Sandra Bragg: thoughts

The Tumble Down the Mountain

2:31 PM

Before I hurt my knee back in April, I was doing such a great job with my health. I was getting lots of exercise in, 5 days a week of working out, if not more, if not multiple times a day. I was eating right and feeling great and finding it to be totally easy to do. I was motivated, excited and feeling amazing.

Then I hurt my knee. I tried to continue with my momentum but when it comes down to it, Crossfit and wanting to get better at Crossfit is what drives me to be better. And, while my knee has been healing, I’ve had to scale workouts so much, not because of skills but because of injury and it just hasn’t felt the same. While, I’ve still gone to Crossfit, I’ve definitely slacked and my eating, well….

Let’s just say being healthy is climbing a mountain and I’ve slid way far back down. Giving up is much easier than perseverance and in a lot of ways I gave up. I didn’t care. There was so much I couldn’t do and that just killed my motivation, killed my caring, killed all my good and hard work.

While Joseph and I were at the beach, I went for a walk on my own. There is something about the beach that is very therapeutic to me. Part of it is, I can connect to nature without bugs, but another part is that I enjoy the water and the breeze and the feel of sand between my toes. So, while Joseph and Emmy played in the waves, I went for a stroll.

Self-consciously, once I felt like I was far enough away from Joseph and Emmy, I started to try and jog. I hadn’t jogged since before I hurt my knee and if it was a big dud, I didn’t want to have to talk about it. And my breathing was on point, my knee felt fine and I jogged the better part of my mile and a half jaunt. I feel like that jog helped me rediscover the part of me that cares about being healthy and fit.

Sunday, Joseph let me steal the last beach morning run before we left and I took off with Zombie Run playing in my earbuds, an app I hadn’t used in I don’t even know how long. All in all, with walking and jogging, I pushed myself to do a 5K and it just all felt good (and a little bad, in that way that working out sometimes make you feel). I honestly could have cried because I felt good about being active in the first time in a long, long time.

So this is me, sharing my struggle, and my joy. I’m ready to head back up the mountain.

crossfit

Crossfit Regionals, Granite Games and Overcoming My Own Perceptions of My Abilities

3:00 PM

http://crossfitechelon.com/wod-0118/strength-quote/

When we went to the Mid Atlantic Crossfit Regionals a few months ago there was one girl that I really enjoyed watching. While I really love watching all of the athletes workout because they are absolutely amazing and inspiring there was one woman in particular that just really spoke to my soul. As expected, the athletes at regionals are chiseled and cut and they look the athlete part. They are not the normal mere mortals that do crossfit to live a healthier lifestyle. No, no, they are the individuals whose lives are dedicated to trying to become fittest on Earth.

And, this girl who just resonated with me, she was absolutely amazing and she wasn’t chiseled or cut. Not to say she wasn’t fit; girl could do legless rope climbs, strict muscle ups and placed top 3^rd on one of the more strenuous workouts of the weekend. And for someone like me, who isn’t a tiny little princess; who hasn’t figured out the “enjoy food and workout” balance yet, seeing a more “normal” body kill it was awesome. (Normal, of course, being a fully relative term)

http://www.fitnessquotesimg.com/quotes-images/crossfit-is-a-way-of-life-530852.jpg

What I really loved about this girl is that, no doubt, people would look at this regional athlete and without knowing better would make judgment calls about her or what they think she would be able to do, or her skills. And, I feel like because she was a tad bit thicker than your typical regionals athlete, she really showed me that what you look like, or what you might be carrying around with you does not dictate your skills or abilities.

Because, if I’m being honest, I think it’s easy to look at people and pigeonhole them into what they should be able to do depending on how they look. And, when that happens I feel like it’s a great disservice to that person. And, so I’m watching this girl, who isn’t shaped like a typical regional athlete and realizing that although she is FAR and AWAY more fit than me, there is no reason why I can’t endeavor and succeed with whatever I want to do, regardless of how I look or am shaped. And there is certainly no reason to put off trying and working on skills.

http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690282122846/

So, the past 5 weeks we’ve been doing the Granite Games and I signed up for the scaled division, because I am 100% a scaled athlete (and okay with that). And, I feel like my results really highlight the fact that you cannot look at a person and decide what they are able to do. You cannot write off someone’s potential. Because, what will happen is this normally shaped girl, who still struggles with gymnastic moves but refuses to give up on conquering them, will come in second for the scaled division at her box out of a great deal of very talented, and competitive athletes. This girl will stay top 3 on all the workouts except the last, because of those danged gymnastic moves, and even have a 1^st place finish in the workouts for her box. And while I may not know if I changed anyone's perceptions of my abilities, I certainly know I changed my own.

I may have a long way to go with some skills but I can’t be pigeonholed into expectations, not even by myself.

advocare

Change Your Viewpoint, Change Your Life

3:30 PM

You know those before and after pictures? The ones where someone transformed from a surly looking overweight person to an ecstatic thin/skinny/fit person… Usually, these pictures are accompanied with some diet trend, or weight loss product, or a story of how that person finally hit their goal body composition.

But, let’s talk about what those pictures, and products and stories usually leave out. What I honestly consider to be a pretty important aspect of actually being able to lose weight and live healthier. Learning to love your body.

Hating your body is easy… You’re either too fat and need to go eat a salad, or you’re too skinny and need to eat a burger. You have stretch marks or cellulite, or GOD FORBID both and you should never dare to show those limbs/body parts. You can see your clavicles? Well, you must be anorexic! Fat arms? Better wear sleeves so as to keep from offending anyone. Hairy toes and dry feet, get thyself to the nail salon, you MONSTER.

There are hundreds of little ways in which people are inundated with their imperfections because other people think THEY are allowed to comment on your body, your appearance, your self worth. And it’s plain bullshit and I remember when I used to believe it.

In high school, my best friend was (and still is) a naturally thin girl (even after having ALL The cute babies). (And to be honest, I was surrounded by a bunch of naturally thin people or people who were hyper focused on things like their body fat percentage) And as a teenager it was far too easy to see why she was beautiful and tie FAR too much of that beauty into her weight. And me? I was a size 9-11, I weighed more than the other girls my age. I wasn’t fat, but you couldn’t convince me of that. And because I was “fat,” there was no way I could be as pretty, there was no way that I could be thought of attractive. And I tied so much of my weight into my self worth.

But the thing is, her being skinny didn’t make her beautiful. No. It’s one aspect of her body composition and she’s a simply amazing person and the sum of her parts is what makes her beautiful (inside and out). And what I didn’t realize in high school, and took me a long time to realize is that me being “fat” didn’t make me any less of a beautiful, wonderful and loving person.

But spending so much of my teenage years, judging myself and feeding into this belief that I wasn’t good enough because of my weight, because I didn’t conform into this ideal body size, it stuck with me for a long time. It fed into so many actions, it kept me from taking care of myself properly and it kept me from being able to love myself.

Ironically, it was at my heaviest that I learned to love myself. To not worry about other people when I finally started wearing shorts in public. To not give a damn if my arms might be considered “too fat” to wear sleeve less shirts. To dare to love myself, to treat myself right and to appreciate my body for what it is and capable of and to NOT focus on everything other people have taught me is wrong, and other people hate about themselves.

Largely because of crossfit and learning what my body is capable of, regardless of my size; partially because of seeking out more body positive influences; and also a lot of working on my outlook, I learned to love myself. Sure, some days are hard and I’m hard on myself. But every day I love myself.

And this loving myself? WOW has it changed so many aspects of my life. Because I love myself, I take far better love of myself. I work out consistently and I LOVE it. Working out consistently has encouraged me to eat healthier because I want to get better at crossfit. I also eat healthier to take better care of my body, to live a healthier life, to be the best me because I am absolutely WORTH it.

I am worth every single kind thought I can give myself. I am worth wearing what I want without worrying about any silly imperfections I might have. I am worth loving myself to the very core of my being. And so are you.

I talk to my friends and I hear how their tear themselves down; beautiful and amazing people, whose faults only stand out to them. Who can’t get past fears that someone might tear them down without realizing that THEY are tearing themselves down the most. Without realizing that when I look at them, I don’t see faults but their positives. And I want my friends, I want ALL of my friends to see what I see in them; to know how amazing and beautiful and strong and inspiring they are to me.

I never successfully lost a single pound until I learned to love myself. So, my before picture? It isn’t surly. I’m smiling because I love myself. I loved myself at 260 pounds. I loved myself at 240 (my weight in the pictures, which are also my Before pics for my 1st Advocare Challenge). And, I love myself now. Because my weight is not my self worth. It’s a number. And my wanting to lose weight is not an indication that I don’t love myself. It’s a natural result of loving myself and wanting to treat myself the absolute very best that I can.

Love yourself.

It will change your life and you won’t regret it.

adulating

Inspire

3:04 PM

I’ve seen this trend over the last couple of years of choosing a word to focus on for the new year instead of a specific resolution. My dear friend brought it up this year and it got me thinking about what word I would choose.

Last year, although I didn’t specifically choose a word or set out to embrace any one idea, in hindsight the word is sort of obvious. “Self” is the word that best highlighted the changes I made last year. For a long time I didn’t treat myself right, I didn’t love myself right and I didn’t put in the time to take care of myself. So last year, I tried new things, I pampered myself, and I worked on loving myself for who I was in the moment and not who I used to be or who I wished I could be. Although on the surface “self” can seem like a selfish idea, I think it was a really important thing for me to focus on because I’m more than a wife or a mother and I needed to focus on myself to find out who I was becoming.

This year, after a lot of consideration on the things I love and care about, I decided that I really wanted to focus on the word “inspire”. I know that I struggle with the idea and want of “keeping up with the Joneses”. This is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down for so many reasons but namely because it is driven by jealousy. I don’t want to be driven by jealousy. But, if you change the focus and focus on those who inspire you and not those who you are jealous of, you flip the perception.

I want my focus on to be on those things and people that inspire me. As I’ve thought about this word, and thought about the inspiration in my life, I realized one pretty neat fact and that is that I don’t need to go far to look for inspiration. One thing I dedicate a lot of time too and care a lot about is crossfit and in my box there are many fierce females that inspire me in so many different ways. (The guys are awesome too but females just tend to inspire me more.)

Additionally, I want to look at my own actions and see how I can change them so that I’m not a negative person, so that I don’t evoke negative aspects in others and perhaps share a little inspiration. I don’t plan on going out of my way to inspire, but I do plan to dedicate my words and actions to more positivity so that I don’t demotivate others.

Last year had so many amazing points and I learned and changed so much by focusing on “self” so I can’t wait to see how my perspective changes and what else changes by focusing on inspiration and not jealousy.

advocare

Inspiration (Advo)Nation

3:00 AM

It was in September when Joseph and I tried our first Advocare Challenge. To put it simply, we were both depressed, overweight and feeling lost, so when our box held a challenge, we jumped in. Speaking for myself, I lost 12 pounds, 10 inches, was feeling good, happy, and focused and looking great, all in the span of 24 days. So, when Joseph decided he wanted to take this on in a more professional capacity, I felt good about it because I saw firsthand how wonderful this company changed my life.

This past weekend, we went to Advocare’s Atlanta Advonation. It was a day long conference with training, stories and giveaways (where that sucker brother of mine, Stephen won a year’s worth of spark. No, I’m not jealous at all…. ). We learned a lot of interesting things that we didn’t know before. One portion of the day had Dr. Dudrick (the man credited with creating feeding IV) doing a question and answer, and he was a spicy man with a fun sense of humor. He did a great job of representing the science and knowledge that goes behind the different products Advocare creates.

But, what really hit home for me were the stories of the individuals whose lives have been changed by Advocare. One woman, who found the product at 250 pounds, who has lost half her body weight and is super gorgeous just resonated with me. Then there was the man, who on his vacation, left the same day he arrived when he couldn’t fit in the rides, but then a year later, after using the product, went back and rode all the rides. The wife, who felt unlovable and unattractive and lost until she trusted the product and lost 30lbs, found her intimacy with her husband again and created a stronger marriage. These people, their stories, they resonated with me, they made me cry and I saw myself in them, and I understood the hope they had found, and the hope they had held onto.

And what I love about the first woman I mentioned, Ann, was what she said at the end of sharing her story when she had first started. Because she had a lot of weight to lose, and clearly her story wasn’t over after 1 challenge, or 2 challenges was “While I am still on my journey, come see me next year and I bet you won’t recognize me.” And that hit home so hard. Because for the first time in my life, I feel confident in that statement. Because, Joseph and I have been doing this for a few months now and we haven’t gained all the weight back, in fact during the holiday’s he lost and I held steady.

I know the struggle to lose weight, to not feel comfortable in your own skin, to feel like a failure, to not understand why food has to be such a fight every single meal. I understand. It’s hard. It’s an addiction you cannot avoid. It can beat you down and it can make you feel worthless, this inability to just eat right and be healthy.

So Saturday was great. We learned a lot. We had fun. Some of us won prizes. But, I was reminded that I’m not alone in this struggle to be healthy and that I am using the best tools and surrounded by some of the best people possible.

You will not recognize me in a year.

adulting

Couple's Counseling

3:30 PM

Am I the only one who can only think of bad and negative things when the words "couple's counseling" are echoed? It is something that seems to instantly bring these feelings of dread and doom. Sure, you hear about people going to couple's counseling, in retrospect once it has all fallen apart and it "didn't work." So, when I told Joseph I thought we needed to go, it was really terrifying and even more terrifying when he agreed that it would be a good idea.

I was filled with this fear that couple's counseling was simply the beginning of the end for us. Even though we love each other and get along great and are committed. Because couple's counseling just seems to = the end.

When we decided we needed to go to counseling, there was no end in sight. Rather, we were two people who got along fantastically but were utterly terrible at heated conflict. We are as opposite as possible when it comes to how we settle arguments/conflict/hurt and upset. And, while, for the most part it did not impact our relationship, on rare occasions, these differences caused our arguments to blow up.

We've been going every week for about two months now. There has been a strong focus on learning how we each handle conflict, how to approach that in constructive ways and how to effectively and constrictively communicate in disagreements. It's amazing to me how being more conscience of word choice can drastically change the tone of a conversation.

Through counseling, I think it has only cemented for us how deeply committed we are to each other. I love Joseph, and I love him enough to try to learn how to be more communicative in ways that resonate with him, and the same goes for him. We leave each session and we discuss what we've learned and covered and how it surprised us. Counseling wasn't necessary to "save" our marriage because we weren't toeing the line of divorce. But, for us, it was necessary to help us work on our communication, which is an important foundation of any good relationship.

Couple's counseling is one of those dirty little secret things that no one talks about, even though it is something that, if talked about could help others. So, know, that couple's counseling doesn't have to be bad, or lead to the end. In fact it can be quite the opposite. It can help to grow a relationship, give deeper and greater understanding into your partner, and a greater appreciation for the work required for a long lasting relationship.

adulting

Quarter Life Crisis?

11:09 AM

I know I am a few years late on having a quarter life crisis. I assume it’s because I also graduated a few years late and so I’m facing this question of what my purpose in life is a few years late.

Since getting close to graduation, and subsequently finishing school, I’ve been asked quite a bit, “So, what are you going to do now?”

On one hand, my initial response is to reply that I AM still a stay at home mom. Emmy, although could do daycare, is not old enough for school. Additionally, I was not a stay at home mom so I could finish school. Rather, I’m a stay at home mom because I couldn’t imagine not being the one to take care of her and be with her and finishing school doesn’t change that. (Although entering toddlerhood like a lion, might. Just kidding. Maybe not. Good thing she is cute.) Plus, we are blessed with Joseph’s job to be able to afford for me to stay home with Emmy.

On the other hand though, I don’t know what I want to do. I got an English degree because I love writing and reading… And, it never hurts to know how to use there/their/they’re properly. I don’t have this drive to crush it in the corporate world. Being a manager or running a department has never mattered to me. I’ve never needed to identify myself by my job or career. I’ve never viewed my life as successful as determined by my title or bring home pay. (Not that there is anything wrong if that is important to you.)

I’ve always known I am very blessed with my marriage to Joseph. He is not one who views me as less important when making decisions because I don’t necessarily bring home money. He truly views the money he makes as *our* money. He sees real value in my being with Emmy. He saw value in me simply being a house wife even though at times that whole *cleaning* thing alludes me. Joseph has always been supportive (in more ways than one) of me doing what I want, doing what makes me happy.

Except, I don’t know what that is and I feel like there is this hole that needs to be filled. When Emmy naps, and the cleaning is all done and I’m left twiddling my thumbs, I don’t know how to fill that time and feel like I’m fulfilled. I feel like I’m floundering and that feeling starts to bleed into every avenue of my life if I’m not vigilant to keep my chin up.

So, according to my friend, Alicia, this is a quarter life crisis.

I just don’t know where I’m supposed to go from here.

Pages

The Tumble Down the Mountain

Crossfit Regionals, Granite Games and Overcoming My Own Perceptions of My Abilities

Change Your Viewpoint, Change Your Life

Inspire

Inspiration (Advo)Nation

Couple's Counseling

Quarter Life Crisis?

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