My Story - Part 5. The Here and Now.
Fast forward to our very happy new year and my follow-up with Dr. F. We reviewed my bloodwork: AMH is that of an 18 year old. Which is great if you’re 18, but at 34, my ovaries are just confused and don’t ovulate correctly so that is part of my issue. My testosterone is high - all clinical presentations of PCOS. But my A1C was good, my adrenal function is good. Overall, I’m good. We talked about nutrition, and we talked about intermittent fasting and she said to try it for at least 8 weeks but if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work and that’s ok too. But once again, she echoed living an active lifestyle and eating a Mediterranean diet. No need for any medicines or supplements. Just keep a healthy lifestyle.
Meeting with her in February felt final. AJ and I felt comfortable in FINALLY having all the answers we needed to move forward. We felt comforted and sound of mind in all the decisions we had made up until this point. We felt like it was time to put our plans into action and start really living again. Moving forward in a direction that made us happy.
So how did Zac Efron, my 20+ year friendship and a dietitian from Cleveland change my life? After watching Down to Earth I felt something. I felt a connection to that documentary and the people of Sardinia and blue zones but didn’t know at the time. But anytime people asked for recommendations on Netflix shows, I ALWAYS recommended Down to Earth. And I would constantly bring it up in the context of healthy living or sustainability and I just didn’t really put two and two together until recently. And I ALWAYS feel full and satisfied and overly happy when I spend time with Allie and her family. She has always been such an inspiration to me. She lives such a healthy lifestyle without extremes. She’s an AVID runner and doesn’t use an apple watch or fitness watch because for her its too much data. She loves the simplicity of just running and if it doesn’t feel right, then she’ll evaluate. We had this conversation at length in February of 2022 when I went and visited her again and started putting two and two together. And finally, Emily Timm makes me FEEL connected to this way of life. At one point, she listed out some of her favorite accounts to follow on IG, and wouldn’t you know, one of them was Dan Buettner and Blue Zones. He’s kind of the father of blue zones and has done TONS and TONS of research on them. She was right. Nutrition and a healthy lifestyle GET to be easy. I GET to be happy and healthy, and it can be a part of my everyday and not a chore. Just like how Allie and her family have lived their life. And I’m encouraged to drink red wine every night so sign me up!
Its March of 2022 and AJ are fully engrained in our new way of life. We eat at home/home cooked meals 5-6 days a week, reserving eating out for when we see friends or a date night. Or the occasional craving for a cold, medium coke from McDonalds 😊 And we’re happy and it’s easy. He’s INCREDIBLY supportive and willing to try anything with me. We even had a Valentine’s Day date and did a couple’s yoga class at my new studio. I have started a weekly Pilates class that I am OBSESSED with and has been such an incredible addition to my week. I’m excited to try TRX and yoga at this new studio too in the coming weeks. We are focusing on sleep quality. We watch one show in bed and then turn off the tv and play nature sounds to fall asleep to. And we routinely aim for 8 hours of sleep a night. We aren’t 100% there, but more often than not, we are and that’s ok. We have our glass of red wine each night and I’ve started a spearmint tea habit as well to help lower my testosterone levels.
We take walks with the dog as often as the weather allows – if it’s cold we just bundle up and do a short walk, but its better than nothing. We’re excited for the spring and taking her hiking and to our favorite local trails.
And we prioritize time with friends and family. There are very few things we say no too when it comes to that. In fact, I had the most incredible girls weekend a few weeks ago that I’ll have to go into detail about. But it was just SO good for the soul and we can’t wait to do it again.
And of course, we’re continuing to make our home a priority. I work mostly from home and this house that we’ve truly made a home is something we want to take care of and have SOO much pride in. We want to show it to the world. We especially want to nurture and take advantage of our outdoor space. We live on a ½ acre hill overlooking most of our neighborhood, so we have big plans to capitalize on that. This winter I finally got my hands on a copy of Square Foot Gardening and Cut Flower Garden by Erin from Floret Farm and we’ve started our planning for expanding our garden this year. We have big plans and I’m so excited about it. We bought a small indoor compost bucket for the kitchen. We’ve bought some flower seeds and we’ve scheduled phase two of our patio project. It’s going to be a good summer. And we’re hoping to get to build our shed.
So, what’s really the point of all this rambling and where does it go from here? I don’t know if I’m being honest. I’ve always wanted to start a blog, but never thought I had an interesting story to tell. And then all of a sudden, we did. But it was kind of a crappy one and it felt weird to put it on the internet, and I guess now, it’s turning around. It’s been a crazy few years for everyone, not just us, but I’d add our health situations to the mess for sure. And I guess I don’t know, my priorities have shifted. A lot. I used to love hustle culture and actually, I still do. But just in a different way. I like working from home. It’s actually been HUGE for my job satisfaction level for my corporate job. And I love it and my boss. I don’t really want to leave. But I also want to start my own things. I have dreams. I want this blog to be successful. Not that I want it to be my full time gig, I don’t know if I even know what “success” looks like, but I’ll use the term for now. I want to restart my Etsy shop. I have ideas that are tied to this new lifestyle of ours. And one day, my big crazy, scary dream is to open a wine and whiskey bar/bookstore. I already have a mood board lol.
But I also now believe in health being a way of life rather than something to achieve. I believe in slowing down and prioritizing relationships with significant others, friends and family. And most importantly myself. I believe in small and local. I believe in sustainability. I believe in home. I believe all of those things make you healthy.
So I guess that’s what I want to share. I want to share all of the parts of our healthy lifestyle and how two corporate, working people can prioritize that and family and still live a healthy, passionate, perfectly imperfect life. And how we are working towards that life.
