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This blog has moved/been reinvented at: jesshasablogblog.wordpress.com

Review of the last couple weeks

It's has been 11 days since my last update - I haven't quite gotten back into the swing of blogging. (Not that I was super consistent to begin with!)

Last time I wrote I had practically convinced myself I had hypothyroidism. Well, I had my physical last week and had about 4,000 (read: 8) blood tests run, and wouldn't you know?! My greatest fears (concerns) were realized...

"Maybe it's your thyroid."

I had a bit of a flip-out a few nights ago Mostly just in my head, but it was bordering on panic.

I realized that I might have some kind of hypothyroidism going on. I randomly stumbled across some reading on the subject earlier and the things I've been struggling with for the last almost 18-24 months match up to the list of symptoms almost exactly.

Gentleness

“Be gentle with your body.”

This is a mantra I need. These are words for Jess to live by.

It’s a battle I’ve been continually fighting with little respite for going-on 6 years, maybe more; to stop punishing myself. To move in ways that are fun, exciting, functional… and gentle.

A Rough Sunday

I had a meltdown tonight.

In cleaning out my closets earlier today, a single silk dress became a glaring symbol of my epic failure at weight loss and maintaining my physical health. A bridesmaid’s dress that I wore in a friend’s wedding when I was 5 months pregnant with Nolan. Granted, it was a bit tight at the time, as I had ordered it before I even found out I was pregnant and hadn't anticipated being 5 months along at the time of the wedding. ...as I was going through and putting together a donations pile, I pulled this dress from my closet and tried it on. I couldn’t even zip it all the way. It barely fit over my hips.

...then I had to just go take a nap. I couldn’t even think about how much I had failed myself.

Welcome Back

I blogged for a long time. I blogged for five years. Wait, no, longer. But I blogged about “lifestyle” for 5 years. I rebranded my blog two years in. I changed the name from, what I felt, was a “clever” song lyric ("sweeping out the bats") when I created it to something more substantial - to something that better represented what I was blogging about: Jess vs. Life

I find myself reflecting on this name now. “Jess versus Life” -- as if life were something to fight against. And I suppose at the time, and even now in many ways, I felt/feel that it was/is. Except that it shouldn’t be. And I don’t benefit myself by thinking of every day as a struggle over an existence I have little control over.

I don’t want to be working against life anymore. I want to be living my life and present in my everyday; present in my body, in my mind, in my work, and in my play. And I want to blog about it.

And so we evolve yet again and become: Jess Has A Blog.

Because I do. And this is it. Welcome to it. Thanks to all of those who have followed me all the way through until now.

My last check-in back in September talked a lot of self-positivity and mindfulness. I’m still in pursuit of these things. I’m just trying to figure out who I am as an adult person and get used to being that person.

I think this me versus everything-else-but-most-specifically-my-weight-and-body-image mentality is what lead me to abandon this blog back in January of 2015. I wasn’t somehow battling against oppression and winning, I was fighting against myself and it was awful. That’s a lose-lose situation. So leaving the blog behind worked out pretty great… until it didn’t. I no longer had an outlet. And without the blog, no matter how much I told myself I would “journal”, I couldn’t keep it up and couldn’t keep myself accountable to it.

Writing is so good for me. It gives me purpose in my darkest moments when I feel like I have none. And sharing my thoughts and feelings accomplishes the same. The blog, it provided both the purpose and the outlet - and I greatly missed both.

So, I think I’m back. I’d be lying if I said, “I’m no longer blogging about health/fitness/weight loss/body image.” I will still be blogging about those things. Maybe even mostly those things, actually. I’m just going to come at it in a different way, from a better perspective.

I ended with a list of goals in September, they were as follows:

• reduce stress
• get back to running for the love of it and to support mental health
• get back to strength training to support running and avoid injury
• continue eating intuitively a wide variety of foods

I have a few tweaks, but mostly the same concepts. As we come into February, my goals will be:

• reduce/manage stress by sleeping enough - regularly
• begin a 5k training program to ease back into running
• practice the body-weight strength program I recently began 2-3 times a week
• continue eating intuitively - not too much, mostly veggies

I'm really excited to get this writing/documenting thing going again and hope you'll stay tuned.