Frozen Gnome 50k & 10k Race start 2025- Thank you Holly Lindroth for the photo

We are 2 weeks into the new year, how is everyone doing on their New Years resolutions?

If your answer is, “I gave up”, “I am too busy”. Then I am here to encourage you to keep trying. I want to see you succeed. You deserve it. I promise you, you will not regret taking the steps to become your dream person. Take it from someone that delayed reaching my potential many times, do this for yourself- This year. You do not want to start this journey all over again in 2026. It is okay if you have not been perfect, keep trying and you will see progress.

In my blog post about “How I reinvented myself” I suggested, writing down what you think the habits are of the person you want to become. I gave a few short examples of what this would look like. On this post I am going to dive deeper into each of these, and share some personal examples of my own journey. I hope that my experiences can help you. At the end of the post I summarize where I am today, and what my journey looked like.

Goal = Positive New Habit

We set goals for ourselves, but what we really need to do is create a new habit that supports reaching our goals. The things holding us back from being our personal best are simply bad habits that we have the power to change.

For example, before my self reinvention: I often felt overwhelmed. No matter how hard I worked, I felt I could never get fully caught up. My mind would not quiet itself because I was always thinking of everything else that needed to be done. This left me feeling exhausted. I was too tired to plan good nutrition for myself, or even take the time to make a proper meal. I would stop being productive at some point of the day. Despite craving time on the trail, I would fall into the habit of having a seat on the couch, throw on a video to watch, and spend this time unproductively quieting my mind. I often skipped meals while overworking myself, then 4 or 5 hours past the time I should have been eating my lunch or dinner, I would be starving and this caused poor choices in food. If I did not starve myself for hours I would snack rather than have a proper meal. All of this stress, and poor eating habits resulted in an unhealthy weight gain, poor sleeping habits, and an overall lack of passion for my life.

Reading the description about me, the changes I needed to make may seem obvious to you, but when you are the person stuck in that routine of bad habits it can be hard to figure it out. After reading my description about myself, what bad habits did I need to work on?

I identified my bad habits as:

-eating the wrong food

-not managing my time well

-wasting time on mindless tv shows to relax

-not sleeping well at night

-telling myself I did not have time to do anything about my unhappiness

I typically like to focus on the positive, but identifying bad habits can help you work towards change. What are your bad habits?

Once I set my goals, identified my bad habits, then I went to work to find ways to replace these bad habits with positive habits that would help me reach my full potential.

1st off- I had to make time to work on myself. We can’t help others, if we don’t take care of ourselves. Many of us get hyper focused on work or parenting. These are great things to excel at, but you still have to take care of you. For me, it was time to take charge of my life.

A bad habit was thinking I did not have time, it was now time to MAKE TIME. Caring for myself, regaining my health and my personal happiness was urgent and nothing was going to stop me. Convince yourself of this, and you will succeed.

Okay….it is time to create new habits. Positive habits that help work towards the end goal. Here is what mine looked like.

1. Improve daily time management

Create a daily schedule- what time will I eat? run? exercise? go to bed? drink water? all the things that were important to my success I needed to schedule into my life. These could not be skipped. They are essential to the success. I used a note pad to write all this on, writing it down helps make it happen.
At work- I planned out what I wanted to accomplish every day. I stayed on task, and did not take on extra projects. I also left a couple volunteer positions that caused me stress.
I made running a reward- I would set a goal of work I needed to complete, before I could go run on my favorite trails. This kept me motivated to stay on task. I ran no matter what, but I could only go to the trail if I had my work done in a timely matter. If I did not get it done in time then I would run roads from my home.
I hired a run coach, and followed a realistic training plan to my fitness at the time. Running Coach LINK

2. Improving my diet

I hired a personal Nutrition expert. Struggling with nutrition was not something I have done my entire life. I love to cook & eat healthy nutritious food. Logically I knew what I should be doing, but that extra step of hiring help added a layer of commitment to keep me on track. Nutrition Coach LINK

The nutrition service did blood work to learn about what was going on in my body. After the results came in I met with the expert and they gave me suggestions on the foods that would be best for me.
They laid out an easy to follow guideline on how to build each of my meals.
Suggested cookbooks and recipes to help keep me motivated.
I researched and found a few YouTube channels that made food that followed my new guidelines. I was practicing learning.
Planned my meals daily. I was extremely intentional in having everything I needed for success in my refrigerator at all times.
I carried an apple with me and snacked on it if I ended up out longer than expected. This helps me not be overly hungry when I go to eat lunch or dinner.
Ate my meals on a regular routine.
I took photos of every meal, and recorded them on an app. This was important to help me truly see what I was doing. I got used to it, and it did not seem a bother. I also used the photos to look back at for inspiration on meal ideas.
Drank the recommended amount of water- I created a rule that if I ever felt the desire to snack, I drank a glass of water first. This usually made that desire go away.
Weigh myself daily- this was important in being able to tell what was working, and what was not working.

3. Worked on mental health

Talked with Nutrition coach weekly.
Made time to do fun things daily for myself.
Got curious, and worked on learning new things daily.
Worked on a regular sleep schedule
Listened to podcast, and read books about things that I wanted to become better at.
I made my down time more productive. It still allowed me to quiet my mind from work, but I was excited about the new things I was learning. I chose things that helped me work towards my personal health and fitness goals.

Success came to me because I was fully committed, and 3 years later I am still fully committed. In the beginning I was losing approximately a pound a week, sometimes more. I continued to lose weight like this throughout the year until I landed in a place I felt comfortable maintaining. This was at a size of clothing that I had maintained with good nutrition and exercise in the past, so I knew I could comfortably maintain. When my mileage is up, my weight drops a bit, but even when I am running low mileage my clothes never feel tight. They fit well, and I love them. I do not want to always feel like I need to lose weight, or if I was just a little skinnier I would look better. I am at a comfortable spot that I feel good, running is easy, and I like the way I look in my clothes. These are the things that make me happy. Now, I see health when I look in the mirror.

I eat 100% real food. Eating non processed and zero sugar foods make staying on track easier for me. I have learned to make wholesome healthy food, into my personal fast food. I eat simple, but delicious meals. The nutrition is a big part of my journey, but the mental health and physical fitness part of my “reinvention” were just as important. I am grateful for the time I gave myself to research and learn other new things. Life is good.

I welcome comments and questions. Wishing each of you success at your dreams!

Photos:

2024 Running in Sedona

2022 Javelina Jack Ass 31k race with Tasha, Sid and Royal (my first race with my new health)

2024 Lost Dutchman State Park Hike with my son