Time for grad school recovery

The last few months have been all consumed by grad school. During that whole process I felt  like this:

And I had to see things like this, which I hoped to never see again.

Oh silly pre-grad school Ashley would probably see that stack of books and think, oh wow cool! I want to learn those things! Post-grad school Ashley mainly thinks, OMG vomit, get those out of my face.

Anyways as of yesterday all my paper work has been turned in and signed. I am done. D-O-N-E baby, yeah! Now I feel like this:

If you are wondering, yes that is my computer mouse in my hand. I am sure there is some fancy way to time photos with my webcam but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Please, stare at those for a long time. They get better the more you look at them.

Now that I am done with grad school I am left with the sad sack of human that was chewed up and spit out by the fine institution I attended. Needless to say during the process of …

• Getting a new job
• Fighting the federal government trying to take away healthcare from women
• getting another new job
• conducting and analyzing research data
• writing my culminating
• writing my culminating again after getting it chewed up and spit back in my face by again that fine institution I attended
• Doing other weird things – lobbying, testifying and so on

… there was little self care. I went from a 85% vegan to a 100% pizza, fast food and whatever else was cheap and would fit into my mouth kind of eater. I also went from 8 weeks into a marathon training plan to absolutely no exercise.

Correct, NONE. That is pretty impressive really.

Now it is time to pick up the pieces and make my next moves when it comes to self care. During this whole process I learned a lot. I have changed my views about healthy living, well really living in general, and thus also what the purpose of this blog will be.

I am off for a run to try to get myself back into some regular fitness schedule. Look forward to more posts about my adventures in trying to figure out how to live like a human being again.

And now your moment of Zen, a sparkly GIF in honor of my shiny new degree. PS – nothing says higher education like sparkly GIFs!

(source )

Ambiguity

I have this new goal that is all about being happy. While this goal sounds nice, it is hard to understand what it means. Essentially I decided the way I was living life was not making happy, and therefore, I should do something else. But I had no idea what to do instead. I felt (and still feel) lost, but am starting to find footing again.

As I get older, I try to find comfort and less anxiety in moments where my life is less certain. Before, when I didn’t have a clear goal and method to that goal I would freak out. Being that way actually helped me a lot in life, but still brought on more emotional baggage than I care to bare over the long haul.

On the other hand, in my pursuit for comfort in the unknown, I find myself without any guidance at all. This is how I feel at the current moment. I set myself the ambiguous goal of letting go of my preoccupation with dieting and weight loss, but didn’t really tell myself what to do instead.

It has been interesting the last couple weeks, and I have learned from my experiences.

On things I learned is that at this point in my journey, I still need boundaries or guidance. The two areas where this impacts my eating/weight habits is journaling and weighing. Really that was all weight watchers was, keeping track of how much you eat, and monitoring your weight.

For me, journaling isn’t about keeping track of food to ensure I was eating the right amount to lose weight, but instead a way to be conscious of my choices. Therefore, I still journal when I eat, but do not keep a running tally of my calorie deficit. I find that in general I know how much I can eat and maintain my weight, and some day might stop journaling. For now though, I find it still helpful. It is helping me find a normal with my eating and less eating in the extremes. In the past I would “be on plan” Monday – Thursday eating very low amounts of calories, and then “off plan” Friday – Sunday eating to the point of pain. While the amount I eat changes day to day, it has started to level out, which makes me think I am finding my natural, healthy middle point.

The other piece of guidance I still use is weighing. I still weigh myself, and am slowly trying to make it more irregular. As of now, my goal is to stick to only once a week, and then hopefully even biweekly. Because I have been dieting for so long, I gain a lot of anxiety from not knowing my weight. I hope as I start to find my more regular eating habits, I will worry less about weighing as well. I hope to someday only weigh in once a month, just to ensure everything is in check.

With journaling and weighing, I am not sure what role they will play in my life in the future, but for now this routine seems pretty good. I really take it each day at a time. I look at my behaviors, reflect, and then take a next step forward.

A big accomplishment for me lately has been my cooking! I have made quite a few good meals that were mainly whole foods and vegan. It make me happy to not only increase my skills in the kitchen, but also learn to enjoy more whole and healthy foods. They taste wonderful too!

None of this is perfect. None of this I suggest to anyone else. The point of these blogs are to show my journey to a healthier lifestyle. In my life I seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. I went form inactive and mindless eating to over active, and obsessive eating. Maybe these challenges seem silly, but for me they are real.

I made a choice, I could keep living in diet culture, or I could do something else. With that choice I also accept that the damage that diet culture has brought to me will not go away over night. I hope to each day with each choice get closer to a more balanced lifestyle.

Long time, no blog

It feels like forever since my last blog! Well here is a little recap of my life.

These past few months of life has been school, election, and driving back and forth to Cleveland. I found myself phone banking, organizing my first phone bank in Bowling Green, and helping with the One Bowling Green campaign. We lost, we won, but I found myself in some funny places along the way.

I had a second home with some friends at BGSU. They like puzzles. There is a very important dance that happens when a piece is found. I also found myself wandering near Kevin’s old apartment. Ah yes, fond memories!

This fall had a lot of car disasters as well. First, someone decided to randomly back up into my car then drive off, not cool. Second, I was harmlessly driving back to Columbus from Cleveland and the rubber on my tire just fell off. I was driving along, heard a weird sound, looked back, and saw the remains of my tire roll down a hill. What is my life? I missed class, and had to turn in my paper late. I got an A still, so take that karma!

  

Speaking of school, I spent a lot of time doing this.

This is me studying environmental health at the law library. I think when people saw me making millions billions of note cards about asbestos they were confused. I am not officially done with ALL my classes and practicum for graduate school! Now all I have left is my culminating project. For that I am working with a research at Kent State to write a funding proposal for a survey project. I am really excited about the project and will write more about it later.

Also, I got a new job as a School Health Educator with Planned Parenthood Northeast Ohio! I am so excited to be educating and working with young people. I love young people, check it out here.

With school done and a new job starting in a few weeks, I am working on getting my hours finished at my current job. Therefore, I am on the road again checking posters. Sometimes I run into posters that are NOT public health, such as the one on the left.

  

I haven’t had much time for cooking these days but I have learned a few things. Below is my ode to squash. I love squash and can’t wait to learn how to do more with it. On the left we got acorn squash, and on the right spaghetti squash with a little tomato sauce mixed it. It is WONDERFUL.

 

Here is some other nom noms I have been digging. Grilled pepper and hummus on toast and rice, tomato and chickpea bowl. YUM!

    

I have been doing some more research on vegan lifestyles and marathon running.

 

Marathon training has been going great so far. This is the first week I really feel like a runner again! I ran 2 miles yesterday with a 9.52 min/mi pace, with is basically LIGHTINING SPEED for me. I was way impressed.
That is my update so far! The next month will be CRAZY and can’t wait to fill you in on all the fun. Here are just a few of the up coming events …

• New job
• Moving
• Xmas
• Wedding!
• FRIENDS from across the states and world reunited!

Yeah, I am really excited for December! Before the fun starts I got to get through this move and finish my Columbus. This is my mantra … YOU CAN DO IT!