Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey there, welcome to the Hot Mess Mom Health Podcast. Do you wish you could find a sustainable way to get healthy and not feel overwhelmed in the process? Do you find yourself up late at night scouring Pinterest for meal prep ideas and quick workouts? Do you wake up with big, ambitious goals only to feel stressed out and disappointed when you fall back in your old habits? Drive through the Chick-fil-A drive-through for the second time this week, all while the fresh produce you just bought goes bad? Hey, I'm Rebecca.

Speaker 1: 0:31

I too am a working mom of two little and self-proclaimed Hot Mess Mom. All my life I've struggled with trying to maintain a healthy weight and feel good in my skin. I could add yoyo diet or to my resume. After I packed on 50 plus pounds with two pregnancies, I decided to change for good. I wanted to stop obsessing about food, stay consistent and set a good, healthy example for my kids, but I kept telling myself that I didn't have the time, the energy or accountability to stay on track, until I changed my mindset and created one healthy habit at a time. In this podcast, you will find simple, actionable steps that you can create a healthy lifestyle and get relief from the overwhelm. Spray that dry shampoo, grab your iced coffee, turn up the volume and let's get healthy.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Hey there, happy Monday and welcome back to another episode of Hot Mess Mom Health. I'm so grateful that you are joining me for another week. I hope you have an amazing week. I hope that the spring season is just kind of filling your vibes and giving you the feeling that you can kind of conquer anything. The weather kind of does that for me in a lot of ways. When it starts getting warm and you can almost smell it in the air, it does fill me with more positive vibes for sure. However, daylight savings time this year I don't know for whatever reason has kicked my butt. If you're in a part of the country that does daylight savings time, it's great to know that it's going to be light later, but for some reason this year I just can't get out of my sleeping patterns and waking up at five has become extremely hard. I don't know if it's a me or if it's just something going on in the universe or what it is, but it's been really hard for me to get my acting gear since the time change this year.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Today I want to talk about something that is me on this podcast, keeping it completely real with you all. I haven't really spoke about it a lot on the podcast, but I am in the process of training for a half marathon that I am scheduled to run next Sunday, march 26th, with my husband in Philadelphia. I have been going through the training schedule, doing all the things I'm warming up, I'm cooling down, I'm doing lots of stretches About. I guess it was a little over a week ago well, I shouldn't say over a week ago, it was longer than that, probably about a month ago. Every time I'm running my calves are hurting, they are burning and I'm limping for a day after I do a long run and things like that. I was kind of ignoring it, doing more stretching, getting in a hot tub, doing my red light therapy, popping some of the leaves.

Speaker 1: 3:11

And then a couple of Saturdays ago I did my long run on a treadmill because there was no time to get it done outside. It was about seven miles. I stepped off of the treadmill and immediately knew something was wrong. I was limping for the next 48 hours. Finally decided that Monday to go to a sports medicine doctor, because it was pretty much the only doctor that I could even think of and I had openings because I was afraid I did something. So I went there. They did not think I did anything dangerous like severe I shouldn't say dangerous did anything severe enough that would prevent me from running at all or running the race. However, they put me on a freeze and wanted me to see a chiropractor. So that afternoon scheduled to put me on a chiropractor and they pretty much told me no running until the race, which was completely deflating.

Speaker 1: 4:01

And although mentally I think I can do it, it's frightening to me because I like to prepare. I like to follow the course of action that I thought I was going to do to prepare for this race. And it's a hard. It's a mental game, right Like, running is a mental game, getting healthy is a mental game, losing weight is a mental game. A lot of these things that we all struggle with are completely mental a lot of times and we can be our own worst enemy a lot of times. And it's really messing with my head that I have to run this race and I'm not. I've seen the chiropractor four times since then. I will see the chiropractor another three times next week before the race, and she said that I might be able to run three miles next week and kind of see how I feel, and then somehow I'm miraculously, miraculously supposed to be able to run 13.1 miles next Sunday.

Speaker 1: 4:52

So, yeah, I'm a little stressed out about it, and the reason I wanted to talk to you guys about it today was because I think, you know, in a weight loss and a health journey, in any type of journey at all in life, when there's a setback, it can really send you in a spiral. I am doing everything I can to not let that happen, because the reality of it is I'm going to go out there next Sunday with my husband and somehow this race is going to get completed and it's probably not going to look like I thought it was going to look. It's not going to be. You know the time I thought I was going to have or I thought I might be in pain at the end of it, I don't know. But I know one thing is for sure there are plenty of setbacks that I've had in my life and I've not let them stop me, and I want this to kind of be a reminder to you that things are going to happen right.

Speaker 1: 5:42

I did not expect to have a calf injury, like what is like a calf strain Like, somehow, my tibialis. I don't even know the terminology, but I did not expect this. Right, I'm thinking that I'm doing all the right things, I'm following the rules, quote unquote and to still have a setback is upsetting at best. Right and in order to keep myself focused on the goal of running that race, these are the things that I'm doing and I hope they could offer you some help and some support in knowing that, when things happen right, we have the kind of I don't want to say, put your big girl undies on, but put your bigger undies on right, and we have to look towards the positive things which, if you've been listening to this podcast for some time, I have choose joy tattooed on my wrist to remind me to find the joy in things, to find the joy in being a mom, to find the joy when I'm with my kids, when I'm at work and I am not the best at this, so I literally have it tattooed on my wrist to remind me to find the joy in things, because it can be hard to not always get down, to get frustrated, to get burnt out. Always be negative. That is my natural place to be right. I'm forcing myself out of my comfort zone in order to become a better me, a better version of myself. So some things that I'm doing to not let this set back, hold me back or put me in a bad mindset or not allow me to get to my final destination, which is the crossing.

Speaker 1: 7:07

The finish line next Sunday is I am focusing on what's controllable, right. I can control how much water I'm drinking. I can control what I put in my mouth. I can control the amount of sleep that I'm getting at night. I can control other things that I'm doing to keep me feeling like I'm building momentum with my health journey. I can focus on the things that I've been clear to do, like weightlifting or rowing and things like that. I can focus on the controllable things that I can. I cannot control necessarily what my leg is going to feel like tomorrow, but I can control these other things right. I can control my attitude. I can control the negative thoughts. Right. I can kind of catch myself. I can focus on having a growth mindset and saying what can I learn from this?

Speaker 1: 7:54

You know, a lot of times we get setbacks, hurdles, things come up and we don't take a second to say what's the lesson here? And for me, it's that I'm not 20 anymore. I'm 40 and my body is not reacting to things like I was 20., like I can't rebound. I can't just go run 20 miles and think that everything's fine the next day. I have to.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Really, something that I'm realizing and acknowledging is that focusing on mobility and stretching and doing things that are kind to my body, as opposed to some intense workouts, is really important when you're 40. Because from going to the chiropractor and learning about how I have no mobility in my ankles and my hip, mobility is not great. These are things that I need to focus on and I would not have known those things if this injury wouldn't have happened and I wouldn't been in the chiropractor. So there are blessings in everything and sometimes it's hard to see them at the moment when you get that setback, when something happens. And not to say that it's not okay to have your moment right, like I had my moment but I had to move past it in order to be able to get to the place where I'm like I can run this race, like it's going to happen one way or the other. It's going to happen. What it's going to look like, we don't know, but it's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 9:10

So, focusing on that growth mindset and what lessons I can learn from this, I think are huge in there, keeping me in a positive mindset and focus on the end goal and accepting you know I've said this especially in my hot mess to health journey, success journey, accepting that this is a journey and not a sprint and obviously I'm talking about a race, but just in the health journey in general, acknowledging and accepting it wholeheartedly that this is a journey and things are going to happen. There's going to be ups and downs, but it's not about the ups or the downs, it's about how we get through them. That really matters. And I think just looking at it like this was a journey, this was. There's lessons learned, you know, and how proud of myself I'm going to feel at the end of this, knowing that I even had this setback but I still stayed committed to my end goal.

Speaker 1: 9:57

I didn't throw in the towel and say, well, I'm not going to run this race if I can't finish training for the next two weeks. No, I put in the work for the first eight weeks and that's what matters. And I know I ran nine miles a couple weeks ago I can do 13. I know I'm ready, I know I'm capable of it. Is my mind going to kind of get try to mess me up? Of course, but I'm preparing for that. I'm preparing myself mentally now. I'm going through all the things that could go wrong. I'm focusing on how I'm feeling my body and sleeping and moving it in other ways that are helpful to get me to that end result, because that's going to keep me moving, that's going to keep the momentum, that's going to continue knocking over those dominoes that we talk about a lot in this podcast and other things that I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 10:42

I am journaling. I think journaling is a big, often overlooked thing where a lot of us maybe we'll say and I did this for years I don't have time for that, but it is such a good thing to just reflect upon and just get your thoughts out on paper. Whether you're angry at the situation, or you are learning to accept the situation, or you're trying to just get all the certain scenarios that could happen out on paper. There's something so soothing about doing that and acknowledging that this is how you're feeling to be able to move forward. So really doing that, I have been using my five minute journal. I highly recommend it. I'm going to do a whole episode about it in a couple weeks, but it is something that's super quick. I can do the morning, I can do before I go to bed five minutes right down your thoughts and you're out. I always like if you want a journal, like couple pages, go for it, but for me I don't have a lot of time. If you're anything like me, five minutes is probably all you have, sometimes maybe less, before your head hits the pillow, before you need to jump out of bed. But it is something that you can do, you can reflect upon it in the future and there is just something so unbelievably I don't know motivating about writing the things down that are in your head and getting them onto paper. So if you haven't started journaling, I highly recommend that. If you're going through any type of challenge or setback, it can really, really help you a lot. Can that recommend it enough? So I hope that this helps you. I just want to be real with you guys. This is what I'm going through. This is what I'm doing. That is helping me.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Whether you're on the first couple of weeks of your journey and something's happened, don't let it stop you. Don't let it bring you down to the point where you are not building that momentum, no matter what it is. We all have issues that happen, we all have setbacks, we all have hurdles, obstacles, whatever you want to call them. Some are big, some are small, but when you're focusing on your health and you're focusing on your long-term health goals, don't let anything stop you. Do not let anything stop you from becoming the version of yourself that you want to be. Don't let anything stop you from becoming that person that you've always dreamed about, that person that feels energized, that feels confident, that just feels comfort in knowing how they feel themselves, they feel empowered, that they know how to make good, healthy decisions for themselves. Do not let any hurdle or any bond or anything stop you from getting to that goal. If you are focused on it I know I'm not and I really want that for you too I want you to stay focused, build that momentum, no matter what life throws at us, because, let's face it, life is going to continue to throw curveballs all the time, and it's not about having the setback, it's about how we're handling it.

Speaker 1: 13:26

So I want to leave you with these two quotes that I found. I haven't done quotes in a while, but I do love quotes, so the first one is out for everything, right? No, we're definitely not going to do that. We are going to keep moving. We're going to get it fixed. We're going to pick up ourselves. We're going to put our big girl underwears on and we're going to keep going, because that's what we do, because we're not going to give up on ourselves. We are going to keep moving. You got this.

Speaker 1: 13:52

I hope this episode motivates you in some way. I hope that you found it helpful and, if you do, please share this episode with someone. I want nothing more for everyone listening to this to just be motivated, to know that I'm a real person, just like you. I have issues, I have struggles, but I really want to come together as a unit and just hope that we can all hold each other's hands, lift each other up and get to all the goals that we want, because we all deserve it. We deserve to feel great, we deserve to feel energized and we should not let anything hold us back. Have an amazing week. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of Hot Mess Mom Health. If you loved this episode, please leave me an iTunes review. It would mean the world to me and it would help me get the word out about helping other moms reclaim their health. Thank you so much.