"The Shelf" - How Stress, Weight Gain, Age and Loss of Everyday Exercise Take Their Toll
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Not my belly fat! I wasn't that brave. It's not easy to find an attractive picture of belly fat and I wasn't about to show my own!
Well, the shelf is really upside down. More like an overhang. The overhang is my belly fat. How hard is that to admit? Truly hard. I've worked so hard over the past few years to get myself out of chronic pain and illness and part of that was losing 25 pounds. As many women know, after 40 the metabolism changes, weight starts to pile on and shift to places you've never had fat before and it gets harder to lose it. As if being a woman with many years of PMS, etc weren't bad enough, suddenly it gets more challenging. In walks major life-challenges that come with being in your late forties and early fifties and then WHAM! Peri-menopause. Things get even more challenging! PMS starts lasting two weeks, your cycle gets whacky, your sleep cycle gets whacky and it's even HARDER to control weight. Unfair!
I was so inspired by my Paleo Reset Retreat attendee, Stephanie and her story of turning 50 and have thought long and hard about my own challenges deciding to embark on a major career change adding incredible stress to my life and with it, the weight gain, decrease in exercise and subsequent returning of some of my back pain. To be sure, the back pain is still barely there and nothing like it was before and I haven't gotten any of my other chronic conditions returning on a regular basis, but it's really an eye opener when you see direct results from slacking off on your commitment to keeping up with your health. It's slowly happened to me and here I am telling OTHER people how to take control of their health!
To be fair to myself, I'm still managing to get plenty of sleep at night, I'm still doing my 7 minute workout at least three times a week, plus the follow up stretches, but am under a lot of stress, burned myself pretty severely and followed that up with a rare cold which lasted two weeks so barely exercised during that time AND I've delegated all of my errands to my hubby which means I'm not walking and riding my bike as much. It's amazing how quickly we can let ourselves slip out of our healthy habits and to observe the direct results.
I'm so excited to be planning a new one day retreat which will take place this February and which I'm putting the finishing touches on tomorrow. I will announce it in my THF newsletter next week, but in a nutshell I'll be thrilled to have Marnie Raesor of Resplendent Healing as the speaker for a retreat called "The Homeopathic Approach to Menopause". Over the years, Marnie has dedicated her Homeopathy practice to helping her clients prepare themselves to naturally resolve the many challenges of peri- and full menopause. I'm thrilled to bring her here from Nashville to share her years of wisdom with our participants. What a terrific way to condense your learning into one day in a beautiful location and to learn how to head off some of the symptoms of aging at the pass!
The Healing Farm - Cultivating Practical Wellness!