Wellness

Taking care of your mind, body and soul.

Physical Health

I grew up eating a normal, homecooked meal diet. I ate cold cut turkey and ham on white bread sandwiches with cheese and mayo. I loved spaghetti with italian bread and sausages. Pizza almost every Saturday from Pizza Hut.  I always had some extra weight up until 9th grade. Then I thinned out for a moment before my diet caught up to me and I had extra weight again. I wasn't really doing anything to control my weight. I ate at home or I ate out. I ate until I was full and that was it. I didn't care too much about working out either. It wasn't my primary concern growing up. The first time I did any sort of diet was when my sister had me try the South Beach diet for a while. I remember not being able to eat any fruits at first. I just followed what my sister had for me. It didn't stick with me, really. I think the first real change to my diet was when my mom and I started drinking almond milk instead of skim milk. 

I stopped drinking skim milk and switched to drinking almond milk. All of a sudden, drinking cow's milk seemed unnatural. Next I think I started picking wheat bread of white bread. Nothing else really changed. Then one year I decided to drive to Ohio and surprise visit Emma. She had a book about animals at the farms and in the factories or whatnot. I had some time to myself one day and for some reason, I read the ending of the book. I remember it talking about how turkeys weren't even turkeys anymore. How people working with pigs would treat them horribly. It all seemed pretty bad. I guess Emma and I had talked about being vegetarians or maybe she was one at that time. Anyway, when I got home I told my parents I was going to go vegetarian. Which, seemed really hard to say at the time because I ate a lot of home cooked meals still. 

It took a while for the change to set in with my family. They'd make jokes or just forget that I didn't eat meat. I don't really remember what all I did to change. I can't remember what I did at first. I'd replace meat with cheese or beans. I was working at Domino's and Qdoba at the time. Mexican food was easy to change, I just got beans and cheese. Pizza was easy too, just veggies. It all seemed to happen pretty fast.

I started out buying a lot of fake versions of the real meats. Veggie hot dogs, burgers, chicken nuggets. Slices of fake meat for sandwiches, sometimes I'd try the vegan cheeses to make quesadillas or pizzas. It was always sort of a secondary part of life, though. I was busy with work or school and food wasn't as important to me. I'd eat when I could, what I could, but I didn't really plan it out as much as I do now. I took a health class around 2015 at Blue Ridge Community College that kind of pushed me to doing more physical activities as well.

I started running a lot at the gym. I'd just go for as long as I could at a pace I could keep. I think I ran 4 miles one day. That was crazy because I could never do that before. I think it had a lot to do with finding my own pace instead of having to run at a certain speed to keep up with what might be expected. I thought stamina was more important, how long I could run. I'm sure my diet had some to do with it all as well, but I never really thought about it. I started taking a self defense class and a boot camp class for free during the week. They ran back to back over two hours, twice a week. It was intense, but I was pushing myself and keeping up with both classes. I was physically, feeling great. Then I left college and worked for a while longer before moving to Norfolk, VA with my friends.

In Norfolk, I was working nonstop, all the time at Dominos. I didn't plan out meals or even think about them. I never knew when I was going to eat or what. I'd stop at gas stations and buy hard boiled eggs and energy drinks. I didn't have enough water or get enough sleep either. I didn't do any exercising or cook anything that healthy. I can't remember eating anything at the apartment. A year later I moved to Virginia Beach and left Domino's. I was working at the aquarium and actually got breaks to eat. So I did start packing lunch to sit down and enjoy. I don't remember what I made. Sandwiches? 

I was spending so much time working that I almost never planned to do any exercise. I'd either run to the grocery store when I had some time or get food from taco bell. My diet at that time is a blur to me. I picked up a second job at buffalo wild wings and wouldn't get home until 3am. I'd have to eat then or not at all. We didn't get breaks at Bdubs. If I did eat, it would be fried food, something fatty. I don't remember when or why, but I know that I suddenly felt like running on the treadmills they had at the gym. I don't know how often I was there, but I know I went at least a few times before Carly started to not come home some nights. Then she just disappeared altogether. I started smoking cigarettes from the stress. I would smoke so much. I didn't smoke regularly before but I was chain smoking some days because I couldn't sit still and think about what was going on. Work had made me feel cheated out of the assistant manager job, Buffalo Wild Wings was just something I had to do for money and I didn't even have enough to pay all my bills. Carly wanted to break up but she wanted to keep paying half the rent so she had some place to keep her stuff. She would come by randomly and leave. I started drinking and ended up with stomach pains on the floor. My fish tank broke and I had to save the fish and clean up all the water. I had to feed live crickets to a bunch of lizards that weren't mine. I was applying for full-time jobs that would pay me enough to cover the rent and my debt. Nothing was working out. 

I had decided that I'd apply for jobs in Harrisonburg, too, and could move back home if I had, too. I let fate decide and ended up working at the Regal Cinemas in Harrisonburg, which was always somewhere I wanted to work. After the long process of moving back home and breaking the lease in Virginia Beach, I could, start again. I had all my loans taken care of by my parents, so now I just had to pay them back. I didn't change my diet much more, but I finally started going to the gym to run again. There were random times, when I just started doing something new. I got a giant water bottle that would hold a days worth of water and started bringing it to work. It's big and metal, but no one's ever told me I couldn't have it. So I was now aware of how much water I was getting or not getting in a given day. I still didn't pay much attention to my health yet. It was all secondary to work. Then I started landscaping.

Landscaping allowed me to be outside all day and take a break to eat. I was starting to get more serious about my own health at this point. I had to wake up early for work so I started trying to keep a strict sleep schedule. It wasn't the best but I remember trying to go to bed around 9pm. My food schedule was also, kind of hard to keep together. Not to mention, I have to go number 2 pretty much, immediately after getting up so it cuts time out of the morning, Oh, I wasn't smoking, again, too. Overall, I was fighting to keep a healthy schedule around an unhealthy work schedule.  Then came the pandemic.

Everything got reset with the pandemic. I was on unemployment and couldn't go out to do anything. I played a lot of World of Warcraft to make up for lost time. I had quit landscaping before Covid and so was only working at the movie theater. I was trying to get promoted so I could work full-time, but it never happened. Anyway, my diet was still, sandwiches and whatnot. I wasn't paying attention to it. I can't remember my sleep schedule either. I don't think I worked out a lot, but who knows. Basically, I was sitting around doing nothing for a while. Then I started work at a hotel. I would work up until midnight at the latest. Honestly, I didn't worry about my diet again until much later. Next, I started working at a warehouse.

So I had to be at work by 4am so I woke up at like, 2am. I had, at this point, cemented my need to poop and eat breakfast before doing anything else. I'd bring coffee with me because I didn't have the time to enjoy it before work. I had also wanted to keep my sleep around 9 hours of time, which gave me an hour to get to sleep. So I would go to bed at 6 or 7pm. This was crazy, I had to black out the window. This is also when I made a hole in my door so the cats could come and go without needing the door to be opened. I worked at this warehouse for about a year and a half before I quit. I didn't even quit over the crazy hours. Although, I did feel like I was not healthy. Even with all the manual labor and the strict hours I was keeping with sleep. I felt like I was going to just die, sometimes. I would pack a sandwich almost everyday, with fruits and veggies. I had some leftover noodles sometimes, but the breaks made eating difficult. So I ate at 3am and then we had a break at 8am and again at 11:30am. Then when I got home it would be 3-4pm and I'd eat dinner at 4:30-5pm and go to sleep around 6 or 7 pm. None of this was healthy, and there wasn't anything I could do to change my life schedule around my work schedule. So I left that nonsense behind, even if the pay was $18 an hour, it was such a huge sacrifice. So then I wanted to start my own business.

Now I had free time, I had a loan to open a business. I would eat whenever and sleep whenever. Still not as important as finding a place to open my business. The good thing now, was that I could eat at regular times again, like everyone else. Although, I didn't make my own schedule yet, just followed others. I think I got my sleep down to up until 2am and awake at 11am? I think that's how it went, which was a good first step. I started making my sleep time, official and wouldn't just change it for anything. This is actually when things started working better for me. I kept a schedule now. I woke up and ate breakfast. Then around 5pm I'd have lunch and then I'd have a dinner around 9pm. Something like that, Which was find because I wouldn't sleep right away. Also, I began working out a little bit, every other day, about 3 times a week. I'd work out in the evening at first. Let me back it up just a bit...

I was stressing out trying to start a business in Richmond. Then my friends, Rebecca and Alex, were about to move to Massachusetts. So the plan became, I just need a job in Richmond so I can take over their lease and at least live in Richmond.  My friend Leigh lives there, and I wanted to hang out with her. I was losing hope up until the interview I had with Alex's former employer, a restaurant. I didn't have anything left in me to fight with. If I got this job, I could try to take over the lease and if I didn't, I was out of luck. So they didn't hire me and I was at a loss. Once again, defeated. It was at this time that I accepted whatever fate wanted for me and that was to stay in Elkton. I wasn't even going to try applying for any jobs until after my vacation to Florida in July. So I didn't have any stress left in me. When I got to Florida, I realized that I had been losing weight. I didn't even think about that before, I was being more attentive of my foods. I wasn't eating breads as much. I had added miso soup with just a small amount of noodles to my diet. I had more salads for lunch, no sandwiches. I was continuing to drink the daily recommended amount of water, sometimes more.  When I got back from vacation I needed to find a job.

I was still working out in the evenings, sleeping until 11am, drinking the water, eating meals on the regular. I applied to jobs in Charlottesville, Massanutten, and Harrisonburg. I interviewed at a pet store, then as a janitor for the waterpark. I had high hopes for the second one. The hours would be something I could work with, but nope, I didn't get hired. Then, I was kind of out of choices and saw that Domino's was hiring for shift managers in Harrisonburg so I thought, okay whatever. Wouldn't you believe it, they got back to me right away, I interviewed and they had me start driving in like 3 days. It wasn't what I expected, but nothing ever is, so here I am now, driving for Domino's in Harrisonburg. If you're not familiar with me, I worked at Domino's in Elkton, VA from 2011-2016 and then transferred to a Norfolk Domino's until February 2017. Going back to driving was not what I thought I'd be doing right now, but I have to pay back the loan I took out to start a business. I will be here for now, but it has turned my diet into something special.

Starting at Dominos, I would only work from 3pm-3am. Never earlier. So my sleep schedule has become about 4am-2pm, sometimes a little earlier, but that's just what has been working for me. I had to initially plan out when I could work out, which could only be, before work. So I started doing light exercise, every other day or so, when I first wake up. Then I'd eat breakfast. This is like, the ideal way to do it anyway, but I never felt like doing it. What's really made it easier, is that I like what I do when I workout. I bought a rowing machine that I don't mind using. I do some free weights for a bit, I do some core building, and I do a light run to get my heart pumping. I do this, casually, as I watch something on tv. Could I do something more vigorous? yes. but i'm being cautious. I don't want to burn myself out because I do still have to go to work for the rest of the day. I was carefully trying to feel out how much working out I could do without feeling like I overworked myself. I don't do it everyday because again, life is imbalanced and I work 5 days and am off 2 days. Working out could very easily, drain me of all my energy, but usually, on the days I do work out, I feel great for the rest of the day. I eat the same breakfast most days. 1 and a half eggs fried on whole grain bread. I have tried to find the right bread for me, and I did for a while, but they stopped selling it, so now I just get dave's killer bread. I think the biggest thing here in that I don't eat bread for lunch of dinner. There are times that I might do a peanut buter and jelly sandwich for lunch but that;s it. I cut out tortillas completely, but I do some corn chips when I eat a mexican inspired dinner. I make my own meals pretty much every day. The only thing is that I'm at the point where I don't have much to work with as far as lunch and dinner while driving at work goes. So I end up packing two salads, two yogurts, two bananas,  and two apples.

So my schedule is now like this. Sleep 4am-2pm. eat breakfast 3-4pm. eat lunch 6:30-7pm. eat dinner 10:30-12am. repeat. Having a routine like this is working for me. I've cut out some foods that bloated my stomach, (onions and green peppers, even brocolli, sadly) I eat tomatos on my egg sandwich, i forgot that part. My salads are spring mix with spinach, baby tomatos, shredded carrots, with a raspberry walnut vinagrette, I add cold tofu some days, but not everyday. My yogurt are Chobani, no sugar. 

So my current health habits that seem to be effective for me: