It’s time for some real talk. I need to hear it and perhaps you do too.

Sometimes we have to just accept that doing our best is different. My best right now might look like an absolute mess from the outside looking in. But, I have come to realize lately my best just looks different at times; it changes.

I’m in a season. A season raising two busy, active girls; the crazy that comes with this truly does rest solely on my shoulders. I don’t share that with anyone else. The practices, the games, the field trips, the doctor visits, the homework, the struggles….98 percent of that is me.

I love it. I am in a season where my girls are growing and changing so fast; they are in season of playing sports that they love. They are in a season of learning life lessons daily. They are in a season that has daily challenges; some of those challenges you win and some you lose.

As a mom, I am in a season where I do not want to miss a thing. Here is the thing: they are growing so fast. If I was to be honest, when they were babies, I missed so much.

Even though I was right there, the stress of life caused me to not stop to just take in the moments and be as present with them as I am now; present in taking in every moment and looking at the way their eyes light up when they smile.

Right now my best looks different. In the hustle and bustle of spring time, our “healthy” meals do not look as good and might not be quite as healthy as they are during a different time of year. My workouts are not as frequent. My water drinking is lacking because well, let’s be honest, I am at a ball field pretty much every night and I’m not that big of a fan of port-a-jons!

Our best changes; our seasons change. This is a season where I want to soak it all in. I want to continue being the one in the front row seat; the biggest fan. I want to be the one to be right there talking about the challenges of the day; the victories & the lessons learned.

So, for now, my best looks different. We will happily eat meals that are not completely clean or perfectly prepped; we might miss out on eating all our veggies or fruits for a day. My workout might consist of only my physical therapy exercises and nothing more.

But, for right now, I am proud of my best because I love the season I am in and there is nothing I would change.

{and this season requires really big “mom life” coffee cups}

Until Next Time~

It’s crazy. Here, in the dark, after the lights go out and the house is silent is where the words come to me. In the silence, alone, with nowhere to hide.

I do not know where it happened.

I do not know how or when.

But, I know I am here today feeling lost. Somewhere along the journey, I have gotten lost.

I look in the mirror and I want to throw something at the reflection. I don’t like what I see.

I don’t see that person I worked so hard to grow into. She is hiding behind anything she can. The confidence is gone. The smile she would shine on her face doesn’t show. Her personality once shining so bright now appears to be lacking.

I didn’t see it at first. But now, its all I see. Something in that mirror, something in that reflection is missing.

I lay here in the dark and realize that I am missing. Along my journey, I have stopped being true to me.

I have been making decisions based on what I thought I should do. I have been living with this pressure to be someone I’m not.

I don’t know the last time I made a decision for me or did what it was I truly wanted to do.

I used to wake up feeling inspired. Every day. Now, I feel like that feeling is gone and I’m just trying to live up to someone else’s standards or pressure to be someone I’m not. I’m so worried about being inspiring, that I forgot you must be inspired in order to be inspiring.

The beauty of finding yourself lost is that you can always find yourself again. Now that I see what is missing in the mirror, I have the chance to move forward in a direction that is true to me.

A direction that someday soon I will look back into that mirror and there will not be anything missing and what I will see looking back will be a woman just trying her best every day but staying true to herself to do that. 

Until Next Time~

Every single day, I told myself it was ‘A New Day.’ Every new day brings a chance for improvement, right?

I will admit, I had high hopes. I was confident. I’m the kind of person who always takes on challenges with a smile.

Earlier this week, I knew I was standing at the beginning of my last test. Up until this moment, I had been hopeful I would be able to participate in a few shorter distance races this spring. I was not willing to give up yet. This was the moment I knew I needed to listen instead of denying it all.

That day in the middle of the White Pine Trail, I stood there with tears streaming down my eyes. I didn’t care that other people saw me. I could not hide the pain behind a smile anymore. I was too tired.

I have tried everything; I have listened to my body taking more rest days than I have in years. I have switched up programs when I notice my body saying, “hell no K.”

I tried a heavily modified MMA style workout but my leg could not do it. I switched to lifting & found after a while I had to put the weights down when it came to my leg & eventually I found I could barely do the moves without weights. I walked away from extra weight & switched to an extremely modified HIIT program & found the fire returning in my leg. I tried yoga & my legs wanted to scream. I ran & rarely got past just a few minutes before it arrived again. I tried walking. It just does not seem to matter.

Some days from the moment I get out of bed, I feel it. I feel the pain in my leg driving my car. I fight through the pain when I’m trying to be active with my girls. I have to cry through the pain carrying laundry baskets from the basement to the upstairs.

I lay in bed at night & see the swelling in my foot and ankle; sometimes my knee too. I lay awake at night tossing & turning trying to get comfortable while my leg feels like there is a fire burning sky high inside. Some nights, I cannot even move my toes. For real.

I stretch all day long. Every morning, every time I go to the bathroom. I stretch nonstop throughout my day….sometimes I feel like it consumes most of my day yet brings me zero relief.

The issue isn’t a simple thing that resting can heal or massaging or PT. Because my genetics gave me extremely high arches, over time, my body essentially has become deformed. The middle or inside part of my foot literally never touches the ground. The outside part of my leg & foot bear all the weight. I got custom made orthotics but even those cannot correct me as I’m still on the outside of my foot. It’s partly because my foot literally is not able to be flexible & get itself in the correct position. It’s physically impossible.

Because of the construction of my foot, my calf muscles are way too short. So no matter what I do, my leg muscles always feel tight…they are being pulled so hard every single day. I cannot even find the right words to explain the way they feel…perhaps a bit like playing tug of war all day long.

I have been an athlete all my life. I have struggled with my ankles, spraining them more times than I can recall. Still to this day, I can be walking down the road & it will give out on me. Even times I have literally fallen to the ground because of it {ask my girls, they have laughed at me}. I have struggled with my calf muscles forever. Anytime I worked with top instructors or coaches or doctors or had to attend physical therapy for injuries, all I have ever been told is how tight my leg muscles are; how inflexible I am.

This is the way my body is built. This is not something that is going to just disappear on me someday. This is a lifelong condition I have. It’s not an injury from overuse; it’s not a stress fracture to be healed. It is here & I have to find what works for my body to continue living my life.

The surgical option my orthopedic surgeon recommended is a less invasive one than the other option & would allow me to eventually live my life the way I want. It is essentially transferring a few tendons in my foot. It would also involve going in to my calf & lengthening that.

I have not made a decision yet but I also know I cannot live the way I want on this track I’m stuck on. The pain began to sideline me last May and here I am just shy of a year later. At this point, I am waiting until I see a knee specialist to confirm there is no tear or anything in there either with the level of pain I have been experiencing there.

I can tell you what I will not be doing regardless of my decision: I will not be giving up. I am still going to be here sharing my journey, doing what I can. I cannot allow this to be my excuse. My direction may shift a little, my goals may need to change. But, I am not going to sit down & say, “well, there is no point in trying. I might as well just wait until after surgery.”

No, I can make myself stronger. I can still work on me. I will also be focusing so much on my nutrition because my calorie burn is going to drop significantly.

I’m still going to be here; showing up. I’m going to be here proving that there is always something we can do, that fighting for a healthy body is worth it. Yes, I am sure I am going to have days of struggles that will make my emotions run crazy high, I will have days where the desire to quit will be high but if there is one thing I have learned, it is this:

Today is a new day. A new day of opportunities & chances. It’s a new day & you never know what you might find if you just stay open to it.

Until Next Time~

I told myself I was a failure. I talked to myself as if I was alone; like no one else had traveled this road before.

I cried.

I cried when I looked at this new before picture. I did not want to believe it was me. I did not want to believe I had gone this far backwards. This picture was never going to be shown.

I acted as if I was the only woman in the history of losing weight to gain some back.

I know better. I know I am never alone in this journey.

On April 5th, I blogged this:

I had a breakthrough. It looked a lot like day one of a truly incredible comeback. I’m letting go of who I was yesterday, last year, two years ago, or who I was the day I finished my marathon. I’m looking forward to who I want to become.

I meant it. I went back to my journey being about me. I let ago of striving for perfection & aimed to just do a little better every day. I made changes. I switched to a new program that would fuel my heart & push me past my limits. I got my portion controlled containers back out for everything. I drank my superfoods every single day.

Ten days. These two pictures are just ten days apart. 

The inside…..that transformation is even better than the outside. In ten days my mindset has shifted in so many incredible ways.

This is my journey of imperfect progress. You will never catch me giving up.

Until Next Time~

Do you know those kinds of days? I woke up with a sore throat & stuffy head so I reset my alarm…or so I thought. I woke up super late to a “Good morning beautiful” text from my guy; couldn’t get a full shower; didn’t do my hair; only threw on some eye makeup & never did put concealer or foundation on my face; & rushed out the door in tennis shoes & a baggy sweatshirt.

I dressed frumpy because I felt frumpy. I looked frumpy. This set the tone for my entire day.

I could have changed the day by the clothes I wore, I could have changed the day by taking just five minutes to do my hair.

Tired. Lazy. Zero motivation. All. Day. Long.

I got home and as soon as my girls left for their dad’s house, I headed upstairs to put on my workout clothes knowing that the longer I waited to do this, the higher the chances I would not push play. Well….I ended up crawling into bed using the excuse that I needed to reply to a few potential clients.

I’m not sure how long I laid there but I can tell you there was ZERO part of me that wanted to workout. I told myself I could double up tomorrow. I told myself one day doesn’t really matter. I told myself that I was just too tired. I told myself that I really didn’t care that much.

In that moment I cared more about being lazy than I did my goals.

This is the reason I always say that you cannot rely solely on motivation. Motivation comes and goes. I could have laid there & read 100 quotes, I could have looked at 10 success stories. It would not have worked in that moment.

Discipline….that’s what you have to lean on. I forced myself up to change reminding myself that I had set goals….HUGE GOALS. I reminded myself that my challengers showed up today in our group, now it was my turn.

I had to force myself. I told myself that excuses simply could not win unless I wanted to give up on my goals for the 1,000,000th time in my 36 years.

I am not always motivated. I do not always want to workout. But, I do always have goals to keep me pushing. I do always have a strong why that I try to stay rooted in. I do have a supportive community that pushes me to show up daily. I do have discipline because at the end of the day, that’s how we become successful.

Successful people do what others are not willing to do.

By the conclusion of my sweat intervals workout, I no longer felt frumpy. In fact, I felt dang good. I felt proud, happy, confident.

I followed that up with a yoga post-cardio workout from my On Demand library as my calves did give me some extra struggles.

Just to put the icing on the cake….this morning I put on a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn in months. They fit perfect. No squeezing in.

Day 3….Max out at 7:49. A cross between the full move & the modifier.

Until Next Time~