. Due to my high physical activity, teenage metabolism, and low daily caloric intake, it was not long before I was offered a modeling contract with Fords. I took it, and it was fun for a while. I stopped after a while though because "mainstream" modeling was not my thing, I got into alt-modeling after that. That's a story for another day though.

As I got into my 20's, and my activity levels decreased and my calorie intake increased, I gained more weight. I had no idea about what a carbohydrate was. This was before social media, I think the most people had was maybe a MySpace at that point - so I had no real reason to want to compare myself to other people. I did however, achieve the makeup skills by that time necessary to make myself have the face I wanted. Unfortunately at this point, a boyfriend with a love of pasta came into my life, and me, again, not knowing what a carbohydrate was, not having ever really made the mental connection that food = fat, I prepared pasta for our dinner almost every night for about a year. I gained like 60 lbs. I did not understand what it was from, I asked my doctor, I found out. After that relationship ended, my life went on as life normally does, and I tried to be more active and took a bit more care with what I ate. I slimmed down a little bit, but not a significant amount. I was trying to avoid the "eating disorder look" that I had in my teens, because even though I liked the way my body looked when it looked that way, other people were "scared for me" (which I thought was incredibly condescending). Like most people, I hated going to the gym, not because I hated working out (I actually very much enjoy it), but because I did not want other people staring at me. I still don't like when people look at me at the gym. Freaks me out, stop looking at me!

So around the time I was 30 years old, I got married and moved to Texas. The food is delicious there and my relationship with my then-husband was very toxic. I did not go to the gym. It was too hot to go outside and run, even at night. I started and stopped a "fitness routine" so many times - because I'd go out to run at night (which was surprisingly safe for me, I lived in a good neighborhood) - but I would be so extremely sweaty after 10 minutes due to the heat, that I wouldn't want to do it. I mentioned my relationship with my then-husband was not a healthy one. He was vegetarian and I ate meat for every meal to spite him and his religious beliefs. It did not help me in any way to do so. So, the time came for us to part ways, as all unhealthy relationships must come to an end. I moved back home to the east coast, where I am now, and fortunately/unfortunately, however you want to look at it, the "divorce diet" shed about 100lbs off of my body. I didn't even realize how quickly the weight was coming off, just from changing how I ate (which is to say, I was very unhappy and felt like a failure for having a divorce under my belt, so I really was not eating very much and I slept almost all day). A friend of mine, seeing this depression, advised I go get a job to keep myself busy (my parents were taking care of me financially while my soul healed from the divorce, which was kind of them, but it left me without motivation to get up and do anything because I did not have to). I got a job, and met some new friends, and we would take walks and go out and my activity level increased. As any medical professional will tell you, the more you are physically active, the less likely you are to experience the symptoms of depression. That was the case for me. 

I was happy to walk along the beach again, I was happy to be "home". I rarely ate out, it was not a part of my life. I got a gym membership and I was glad to be back on the treadmill, running my little heart out. I got back into my academia, and everything seemed to be going great. I met a group of friends that liked to play a game called Dungeons & Dragons (this was before Stranger Things, you band wagoners) which was a game I loved playing with my cousins when I was in my teens. I joined a few groups and finally found one that stuck. On the day I joined the group I ended up staying with, I saw the most beautiful man walk through the door of the game shop. It was like something out of a great novel, I made some kind of weird noise (yes have I mentioned I may be socially awkward?) because I was like "omg this human is extremely hot, what do I do" full on internal panic and weird yearning to touch his hair at the same time haha. As our game session went on, I absolutely knew he was "the one" I had to be with. So much chemistry right off the bat. The next day, I sent him a message on discord and the rest is history. I have been with my boyfriend Eric ever since the beginning of 2020. 

Not to repeatedly abuse the word "unfortunately" but as we all know, the pandemic hit about 2 months after Eric and I started seeing each other. This meant no more gym. No more leaving the house. No more going out to the bar (which is something Eric really likes to do) and being social. School was no more. I was, like we all were, trapped inside of my home. I bought a treadmill from Amazon and it was fine, but it kept people awake or woke people up, because even though we were all working from home, my "workout" times were always either 5am or 10pm, something like that. I did it when I had time, but was easily discouraged because the treadmill was low quality and very loud. I stopped using it. Doordash is great, but not for the waistline. Like many others, I put on about 30lbs between 2020-2022. My doctor is not happy about this. Neither am I. You don't really notice things like this happening when they do, because the weight gain was gradual, and I didn't really think I was making super poor dietary choices when I would order food, but I guess a little here and a little there eventually adds up. 

When we were released from pandemic prison, Eric and I started hiking, because we had both gained weight and we did notice it, and our religious beliefs kind of promote being out in nature anyway - so it all seemed to fit. We did that earlier this year every week until the heat of summer came and we couldn't anymore. Our first hike was High Point, which is the tallest mountain/point in our state. I'm a real big advocate of the "go big or go home" attitude, if you couldn't already tell. I started a little Instagram account for the photos I would take on our hikes/walks - if you want to follow it you can @melissaanderic. We resumed our hikes as soon as the summer heat went away, which was just recently as autumn came through and changed the color of the leaves. Now that we have resumed the weekly hikes/nature walks(some of the things we do really can't be called hikes as it is mostly flat terrain) and while that is great for cardiovascular health, it is not enough to really lose weight.

Formulated with the knowledge of medical professionals, I have a "diet" that I am going to be starting later this week (as soon as supplies arrive) that will put me at 1200 calories per day. I also go to the gym every day, and until my body is accustomed to the changes in calorie intake and being active every morning again, I only do a fast walk on the treadmill for about an hour while listening to just the most violent grindcore I can (keeps the weirdos away). I started this post with the intention of sharing what my daily food looks like, but ended up going on a tangent. Oh well. Anyway, what I will be eating each day;

Breakfast - 347 calories / 4 hardboiled eggs, 1 apple

Lunch - 347 calories / 4 hardboiled eggs, 1 apple

Dinner - 255 calories / 2 pouches of tuna, 1 cup of lettuce, 2 tablespoons of ranch

Total meal calories = 949.

You may say "well that isn't 1200 calories". No, with just my meals alone, it isn't. I drink a lot of coffee though, and with the creamer I use, that ends up being about 60 calories per cup. I also have wiggle room with this so if I feel the need to have a little something more, I can, and I don't have to feel like I've strayed off the path. If some days I can't get my life together and I just need to drink a smoothie for variation instead of having breakfast, that would put me at just slightly over 1200 calories. Usually all I drink is coffee and water anyway, so this is fine. I get all of my necessary nutrition and I take a multivitamin for anything I am missing (which really isn't much, this is a pretty good one). 

I do not promote eating disorders or body dysmorphia being the norm. This again, I will state, is a diet that is approved by medical professionals. If you're thinking of following this diet, speak with your doctor first. It may not be right for you and your personal medical needs, so please consider that.

I want to say that I am not going to the gym so that I can eat more. I am going to the gym each day so that I can take longer hikes and get a chance to be physically active, because sometimes life on its own does not really permit it. The idea behind this "diet" is to give my body a chance at being what I'd like it to be, but in a healthy way. In a few months, my weight will be better, and I may change this. It is important to note though; that anyone that follows a restrictive calorie diet and then suddenly stops - you are going to blow back up to wherever you were before and all that work will be for nothing. You need to very slowly bring yourself back up to 1800 calories per day, or 2000 calories per day, depending on whatever your doctor says you need. You also need to consider that while you're increasing your calories, if you want to keep losing weight, you need to increase your activity levels at the gym, too. Diet and exercise are part of maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy body. They have to be in balance or else you won't achieve your goals. 

Much like everything else in life, balance is always a necessary. Anyway, this is probably going to be my only semi-serious post, so don't get used to it. Okay bye.