Dear Readers- Why are these words so hard to utter? I guess it’s because we all want to think we can do everything alone. Why is is so hard to admit when we can’t?

If you are anything like me and I think you probably are… it’s hard to admit something isn’t working or you need help. Being pregnant, I find it hard to admit it’s harder to pick things up than it used to be or that I get tired much quicker than I used to. As my good friend Meredith put it, “growing a human is exhausting” —

For the last couple of months, I have been working on getting more fit and working towards healthier eating and living a healthier life. Don’t get me wrong, I still love chocolate and will likely always have it as part of my menu but both for myself and the little one on the way, a more consistent level of healthy eating is a must.

When we got back from vacation I realized how much junk we ate (yes, we were on vacation, so there are some allowances to be made- I don’t know about you but I can’t be in New Orleans and not eat an oyster poboy…) and I realized.. that is not how I want to live or how I want to raise my daughter. It’s still very exciting to type that because it’s becoming more real with each passing week.

My mom says it all the time and it’s incredibly good advice..

“Begin as you mean to continue” – My goal is eat healthier food and to occasionally eat junk as a treat. My goal is to make exercise a part of the conversation or the natural flow of what we do as adults and model that healthy behavior for our child.

So in taking a long, hard look at what I have been doing over the last few weeks, it was unpleasant to see how much junk I have been eating.. and by junk I mean all the things that have ZERO nutritional value. So I go back to her advice.. I will begin again.

I was talking to a dear friend yesterday and it came up we both needed to get back to fitness goals and I was struck by how easy it would be to build that into the conversation we have weekly anyway.. and I asked for help. I said, “let’s check in with each other each week and outline what our plan is to tackle fitness” She readily agreed and I instantaneously felt better because I had an action plan. What changed? I asked for help, I admitted it was a problem and said what I was going to do about it. I also belong to a facebook group that champions the idea of “eating real food” and as if they sensed I needed them, a challenge was issued yesterday to not eat drive thru for a month. I have done this before, but it’s difficult, but I signed up to do it again.

Starting today, I walk up the stairs to work, I will do a brisk walk around the block when I get home twice and then take the dog for the third lap, I will commit to joining the Y (have been going back and forth between gym options since February. No more.

I think that these are achievable goals and small tweaks to build healthier habits.

While I am asking for help… What do you do? How do you eat? I grew up with such a horrible cycle of using food for comfort, I still struggle with it to this day. We did paleo for a while and it worked for a long time but I think it’s time to admit we need a change.

What do you think? How do you decide what to eat? Do you have a specific discipline you follow? How does that work?

Think about it.. and please share in the comments- I would love to know what your strategy for healthy living is and how it works for YOU.