Author: In a Tizzy

It has been a turbulent few weeks for me as the school year has begun to gain momentum. I’ve struggled with adjusting to my new roles, likely as a result of the requirements laid out by some commitments that required completion within one or two weeks of the year kicking off. While I know that a deadline means that completion will come eventually, it has been difficult to see beyond those deadlines at times; however, some have passed, and I am able to feel the ability to manage my life returning to me.

The first six weeks of being at school is a time of transition and readjustment for all; but those weeks are outlined as a particularly critical period for residents and the residence advisors, because those six weeks will set the ‘tone’ for the rest of the year.

Amidst the requirements of my positions, I have some personal goals for the first six weeks:

1. Schedule my hours until my routine develops.
   I have been struggling with finding the motivation to sit down and establish my study routine, and I believe that some structured study time – as informed by a calendar schedule to-be arranged – will help me return to a natural study rhythm. Additionally, time for my extracurricular requirements will be structured around that time to ensure that I don’t forget about them.
2. Be conscientious of my eating habits.
   Throughout my health journey over the past two years, I have become much more aware of the way my body feels and performs in response to consuming certain things. During my stresses and anxieties of the first few weeks of school, I have acknowledged my body’s cravings and responses – and promptly ignored them several times. My eating habits are far from the horrors they could be, but when I eat a primarily vegan diet, exercise daily, and have spent months making my body accustomed to a certain “cleanliness” of diet – my body desires good things, and responds poorly to my neglect of it.
   I need to eat meals that fill me with fibre, protein, and enough carbs to keep me mentally active. My snacks should be primarily clean ones with minimal “fake” components (for example, not indulging too often in my love of Mio-enhanced water). Fluids are a must, and will ideally be a nearly-even split between tea and regular water.
3. Plan ahead.
   It has become apparent that if I am planning ahead, my life is generally in a manageable state. My thoughts are that if I plan ahead regardless of my life’s manageability, I will produce a manageable state! At least a little. It will give me more opportunities to see what is ahead, and at least not be totally caught off guard by obligations and events that are coming up.
   – Calendars
   – Day planners
   – Looking at class schedules

There are only 3 days left until I begin my journey back to school into my new role as a residence advisor, and with that will come the need to be structured and efficient with my time. 

The first month will be a time of testing the waters and figuring out how my schedule balances with all that I will have on my plate: Academics, extracurriculars, a shift at work once per week, my social life, etc. I hope to find time to keep a regular blog entry going, and I hope to find some structure to some of my posts in addition to my more personal photojournalistic updates!

I am not sure what this may look like right now, but perhaps more food/nutrition/fitness-related posts will occur, or more focused “thought” posts. Regardless, I will do my best to keep a reasonable post pace!

I do both of these things quite often.

Quite often, I find that the first (thinking) gets a little too muddled in the second (eating) at certain times. 

As an individual that tends to get emotional (excited, anxious, stressed, frustrated, morose) when it comes to thinking about any one thing for long periods of time, having myself mulling over something as simple-yet-complicated-and-important as eating always leads to a bit of a mental mess.

This post is not the first time that I have entertained these thoughts, but every so often it feels like I make a shift in my thinking, and things make a little more sense, feel a little more right, and get a little less frustrating; in the last week, I had a shift of this sort. Just a small one – but enough to decide to write about it! As I repeated my belief to someone that they should probably have some protein following their vigorous workout, and as I myself was mixing up a protein-y beverage to consume, I was met with a simple enough response: “I’m not hungry right now.”

Hm. That’s interesting, because my body craves food immediately after I exercise vigorously on most occasions – and I find that many people I encounter share similar sentiments. While I still believe that protein (amongst other nutrients) following vigorous exercise is important for re-building torn muscles and providing your body with a great deal of goodness, an oft-repeated message seemed to ring more true than usual: Not every body is the same.
Not every body feels the way mine does after I work out, or has the same cravings, or enjoys the same food, or is structurally the same as mine, or is going to build muscle or gain/lose weight the same way that mine does.

It seems so obvious, and I have shared these thoughts with others in the past – you can’t expect the same results you see in someone else if you do exactly what they do, because you and that person are not the same! I get very caught up in thinking about how much I’ve exercised and what I’m eating and how I’m feeling and often realize (too late) that I’ve been subconsciously relating my own journey to someone else’s (exercise regimen, dietary choices, muscle bulkiness, etc.).

My process of really thinking about what I ate began when I became a vegetarian, and then four months later began to exercise regularly (and vigorously) and improve my overall diet and think about what I need for a balanced lifestyle. Unfortunately, in my healthy decision making, I developed a tendency to decide a little too carefully about the aspects of my life that were improving my health, such as exercise and my eating choices. What I mean by this “overly-careful decision making” is that I would sometimes feel I hadn’t “earned” certain treats if I hadn’t worked hard enough that day (in my own eyes) or that I would become reluctant to enjoy snacks that looked as though their calorie count was “unreasonable” (I never counted calories, mind you, but sometimes one snack’s worth of calories seems a little crazy, y’know?).

While I’ve not entirely escaped those ways of thinking, I have started to recognize that I don’t need to be self-conscious if I want to have a snack but someone else doesn’t want to have a snack at the same time – I am not glutinous for eating when someone else is not. Nor am I out of shape or unconditioned if my body is responding to exercise and food in a different way than someone else who is doing something similar to me – or even something entirely different. I cannot allow myself to think that a snack will automatically turn into unhealthily stored fat if I eat it without exercising extra to “earn it.” It is not fair to me, when I work hard to be good to my body and my health and my well-being, to criticize myself for doing things that fall outside of the realm of “healthy lifestyle” once in a blue moon – or even more often than that. 

None of what I do for myself is going to be worth it if I cannot be happy along the way. Happy with me, and for me, and for others who are on their own journey that is different that mine. I deserve to be happy, and to share in my love for eating and exercising and achieving peace of mind with those that I care about – and those that I have not even met yet.

I would not say that I have ever been truly unhappy, but there have been dark patches in my healthy journey that left me with certain unhealthy mindsets that I have worked on and made brighter opportunities for learning and improving myself.

My goals have become healthier ones, and are less shaped by thinking that I have anyone to be accountable to other than myself. I cannot say that I do not think of others as I work to better myself, but I am becoming better at thinking of myself first.



This has been a somewhat long and potentially ramble-y post, but it felt like something I wanted to share and put into words I can look at in order to establish them more clearly in my mind! Thanks for taking any amount of time to read any number of the words here, and perhaps some of them will help you with your own “shift” in your thinking along your own journey.