Self-Accountability: Week Eleven

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At the start of the year, I think I wrote three weeks worth of "self-accountabilities," where at the end of each week I tried to keep check on myself and, dare I say it, my ~new years resolution~ to be healthier.

For me, those posts became boring. Much like an Actifit report, I was writing the same uninteresting things in them and I didn't want to clog my blog with stuff I didn't find interesting even if it was something to help me keep track of myself and stay determined to live a healthier lifestyle.

Turns out I don't need to post weekly to stay determined. I've been determined for almost three months now and I'm still going strong.

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What's inspiring me to write today is the fact that I feel like whatever I am doing is working. Which is fantastic.

The main purpose behind my eating healthier and living a healthier lifestyle was in regards to my reproductive cycle. Although I am getting older, I'm not quite at the age yet where my cycle should be out of whack... and it was, badly. Either that meant I was entering a very early menopause or there was something wrong with my health.

After a lot of reading and Google-diagnosing myself because I have white-coat syndrome and don't want to speak with professionals, I decided that I'd see what happened with my cycle if I took so many bizarre chemicals out of my diet. I was living on energy drinks, for instance. Copious amounts of caffeine is not good for the cycle.

I am now on my second regular cycle. Three periods now have been spaced a nice, regular 30 days apart, and I'm starting to have hope that maybe, just maybe, now that my cycle is starting to become regular again, that means I've begun ovulating again.

After I stopped taking birth control, I was getting anovulatory bleeding every 40-60 days as opposed to a proper period every 28-34 days. Basically, I wasn't releasing eggs. You can read more about anovulation here: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21698-anovulation

Anovulation is common after stopping birth control, but normally it lasts only one or two cycles and then things go back to normal. For me, I had this for over a year. It's only now I feel like things are becoming normal again. I don't know if it's because of my lifestyle change or if it's because my body just decided to randomly go back to normal. But I feel like it's more likely the lifestyle change.

It's only a tentative hope at the moment, that perhaps things have gone back to normal inside my body, I don't think I'll feel confident about that until I get another regular cycle another 30 days from now. But it's a good start! Maybe it's possible I will be able to have another child before it's "too late." I will be 36 this year...

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As for the healthy lifestyle in particular...

  • I've eaten more salads in the past three months than I have in my entire life.
  • I think I've only had three iced coffees and one can of energy drink during this time, only on mornings I desperately needed a boost.
  • My inner stomach has definitely shrunk. If we go out to a restaurant, I can no longer finish my plate before feeling full. And if I have a cocktail with my dinner, I am only able to finish half my plate.

Part of what I was trying to do was eat more regularly throughout the day. That was a huge struggle for me. I've never been a breakfast and lunch person and forcing myself to eat so early in the morning was just a pain in the arse.

I've reverted to my first meal being at around 10-11am and just going from there. So my breakfast is lunch. A couple of healthy snacks. Then a good dinner of mostly a piece of protein and a large salad.

I haven't taken any photos of my food... soooooo... eh. But my favourite salad to make at the moment is this:

  • rocket (arugula) leaves and baby spinach leaves
  • purple cabbage
  • carrot
  • cucumber
  • green apple
  • red capsicum
  • spring onion
  • sometimes some baked sweet potato added
  • sometimes some avocado added

Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then tossed with a honey mustard dressing or a honey paprika dressing. I like my salads sweet, it seems.

As a result of me creating my own salads, I now absolutely loathe the basic salads I get at restaurants. I was never a fan of them anyway, but now they're even worse. "Yeah, lets mix some lettuce with tomato and onion and cover it in balsamic. Done."

Gross.

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When it comes to my exercising, things aren't quite the best. It's sooooo dreadfully hot. It's supposed to be Autumn now and I'm still suffering through 37-40 degree Celsius days.

I walk my son to school in the mornings and back home in the afternoons. It's about 7000 steps a day, on weekdays, and nothing on weekends.

If it ever gets cooler, I'll be furthering my walking and might even bring my camera with me as I head down to the river and to the local parks, but at the moment, all I can say is, "bugger that."

Like, today, I was this close to letting my son have the day off school because it's supposed to reach 35 Celsius, with the added humidity that goes up to a "feels like" of maybe 42 Celsius. But I sighed and groaned and decided we'd just get some ice cold smoothies on the way home this afternoon to make up for it.

I hate Summer.

It's 40 degrees in Queensland yet it's snowing in parts of Tasmania. I know where I want to move to.

Anyway, that's about it for my self-accountability. I'll update again at some point when I have something to actually say. 😅

Cheers!

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Bonus photo of Charlie huffing the delightful scent of my shoes.

He does this every day.

 

Until next time! 😊✨

 


 

All photos in this post are of Charlie and are courtesy of me, @kaelci.



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8 comments
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Some interesting stuff here, I didn't think a cycle could get that out of whack, but what do I know I'm not a woman... or am I!?

Hahaha, yeah nice lifestyle changes can solve a lot of things. I've been dieting and stuff since the start of the year and feel like my inner stomach shrunk too, which is great. Yeah, I was never a morning eater at all, but some eggs and toast is great early, or even a cereal bar or something like that, the amount of energy I felt from it was better than drinking Monster, which I used to drink at atleast 1 every day or two, and a hell of a lot of coffee.

One thing that I found great too was Berocca Boost in a bottle of water, if you get fizzy water it's kind of like a healthy fanta, and it's full of decent vitamins and gives tons of energy.

Me and my partner are having our first kid, only 3 weeks to go, but he could be along any day between then, or after; we're both excited about it, although, it's a bit nerve-wracking. Funny enough, she wanted a child before she was 30 and she's getting one litrally a month before haha

!PIZZA !LOLZ

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Yeah man, my cycle was completely out of whack!

It sucked, a lot, because I've been trying to get pregnant since the moment I stopped birth control... and then I'd "miss" my period, get excited, try a pregnancy test daily, hoping to see the positive result only to have nothing, and then I'd miss it again and be like, "Wtf?? I'm not pregnant, what's going on?" And thennnnn I'd finally get it and just, arrrgh. It was so frustrating.

Really hoping that this is a positive sign that my body is normal again!

So many congrats to you and your partner! 😊😊😊😊😊💃 Three weeks is not long at all, he could be here any day now! He could also bypass his due-date completely and be annoyingly late, haha!! My son was a week late, was so impatient, lol.

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I haven't had a chance to read the whole post yet but my kids saw Charlie as soon as I logged into hive on my phone and they've been asking me to cycle through the photos for the last ten min. My four year old busted a gut laughing at Charlie huffing shoes 😆

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Hah!! xD

I'll do up a kitty cat post at some point in the near future. Plenty of cat photos to scroll through. 😁 (We're planning on getting another cat soon too, a friend for Charlie. Just waiting for rental permission. SO MANY CAT PHOTOS.)

Charlie huffing shoes!!!!! He's such a weird cat. He loves shoes. Sleeps with them with his arms around them. Huffs them. Sleeps with his head inside of them. Shoes! lol.

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