mentalhealth

Living with anxiety

Four and half years ago, I had my first anxiety/panic attack driving my daughter and husband home from a gymnastics meet. I believe I have always dealt with everyday anxiety and over the years it’s just escalated. I remember that night so vividly. This morning I woke up feeling shaky and not quite right. I couldn’t pinpoint what I was feeling but it felt like it was taking over my body, I had trouble concentrating shortness of breath, and hot flashes galore. After finally breaking down and having a freakout moment I had to stay home and pull out of an afternoon of golfing with the family. I still didn’t know exactly what was going on, after everyone left the house I curled up on the couch, closed my eyes, and turned on a guided meditation. All I wanted to do was calm my insides. I needed to slow every piece of me. After about an hour or so I felt like I was coming back around. I still don’t know what caused it or why I’m all of a sudden dealing with this more often!

Today it got the best of me. I have a lot going on and can only think it’s all starting to catch up with me. Learning how to overcome something new like this is kinda throwing me for a loop. I have this image in my head that paints a perfect picture of what my life should or could be if I didn’t get in my own way. I feel like I’m at a breaking point and ready to give up on everything. I’m tired, exhausted, trying way too hard to make it all happen, and way too concerned with everyone around me and making their life easier. It’s interesting when you are so focused on helping everyone else that you forget to focus on yourself.

Personally, I try and do it all! I want to homeschool my kids and work full-time and start my own business, along with making enough money to take the edge off my husband. That’s a lot of pressure. My priorities are in the wrong order. How the hell does one learn to manage it all, and reduce this anxiety? I can’t live like this.

Today was an eye-opener. I think so much has been building up and it finally broke. 😦

This weeks menu. YUM!

This weeks menu is done and prepped!

Breakfast –

  • Spiced Pumpkin Muffins: Against All Grain Cookbook

Lunch –

  • Taco Soup: Keto 4 Karboholics (this soup is AMAZING)
  • Tomato Soup: Keto 4 Karboholics
  • Club Sandwich Wraps: Against All Grain Cookbook

Dinner –

  • Meatball Subs: Eat What You Love Cookbook
  • Legit Chicken Thighs: Keto 4 Karboholics
  • BBQ Bacon Burgers: Against All Grain Cookbook
  • S&S Chicken Thighs: Keto 4 Karboholics
  • Legit Pork Chops: Keto 4 Karboholics
  • BBQ Dry Rub Thighs: Keto 4 Karboholics
  • Spare Ribs: Spinachandbacon.com

I’m going to try and not have to many snacks between meals. If I do it will be string cheese, nuts or something simple. All the cookbooks I have I ordered from Amazon. I love finding recipes on Pinterest and Keto 4 Karboholics has the most amazing keto recipes! Go follow her Instagram, you won’t be disappointed.

So here is where I’m listing my meals, however I’m planning on experimenting with the recipes. Like I’ve talked about before my goal is to cut all sugar including the fake stuff. That’s what draws me to a Paleo diet. But I love Kassy’s (K4K) recipes, so I’m going to see where I can sub out and mix in local honey and pure maple syrup.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Connecting my heart and head again.

Let’s begin by jumping in with both feet! If I’m committing to a new way of eating and fully focusing on helping my mental status. We have to add in a few other things.

  1. Exercise
  2. Meditation
  3. Journaling ( this blog )

These are huge in the world of healing yourself, and in my world both can do a lot for clearing my head.

Today I willed myself to wake up and focus on the things I am grateful for ( it sounds so cheesy saying it that way). It’s so important to focus on the good and focus on all that’s going wrong in my life.

Yesterday I was living my best me… We got up went to the farmers market and then hit up a u-pick veggie / flower farm on the way home, when we got home we cleaned up outside and I got to play in the garden. It reminded me of what I’m working towards and where my goals are. I allow myself to get so caught up in the stressfulness of work and everyone else’s issues I in turn get all stressed out and find myself hating my job and dreading having to head to work Monday morning. I have allowed this to interfere with so much of my life and control so much of my unhappiness. Where if I truly sit back and re-evaluate what is going on in my life I have nothing to be so worked up over. I blow things up in my head so much and allow myself to get so overwhelmed it takes all the joy out of me. Why can’t I just let work be work and walk away when I’m at home? I have big dreams I’m working for. I can’t get to those dreams without this job right now. I end up binge eating, feeling horrible, crying and crashing by the end of the week. Who lives like this!?

This is why I am 200+ pounds and struggling with my weight and happiness. I somehow need to be happy with me. Why can’t I let things go and live for today. I stress over the what-if’s months away. My breakdowns have got worse over the last year or so and I do believe all this is enter twined and I am the only one in charge of healing myself. My one goal is to be happy without taking a medication to get there. The amount of commitment I will have to put in, is more then I have ever accepted and I’m ready.

The connection with food and meditation is whole heartedly all connected. This is my time to commit to myself and heal from within.

My heart and head need to connect and work together again. Food, meditation, journaling and exercise is what’s going to get me there.

What have you done to heal yourself from within?

Food + Mental Health

Well today wasn’t my finest day…

Woke up with a pounding headache, finally got myself off to work running a little late, tried to get what I needed to get done but ended up not being able to kick the pounding in my head and felt like I was going to throw-up majority of the morning. I don’t know what my deal was but it wasn’t a pretty am. Throughout the afternoon I could feel my mood changing and my head getting cluttered. I have lots of stuff going on at work that stresses me out (and pisses me off), today it boiled over and by the time I left I could feel myself getting anxious and angry. When I got home, I went to pull some veggies out of the fridge, ended up dropping a few things on the floor and spilling them everywhere. This tipped me over the edge. I lost my shit! The worst part is both my kids watched it all 😦 I try really hard to not let me kids see this side of me. They know I battle depression and don’t get me wrong they see some horrible sides of me here and there but I do try really hard to not let them see this side. After yelling a few choice words and getting covered in coffee creamer, I hid in my room and cried…

I HATE FEELING LIKE THIS

I’ve been reading a new book and it’s making me think about what I can do without meds. I’m not against them, I just want to try everything else before I put medication in my body. I’ve been on and off anti depressants since I was 15 years old. They don’t mix well with me. Anyway this book isn’t about depression but autoimmune diseases and how the food you put in your body can help. Got me thinking, what can food do for depression? I know from experience the keto diet helps me have a clear head and my kids say I’m way happier and nicer when I’m following that diet. So what if I really went all in and started taking more out? What if I replaced the sugar substitute with more natural sweeteners like raw honey. What if I got serious about what was going in my body. I love the keto diet I have been following, but what if we took it up a notch and really focused on not only cutting gluten, sugar, and carbs out but learning where our food comes from and what is really going in our bodies. What if I take out all processed food, including sugar substitutes, alcohol and caffeine. Do you think it would help with my mental state? I’m almost past the point of even wanting to lose weight and just trying to see what I can do to help my head and heart. I feel like I’m fully losing my mind lately and I don’t want to see where it leads if I stay on this path. Mental health is such a touchy subject and so many are scared to admit they have a problem or bring it up to someone they are close too.

It sounds daunting the more I think about cutting everything out. Makes me miss food already! However I do love to cook and as long as I make the time this could work. It will have to be a whole family change, I can’t do this on my own that’s for sure.

Anyone have any experience with this? I think I’m going to go hit up the google machine and see what I can find. We know what it can do for the body, but what can it do for the mind?