Posts tagged ‘Plus Size’

Have you gotten off program during the summer? Did you not quite hit those Summertime Fly goals from back in January?

In this blog post we will be covering 10 Ways to develop a daily routine that will help you achieve your goals in 6 months & how to get back on track after enjoying a long summer break!

Hey Divas,

I hope everyone had an ahhhmazing summer and reached those summertime fly goals no matter their form! Even if you didn’t think you quite reach your goals you’re reading this so that means your still working towards them and are on your journey!

It’s officially official that Summertime Fly Season is over and we are Flying back into Fall! This is our time Divas, a season in which we thrive!

I just celebrated my birthday. I have an end of summer birthday so l always see it as my personal new year a time to reset and get focused for the year ahead.

We’ve got places to go, people to see and things to do as these next busy couple of months are upon us from a new school year, football season, fall festivities, the holiday’s and everything else in between!

In today’s blog post we will be talking about getting back on track after enjoying a summer break. I will be covering 10 Ways to develop a daily routine that will help you achieve your goals.

We may have slipped out of our routines or gotten off program while being out in these streets living our best Fabulous lives this summer!

We may have had a stressful summer everything not quite right, our life may be a complete hot mess and achieving our wellness goals may have been put on the back burner as we deal with life events.

We may have eaten out more than we would have liked, maybe not got in too many Fly Girl walks because it was too hot, trading water for wine, the list is endless!

The important thing is that hopefully regardless of how your wellness routine looked my hope is that you enjoyed your summer the good the bad and the not so good.

Flying back into Fall is a time where we harvest the fruits of committing to our goals throughout the year and set our intentions for the year ahead!

It’s a time to gather everything we’ve learned about ourselves over the year and use it as fuel for the year that is ahead. It’s a time of reflection and self evaluation to help keep us on track towards our goals and ultimately a better self.

So we have this big list of goals to be all that and more in 2024! Things we want to do, places we want to go and people we want to see.

How will we get there? How will we get this done? We have to know where we are going first so it’s important to have a vision of where you want to go and more importantly why. Think of your why as your motivation glue that’s holding all of this together.

The hard part is to actually believe in that goal and that we can accomplish it. So how do we do it? Well today dear diva that’s exactly what we are going to be talking about!

To accomplish a goal it requires to build habits that lead to that goal. The things that we do as a daily routine become habits that leads to crushing our goals!

10 Ways to develop a daily routine that will help you achieve your goals in 6 months!

1. Set a Goal

I know. I know. We’re always talking about goals here but we need them. Think of them as your guide on your path to success.

A diva needs to be balanced so it’s important to set a goal in all major areas of our life so we are not lacking in certain areas that can cause us distractions trying to fulfill the gaps in our life.

For example, if we’re in a tough spot financially that may be all that we see, and think about, all that we focus on but then not going on that walk we promised ourselves or drinking that smoothie.

So you see, it’s important to fill in the gaps by setting goals in different aspects of our lives. So with that said it’s best to start with where we are lacking the most and which area of our life needs the most love right now.

We will need to focus in the 4 major areas of life:

Health

Finances

Career

Relationships

2. Evaluate your current situation.

The next step is in all areas of your life mentioned above take inventory of what’s working for you and what’s not? For purposes of this blog we will be focusing on health but this can also help to balance out the other areas of your life as well.

We can not really fix anything until we get real and honest with ourselves. We can not manage what we don’t measure so again, this is why we need goals and accountability.

Take a moment and write everything down, yes old school pen and paper when we physically write something down studies have shown our brain 🧠 holds on to more memory it’s also faster and more personal.

So get a cute journal book to write down all of your thoughts or an old school composition note book for .99 cents it doesn’t have to be super fancy, this is just one of many things to write and put in there while on this journey and beyond.

However, if you choose electronic no harm in that in my opinion writing it down is a stress reliever and is great for things we need to learn or memorize vs. using tablet or phone.

3. Create a plan

So here we want to start with our goal and then create a plan so think about what your action steps will be towards that goal. A good way to look at it is when we have our goal at the forefront of our mind is what we’re doing in the moment working towards that goal or away from it?

It’s a great way to gauge yourself and exercise self discipline. Nobody told us after the age of 18 we are to parent ourselves so think of self discipline as way that we parent ourselves.

Creating a solid plan will hold a diva accountable! So get it together dear diva we’ve got things to do!

4. Where do you see yourself in 6 months?

How does your day begin? What does it look like? Sometimes it takes a lot of self talk but more importantly doing the physical work of getting into routines that become habitual over time.

Like the saying says you gotta walk the talk. My Dad always told me that and l hated it when l first started the blog.

I had to be honest with myself and felt like a hypocrite because l wasn’t living the perfect healthy lifestyle 24/7 l spoke about. I wasn’t consistent. It made me feel isolated. I felt that l had to achieve a certain level of success before being in the health & wellness industry.

I developed imposter syndrome because I thought that being heavier I didn’t have the credentials or right to share my wellness journey. In addition I was criticized by people because of my size talking about nutrition.

I’m healthy and I’m overweight. For a long time I too viewed my weight as barometer of my health the lower the number the better my health. I was so wrong.

Health is so much more than a number on the scale and that’s exactly why I started this blog. I had to bring myself back to that. Healthy truly is the “ New Skinny “ & sharing that message is what I do.

I believe my Dad had good intentions in telling me that because there is some truth to it. My takeaway from walking the talk is to have belief in yourself and walk in that truth. My internal conversation wasn’t matching my external conversation and I found myself drained, burned out and frustrated.

So what are you talking about? Lean into those personal internal conversations you have with yourself what we say definitely has an impact how we are showing up in our lives and for ourselves.

We don’t have to be perfect. We do have to be present in our journey. We do have to show up and we do have to be honest.

So take a moment dear diva, get out your journal if you have one or old school paper & pen or app tablet etc. write down your life in every detail the way you want to see it 6 months from now.

Spill all the tea give all the deets! 6 months from now you will wish you started today.

5. Build a Routine & unlearn old habits

Starting my journey I felt all over the place and really had no direction. My priorities were not really the priorities that were going to get me the life I wanted. I was anxious most of the time and kinda just spun my wheels on the road to nowhere.

At the end of the day a diva needs discipline and structure. Growing up military I thrive in a structured environment.

As I’ve said before nobody told us we have to parent ourselves once we turn 18. So building structures and routines we have to identify our goal and build up a routine around it.

Simple right? Yes, but not easy.

Habits and Routines a few questions to ask yourself .

Has anything changed in my life, affecting my eating or sleeping habits?

When did I eat last and what did I eat?

How many hours did I sleep last night?

Did I get any movement in today? If so how long?

What are my hobbies that I enjoy or what hobbies can I get back into?

Once we get into a regular practice of asking ourselves these questions we can identify the gaps where we may need some extra love and care for ourselves.

6. Taking Action!

Nothing happens if nothing happens. Action is the magic! Taking action puts us in a physical space to keep the momentum going. Sometimes we have to get into our body first before our brain 🧠

Adding a physical activity into our daily routine can be life changing. I know whenever I am full throttle on program I have such a boost of energy and vitality! It’s getting cooler now in most places and it’s starting to get so nice outside, some activity is better than none and every little bit counts!

A few benefits of being active regularly we all know these but good to have the awareness and the reminders.

• Regular physical activity is good for the bones, muscles and heart.

• Being physical regularly also helps boost brain health helping us learn, think through things and problem solve. I walk more for my mental health these days more than anything.

• Regular physical activity also helps you sleep better when I’m walking regularly I sleep so much better and my body feels so refreshed and rejuvenated when I wake up.

A restful sleep is way underrated in the wellness space, I make it a goal to work from a place of rest and try my best to make decisions from a place of rest as I am able has been a complete game changer.

Nobody has to tell you but making decisions from a place of stress and emotions is NOT a good look for a diva!

7. Keep a journal

I’ve kept a journal for the majority of my life during different phases so it’s always fun to look back and read from the thoughts of my younger self.

When I first started I just wrote whatever I was feeling it was great to process my feelings and get some clarity on situations I was going through at the time. It was a place to vent.

There are so many journals for different areas of life I keep mine all in one place but recently I stated using different journals for different spaces of my life to get some organization throughout the chaos.

So for the purpose of this blog we’ll be focusing on food journaling and fitness journaling. When I started to write down everything I put into my mouth it helped me put my nutrition into perspective.

I was able to see what was working what wasn’t and most importantly how I felt after eating certain foods was a game changer. I focused on what gave me energy and what made me tired, so over time it’s helped me make better food choices.

I haven’t quite gotten into fitness journaling I have a fit bit for that but this season I’m going to give it a go to keep a fitness journal with the same structure of my food journaling to see what’s working and what’s not. So stay tuned lol 😂

A few benefits of journaling.

• Journaling reduces stress and anxiety it helps our ability to deal with the things we don’t want to think about or try to avoid. It’s a great distraction when going through hard times because it helps us process those avoidant thoughts.

• Journaling facts vs feelings, various studies have shown writing our emotions of how we felt about an experience or trauma can help improve physical and mental health writing out emotions from an event vs just writing the facts of what happened.

• Journaling holds us accountable. Let’s be real. Life gets to Life-ing at times and if we don’t have things on the calendar life still happens and we may miss to get the things done that we haven’t written down. Time and time again I’ve proven to myself when I write it down it gets done regardless of what’s going on. It helps keep me grounded in the midst of chaos.

I use to live my life by planning my agenda in my head then the moment life switched up all my priorities went out the window and I focused on the immediate life event. I wasn’t taking care of myself first at the end of the day and ultimately I made a tough situation worse by not taking care of myself and jeopardizing my future.

My anxiety got out of control at one point in my life after losing my father and I took things on by looking at things as far as my nose. I had no real direction I felt isolated and alone because I was trying to do everything on my own.

I felt like I had to take things on by myself in alot of ways, but what I’ve found out over the years is that I have people who love and support me in my life.

I just couldn’t see it back then because I was focused on those who abandoned me at a time when I needed them the most. I’m so grateful for the support l’ve had in my life and from the most unlikely as I thought anyway, of places.

At the end of the day when people show you who they are no matter the form it is a gift and in many cases will set you free.

I did desire to live a better, to get on with my life and get out of the mess I found myself in after grief, journaling helped me through those times. It helped me understand how I was feeling and gain a perspective of my situation at the time.

It was not organized it was more of a place for venting it’s not healthy to only use it for negative emotions because it can perpetuate them, but now I have more of a structure which is life changing!

I will be sure to share in a future post about journaling where I will go into more detail, so be sure to subscribe and follow a diva! I now use journaling to get my life in order and stay on top of things. So with all my rambling journaling is extremely therapeutic and it works! Mmmmkay.

So as we are on this journey yet again to flyness, journaling is an important piece to process our emotions and can help us get some clarity on what we are putting into our body and how much exercise we are getting in.

We didn’t get this far in life with a clean slate by the time we get to these big ages we’ve got a story to share a story to tell and we’ve lived our entire lives based on this story we’ve told to ourselves.

What is the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life? How is this story showing up in your daily choices? How can you make things easier on yourself?

8. Measure Progress

We can’t really get things under control that we don’t manage. Everything has been kinda all over the place for me these past couple of years and I lost my grounding. I’ve been so focused on everything and everyone but myself.

So self check-ins are vital we can’t change what we don’t know. We have to know how we’re doing and make the adjustments accordingly.

So how does it work? Well as we know. It’s important to tell yourself, I matter. No matter what is going on around us we will always be living in our bodies for as long as we have life so make it a cozy, comfortable, welcoming place to be!

When we need something our body gives us clues. For example if we are hungry we may get hunger pains and we know our body needs food. If we are thirsty we get something to drink. If we are tired we get some rest, you get the idea.

So if you’re not feeling so great maybe even depressed, tense shoulders, tightness it can be our bodies giving us a clue to chill, relax and take some deep breaths.

Writing down how we are feeling through self check-ins can help us solve our problems and can develop as a daily habit to work through things that are difficult to process that have happened to us in our lives.

It’s not overnight, it takes being real with yourself and talking your ish out be it to a trusted friend or a professional to help you as you unpack and work through the things that you may have wanted to forget about or finding ways to show up in your your day to day life as you work through your challenges and trauma.

9. Taking Ownership of Life and Outcomes

This was a difficult one. I had been in a space of feeling extremely frustrated with my life in general, most of it was because of the decisions I had made by putting others before myself and sometimes just not making good decisions. I allowed other peoples problems become my reality. Everyone and everything was more important than my wants and needs even basic needs at times.

When you have no boundaries for yourself people will drain you, it’s not always intentional however when you don’t take care of yourself first you really cannot help anyone else even if you think you are at the time. Eventually you will drain yourself of your own time and resources and will have nothing to give back to yourself or others because you’re exhausted. I know this all way to well.

When resentment settles in because of those you “ put first “ either they betrayed you or maybe they didn’t really appreciate you or your efforts or valued your efforts because it’s normal for them. It’s so easy to play the blame game of why your life is the way that it is when it’s not working in the way you would like.

Ultimately it’s our decisions that got us here no matter how painful or out of control we are of past or current circumstances it’s up-to us to how we deal with it now.

The beautiful thing of being a grown up is that you get to parent yourself and make your own decisions. When we blame others we are essentially handing all of our power to them. F-that. Not a good look for a diva!

You have the power to change your life with one single decision. I challenge you to speak daily affirmations to yourself. Speak life into yourself by making a daily routine out of it for the next 6 months and see how your life transforms!

10. Focus on the little things

It’s the little things that add up. I can remember so many moments throughout my life most major events have been a single moment be it a happy memory or not so happy moments all of our lives are a collection of moments and memories.

So my point is the little things matter. We can build a daily habit of telling ourselves I have permission to be happy and content today. The little things add up to big things or how I like to say “ Big Thangs! “ overtime. It’s the little things that we do and tell ourselves daily is what becomes a habitual daily routine.

You’re not alone in this dear diva! This journey is so much more than our physical well-being!

We are here to support you on your journey so be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow the socials @flybyjuly to keep in the loop of all the things Team FBJ!

Don’t forget to tag a diva @flybyjuly we want to celebrate the WINS you’ve made 🙌🏽

Be Healthy! Be Fabulous! Be You!

Mia The Diva