Tag: Health

The Most Important Thing

Published on by lacylynnetteLeave a comment

I took this image a little over a month ago of my breakfast, feeling pretty good about my veggies and cold brew. Not a lot of calories right there– eating healthy! I’ve spent the past couple of months working on my health. Working out is something that used to be very important to me but when my son came along in 2020, I just didn’t find the time. The last thing I wanted to do was get up earlier than 4am to make it happen before work or hop on the elliptical as soon as I got home and was already concerning myself with what was for dinner and how we were going to go about the bedtime routine that night.

Flash forward a few years and I was struggling! Not so much in the way of weight– yes a little extra around the middle but I am 37, have given birth, and my body is not the same as when I was 27. Mostly, I was feeling tired all the time, sleeping terribly, and getting sick A LOT (partly can’t be helped when you have a little one in daycare). So, I started working out about 10 weeks ago.. a little at a time with cardio first, followed by weightlifting built in more and more each week. My work outs are now flipped from 10 years ago with cardio making up about 1/3rd of it and the rest strength training.

Next came my diet. Breakfast is what you see above when I initially started working out but if I am going to build muscle, this won’t work. I wasn’t getting much out of it. I have now turned my focus to proteins and building those in where I can. The cold brew now contains protein (it was initially difficult for me to wrap my brain around adding calories to my coffee). I now put together a breakfast bowl of a cup of hashbrowns, an egg, and something lean like venison to create a balance of protein, carbs, and healthy fats. I have been also trying a lot of new recipes and foods for lunch and dinner and will likely share some here as I continue my journey.

I think what I am really hoping to articulate is that I have not done anything super special. I have not joined any groups, hired a personal trainer, bought expensive special supplements aside from my protein powder (not expensive – from Walmart) and making sure I take daily vitamins. I have not gone all in from day #1 as I used to be able to do in the past when I was in my 20’s and I had more time (and energy) to just focus on myself. I have eased into a new way of going about my day and it is becoming my new normal.

Most important of all, I am doing this for me. Yes, I love watching as my 4.5-year-old son comes to hang out with me and “work out” alongside me. He is my biggest cheerleader and I hope he is viewing how important it is that we take care of the body that we have. I love sitting with him in the quiet of our living room on Saturday morning– me with my protein coffee and he with his “coffee” (actually milk) in his little yellow mug– just the two of us, chatting about the start of our day. I love all of that but at the end of the day, through some of these moments in life, I have found the hardest person for me to love has been me and yet, it’s one of the most important things I can do.

So Will I

Published on by lacylynnetteLeave a comment

I really lost sight of some things for a couple of years. Given my past, much of my early adulthood was one spent feeling just incredibly grateful for every single good moment, good memory, and good person to come my way. There were the moments that still broke me for a time until I could regain my footing and focus but my faith held me strong to my core. I never felt overtaken… until then– Sept 2022. I see the pictures from that time and know the internal battle brewing before it completely boiled over. A battle that was not visible to anyone other than myself and the thing I could not control at the time– my health. And, in the span of one month, I could not see how to move forward in a positive way. I could not see past the current day and how to get through it. I was lost.

I sit here now, in 2025, just incredibly grateful to once again see so much more than the current day. The past 2.5 years have taught me a lot about patience and the value of the slow dance. I say this knowing that I am not 100% where I want to be on a personal level just yet– I guess we never truly are and should be working towards something, but I have my goals for the short term and long term and there is a lot of work yet to do. I used to think that I needed to hold my partner or son up as the reason for the hard work but have quickly discovered that my reason why has to be me or it won’t work.

I have some things to share with you in the future as I begin the work to go through my mom’s old papers over the coming months and take the journey to get to know her inner dialog. I will read them now in a really good place– one of acceptance and forward thinking. Over 2024, I reached out to my mom’s long-term partner after my dad as well. This was something that I had once felt the need to close the door on but as I now work through my own motherhood experience, I found that my needs changed. While awkward and strange in some ways, this has been a positive step for me.

2022 represented a significant pause for me and was one that carried into the following two years, and I hope that 2025 will be one of important steps and growth. I do not leave that difficulty behind me but carry it forward as just one of the many things that have shaped me into who I am meant to be. I will however, leave the darkness behind.

“And as You speak
A hundred billion failures disappear
Where You lost Your life so I could find it here
If You left the grave behind You, so will I”

September 2022

Hello Again

Published on by lacylynnetteLeave a comment

Well… it has been a moment, hasn’t it? Eight years of building life, moving forward, of highs and lows, and beautiful moments. Life has led me through all the things– marriage, starting a family, moves, promotions, health journeys, my mom’s dementia diagnosis, losing myself and working hard to find myself again. Through it all, I have missed the thing that meant the most to me growing up and beyond– writing.

If you’re reading this, you can expect to hear more from me again here going forward and no matter where this goes, that’s okay too.. because, I just miss the thoughts into nothingness if only to get them down in the way that used to be my salvation growing up. I miss writing.

I can offer an update that while I wrote a lot in the past about my new relationship and the struggle to learn to build trust in another person, I did in fact marry that man and am now mom to one 4-year-old son. You may find that I will want to share a lot around what the parenting role is to me, my journey to find better health after becoming a mom and finding how easy it is lose oneself, and the work I am doing internally to understand and accept my mom’s own health crisis. If any of this is helpful to anyone else, feel free to reach out and comment!

Hello again! It’s nice to be back.