Getting Healthy » Kyla Roma

Kyla: Final Week – Slow Down & Simplify

Kyla Roma — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:28:50 +0000

It takes a lot to slow me down. I’m a former stage manager and planning addict. I have google calendars and daybooks coming out my ears. I feel like I can do a lot- and like Gauri I’m also a helper. If you need me I’m there. I’m also there if I think that it’s possible you might need me, or if you don’t need me but your second cousin might. Between this natural tendency to over extend myself and the challenges I’ve been dealing with personally, these past six weeks have been awfully hard. I’ve been going to school, maintaining my own blog, guest posting here, working, trying to keep my house & puppies in some semblance of order, seeing friends two nights a week and dealing with a big challenge in my family.

If I’ve learned anything from my health collapsing to the point that I couldn’t even make enough sense to post last week, it’s this:

Just because I can do fourteen things at once doesn’t mean that it’s healthy or that I should.

This works doubly for heath routine efforts from what I’ve experienced over this challenge, and it’s kind of driving me crazy.

Case: up until last week I was doing sit ups, going for massage, stretching, doing yoga, strengthening, heating, icing, trying the miracle balls that I bought and just waiting for something to work.

and Point: I took last week off from doing everything other than the miracle ball method, and my back pain is significantly better.

Case: Up until this week I had been trying different calorie counter methods, trying to make sure I got enough walking in, doing cardio twice a week, worrying about how I was eating, taking supplements, and being generally worried about my health.

and Point: In week four I stopped worrying, moved my mirror, started packing a bag lunch (and having a large healthy snack before I went out for lunch with friends), and not just felt better but inadvertently lost weight- from 140 lbs to 136 lbs.

The hilarious part is I feel kind of cheated. I feel like for nearly six weeks I’ve been putting out an astounding amount of energy, only to get sick and for it to not really get me anywhere…and then the solution is to do less? To have a healthy snack before going out for lunch with friends so I don’t eat as much bad stuff? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but limiting what I’m doing to a few effective, time efficient things seems way harder than calorie counting or logging cardio hours. Because, you know, I’m a total freak or something.

But at the same time the writing is clearly on the wall.

Looking back at it, I think that the stuff I’ve been doing over these weeks to try to feel better about my body (and in my body) has largely been so I feel like I’m jumping through enough hoops to deserve the back pain free times I have, or to deserve to feel good in a cute outfit. It hasn’t been about pain reduction, it’s been about earning the right to feel good and be happy.

But you know what? I don’t need to jump through any hoops to deserve to feel good or be happy. I just don’t!

I’m not sure how long it will take for me to really slow down and simplify without having to make a huge effort at it, but for I’m trying to remember & to make decisions from a place of whole body & mental healthiness. In fact the bracelet I’m wearing in the above picture is just for that- every time I see it I’m repeating to myself “change your pace”.

Anything that helps right?

Kyla: Week Five – Crash & Burn

Kyla Roma — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:00:18 +0000

I’m sorry to leave you guys hanging, but it’s been a rough week. I went to Vancouver, and in a series of unfortunate events I became extremely sick and ended up having to move my departure up by a day…meaning I essentially flew across the country to have coffee with friends…and then curled up in their beds and was generally quite crabby and tearful about the whole thing.

I would say I have the flu, but I don’t have a fever so for now I’m filing this under ‘crash & burn’.

I’ve been in my PJ’s for a number of days so next week I’m hoping to give you a much better update after I have quite literally focused on getting healthy for a while longer.

Thank you so much for your support, you are all extremely dreamy!

kr.

comments closed

Kyla: Week Four – Body Image

Kyla Roma — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:00:31 +0000

{Routine Update: I’m changing my goals after hearing about how stretching in the morning can do more damage than good. I’ll update you next week- but the Miracle Ball Method is working!!! I’m not in nearly as much pain as I have been, and I’m a much happier camper.}

The past week I’ve been battling with something that I thought I had under control, and it’s been driving me nuts.

I struggled a lot with my body when I was younger. It’s a long story that would take this post into the 1000+ word range, but suffice it to say there have been many times over many years when I really, really hated my body. After a lot of hard work and time passing I know that I can’t afford to feel anything about by body other than good humor and love, but it took years to get my inner monologue positive. The only thing about me that drives me crazy is when I feel that inner voice slipping back into the negative.

This week, it’s been slipping big time, and I have been tearing my hair out about it. Which I think has probably been, you know, making it way worse. When I was on my honeymoon I saw a trainer for an advanced BMI test and he said that “to reach an ideal weight you definitely need to lose 10 lbs.” and recently it’s been stuck in my head. Having a scale in my house again has been strange and every now and then I feel like I need to just see… and then there’s that number again.

140 pounds. It should be something I’m excited or neutral about, but now I see that it’s ten pounds off of my “ideal” weight. Ten pounds more than my (loving) bird of a husband weighs.

And for whatever reason it’s been really hard to stay away from negative thoughts.

But I love food. I love wine. I love carbs. I’m not gaining weight, I’m just stable here and I have been for a year. And I think that my body looks good at this weight. So my fear becomes, if I agree with the “lose 10 lbs” statement is it because it will make me healthier or because I’m giving that little negative voice in my head power to shape what I see in the mirror again?

I think that I have part of the solution. Stay with me….

These pictures look pretty much the same. They’re taken on the same day, one at work and one at home. I look at the pictures and I see the same thing. But when I’m in front of the mirrors I see two very different things.

At work I see pretty proportions. Confidence.

At home I see HIPS that go on forever, and no boobs anywhere to be seen. I see a mega pear shaped person. I hear the “lose 10 lbs voice” and get into sweat pants.

Do you know what the difference is? Perspective. And I don’t mean that figuratively.

The mirror at my house is right in front of a low dresser that means I have to squeak in right in front of it. I can’t back up, so I’m only a foot and a half away. At that distance I fill the whole mirror, I can’t see my shoes, and I’m up extremely close.

At work I can back up. I can see myself in scale with the room, not filling up the whole mirror from two feet away. I become people sized, and I can get a proper look at myself instead of shuffling in front of the mirror at home.

So I’ve made a few decisions:

I’m not going to try to lose 10 lbs.
I’m going to amp up my positive inner monologue.
I’m moving my mirror.

I am at a healthy weight, and I would only be setting out to do more cardio because of vanity. I’m making the objective decision that while my body isn’t perfect I’m vain enough, thanks. I know myself and I don’t want to fuel that unhealthy inner critic if I don’t have to.

I’m going to start saying 5 things I like about my body, every day. If my inner monologue is weak, I will steam roll over it with my actual voice.

I’m going to set up my mirror somewhere so I can stand back from it and see myself in scale with my room, not taking over my mirror. I think that it will help me maintain a healthy, positive perspective by literally changing the way I view my body. It doesn’t change my body but it changes how I feel, and right now, how I feel about my body seems really important.

How do you keep your body image grounded in reality, but positive?

Have you had an “ah-ha” moment about your body, or body image this week?

Kyla: Week Three – School Daze

Kyla Roma — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:20:37 +0000

Ooff. Friends, if I thought that last week was rough I had no idea what was coming for me this week. I’m happy to report that I’m through to the other side though, and the tough stuff is officially done. And just in time! I was about to implode!

Let’s look at the practical stuff…

My Weekly Routine/Regime:

The Getting Active & Healthy Stuff!

I failed to walk the puppies for 20 mins in the morning five days a week
I bombed 40 reps of sit ups with weights & 40 reps of back strengthening seven days a week
I cowered when faced with 30 mins of cardio twice a week
I took a small victory where I could and took a multivitamin every day

The Dealing With Chronic Back Pain Stuff!

I didn’t get out of bed for yoga at 6 AM five days a week
I was dying of sleep deprivation and opted out of taking no pain killers so I could actually feel my body
I did the easy thing and took a hot bath/used a heat pack on my back seven days a week

I think that this qualifies as a multiple systems failure, don’t you? And it was, Except for one important item: I finished my final project for school!!

I’m working on a post-degree human resources management program and this has been the first semester of being back at school since I was finishing my BA & it nearly took me apart. Being back in school is fine & I’m doing well, but working and going to school is harder than I remember it, and I want to make sure that my husband and I still get to hang out- never mind my friends and keeping up with blogging and work.

So this week I made the decision to bomb the body stuff so I could finish my assignments and be done school until January 10th. The weight of the world has been lifted off of me. I can sleep again, my energy levels are back up, and I feel like myself. Finally.

I wish that I could do it all, but no matter how much of a control freak I am, I really can’t do everything. I have limited time & lots of priorities to juggle. Sometimes I’m going to mess up.

So while normally I would be upset about crashing at 9:30 PM after having a small pizza and beer festival in my living room on Thursday, I’m not upset. It felt incredibly good. It didn’t help my body, but I can tell you that it definitely helped my soul.

No apologies, this week was a write off but I’m on to bigger and better things, only with the energy to tackle what life throws at me, and even a little cardio here and there!

I wanted to show you what I’ve been doing for cardio, yoga & what I have up my sleeve for next week as well a answer a few questions I’ve been getting so I made a little video blog for you- if it doesn’t embed please click to see it here!

0:00 – 2:30 is answering questions from the comments
2:25 is where I show you guys the DVDs, Wii games & Miracle Balls that I’m using.

Note: Sorry, I’m talking like my mouth is full of marbles! Lets chalk it up to the awkward, shall we?

Missed last week? Read Week Two

Want more? Follow Kyla on Twitter or visit her personal blog

Kyla: Week Two – Routine vs. Regime

Kyla Roma — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:50:52 +0000

This first proper week of living in my new routine has been a Big Adjustment. I tried to prepare myself mentally, and I tried to remind myself that it takes a lot of work to get out of old habits and into new ones but the shock of waking up at 6:00 AM to do yoga is a little more rough than I anticipated. Even when I kind of mime my way though it! You would think that would at least make it easier.

I’ve been trying to work my goals into a weekly routine so I can monitor them more easily, and so far this is what I’ve come up with…

My Weekly Routine/Regime:

The Getting Active & Healthy Stuff!

Walk the puppies for 20 mins in the morning five days a week
40 reps of sit ups with weights & 40 reps of back strengthening seven days a week
30 mins of cardio twice a week
Take a multivitamin every day

Results:

This week I stayed right on top of this!! I busted my butt so I could have at least one week where I did 90% of everything I set out to. I missed a multivitamin one day, but other than than I did everything! I even walked the dogs when it was cold and I had no interest in waking up what so ever. My husband is a little shell shocked, believe me.

The Dealing With Chronic Back Pain Stuff!

Yoga at 6 AM five days a week
Take no pain killers so I can actually feel my body
Take a hot bath/use a heat pack on my back seven days a week

Results

I did everything, and I feel really awful. My pain is definitely worse than it has been in a few months, but I think it’s because I’m actually doing something about it and that stirs things up. How is that for a folksy rationalization? I am trying to push through, but I had to take Tylenol once this week. I’m waking up five or six times a night at a minimum, and I’m getting kind of sleep deprived and cranky.

To answer a couple of questions & suggestions: before now I have tried massage, yoga, chiropractic, physiotherapy and acupuncture. Massage has been wonderful for my pain reduction, but I can’t afford regular treatments & I really want to find something that I can do for myself to help. I’m totally up for using these as interventions….but I do that every year in bursts of expensive treatments that stop helping when I stop paying. I want to know that I’m helping myself in a concrete way, on an ongoing basis. This can’t all be in other people’s hands, can it?

However the up side to my At Home Wellness Plan is that I may or may not be using my back pain as an excuse to have hot therapeutic (bubble!!!) baths before work when I have an extra 10 minutes. I don’t know what it’s doing for my pain levels, but I think I’m really onto something with this.

Me this week…along with my puppies Ash & Mal. They’re a little needy.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, this week has been hard. I have had a tough time getting motivated, and while I built some fun stuff in as incentives (I can read the new Dan Brown book in one sitting….after cardio!) it felt less like I was starting a routine and more like I was starting a regime change. It’s a little exhausting!

Question:

How do you make Those Fitness Items You Have To Do something you look forward to?

Anyone who is intrinsically motivated/addicted to their own endorphins, feel free to speak up, just know it’s like you’re speaking another language. But I really want to believe you about how good it all feels & isn’t at all boring, I swear!

Next week I’ll be finished my final paper of this semester, so I’ll have a lot less stress in my life and I know that I’m hoping that next week feels more manageable. Next week I’ll be talking about how I’m doing cardio & yoga at home, and I’ll be hunting down the Miracle Balls that My Little Becky suggested! I have very high hopes for these!

Did you missed last week? Read Week One.
Want more? Follow Kyla on Twitter or visit her personal blog

Kyla: Week One Introduction

Kyla Roma — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:19:03 +0000

My “Getting Healthy” Info

I’m Kyla Roma- a 24 year old Canadian prairie girl, blogger, life long vegetarian, puppy mama & thrifting addict. I’m new to Getting Healthy, and I’m really excited to kick this off. I’ve got high hopes & there’s a lot at stake for me!

1. As of the beginning of this project, what are your height and weight?

Right now I’m 5’7″ and I weigh 140 lbs. On me, that looks like this…

2. We all know that numbers never give us the big picture. When you think of your body – its size, shape, strength and health - how do you feel?

Generally, I’m very happy with my body but I have been a huge slacker over the past year. When it comes down to it I feel like I have a problem of pain & staying active:

Pain: I’ve had chronic back pain since I was about 18 years old & was rear ended by careless winter drivers one too many times. Dealing with it is really hard a lot of the time and it means that I’m almost never comfortable, a lot of the time I’m physically braced without realizing it, and my back pain escalates. Unless I manage it all the time, it becomes unmanageable… so I start to rely on pain killers & sedatives so I can sleep. At only 24 years old it’s a ridiculous situation.

I go through phases of trying to stay on top of it and getting really frustrated by how hard it is to just feel normal in my body, and giving up. Over the past year I’ve let it get completely out of hand. From my lower back all the way up to my upper back neck, shoulders & arms I ache all the time, and I often have sharp pain when I move. Everything down to breathing deeply hurts, and I find it hard to keep focused on work, school, or even blogging(!) because of my body.

Staying Active: The Canadian Prairie winters are brutal, and as the snow settles down and the wind chill gets serious I gain weight. It’s just the way of the world & since the summer I’m already well on my way to adding 10 – 20 lbs to my body by the spring. The weight I don’t really mind, but the cabin fever? Hold me.

When it’s -30 F the last thing I want to do is go to the gym, but it’s easy to get depressed when you just stop moving around. Add to this being a student again for the first time since my undergrad as well as being a new car owner, and my life style is quickly becoming sedentary. That is so not me. I need to find a way to be active that fits with my life & that will help to energize me so I can manage school, work, hanging out with my friends & my husband because of it, not in spite of it.

3. Based on all of that, what is your biggest goal in the Getting Healthy project? What is one thing you must accomplish during the next two months?

I absolutely, no questions asked, must get my back pain into control. Just seeing that my big complaint above is essentially “it hurts really badly when I breathe” is embarrassing & sad. I need to be comfortable in my body again.

4. Do you have any secondary goals? What are they?

I get bored of health kicks quickly- I commit to too much and don’t stick with it long enough to see results so I need to find a routine that works for me and marry myself to it. I’m going to use this project as a way to test out new tweaks to my routine and see what my life would look like if I stuck with them.

I’ll be keeping the best things and throwing out the rest- and that’ll include everything from how I get together with my friends (carb centric gathering are what I’m all about), becoming a healthy vegetarian instead of a lazy one, and cutting out the Tylenol & Advil that takes the edge off my back pain so I can actually feel what my body is telling me. Even if my body is telling me “Ow.”

5. What’s your day-to-day lifestyle like? What are you into? (We’d just like to get to know you better!)

I’m a comfort seeker. I love finding a routine that works for me so I can use it to blow through the boring stuff in my day- all I want to do is make a cup of tea, get into my craft room and dive into my google reader. I spend a lot of time writing, editing, and community building for my blog on the weekends, and I spend all my time in the evenings with my husband & our puppies or with my friends.

I’m very sarcastic, more than a little nerdy, and try to balance it out with a healthy dose of blog reading, baking, crafting, and white wine.

6. What is one way that our readers can get you motivated, right out of the gate?

Well that I’m blogging this journey is terrifying enough to get me motivated, believe me! But some moral support? Please bring it on!

Give me your suggestions for something that could help me reduce my back pain.
Let me know how you’ve made staying active a part of your routine that you look forward to.
Have a question? Ask it by leaving a comment and I’ll answer any you have in a video blog next week.
Add me on twitter or check out my blog KylaRoma.com if you’d like to get to know me better!

7. Anything else you’d like to share with us, to help everyone get to know you?

I’m going to be breaking my goals down and updating them every week, along with focusing on a specific issue I tackle that week- from trying something new for my back pain, to pulling things that work for you into my routine. It’ll be really easy to follow my progress, I swear.

I’m excited to connect with you guys, to try your suggestions & to report back how they worked from me with pictures & video blogs. Most of all, I’m excited to be actually doing something & to know I have a plan to tackle all of this. It feels like it might change a lot. That’s what I’m hoping, at least.

Thanks for following along!