Ch-Ch-Cha-Changes!

Life is funny; crazy exciting at times and stressful and gruesome at times. The last year and a half has been an intense roller coaster for me, full of changes:

• My sweet friend Amy moved to Oklahoma
• I took on a new job within the company that I had worked at for about 2 years
• I had no experience in this new position that I took on so the learning curve was immense and I had very little training
• I went from working a solid 40 hours to working, at a minimum, 60 (and there were many times that I went over that) just trying to try to keep my head above water (with no success)
• I had a really complicated relationship with my boss that created an impossible situation and led to…
• Quitting my job 2 weeks ago

I am a huge proponent of being spontaneous and trying new things and with that being said, I am not completely disappointed that I took on the new position. It wasn’t something that I sought out, the department reached out to me based on my reputation at the company and that felt really good. It was a great opportunity and there were aspects of the job that I was really good at, but at the end of the day the stress of the job and not being able to keep up with the mounting responsibilities that were being put on me were actually causing me a lot of harm and I needed to let it all go.

One of the main ways that I was affected was increasingly suffocating stress. It started as difficulty sleeping (partially because I was working all those crazy hours) and slowly starting manifesting into panic attacks and then plummeting into acute depression. All of this affected so many areas of my life; I wasn’t a lot of fun to be around and at times I wished that I could get away from myself. I self-medicated by eating and drinking my feelings and one morning I woke up and took a really hard look at myself and realized that I had “grown” in some really unfavorable ways. Truth is I gained 25(!) pounds in the last year (and I was already pretty present to begin with!). Up until that point of self-reflection I never saw myself as fat. I think I always saw myself the way that I felt on the inside, which is great but not terribly realistic when thinking about my health. In the last two weeks, I have been able to breathe a little easier and my confidence is slowly building back up which has gotten me thinking.

So, what’s a food writer to do? There are event to cover and restaurants and products to review, for goodness sakes! Don’t worry, I am not going to inundate your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds with photos of tofu and broccoli. My immediate goals are to cook more at home and to try to replicate some of my favorite restaurant dishes with a healthy slant. I have recently been introduced to Pauline Nordin and The Fighter Diet and purchased some of her instructional materials so I am going to be trying to follow that as well.

I promise that this move is not going to completely take over PhoenixBites, any posts that have to do with this new journey to get back my health and become “less” will be housed under our Healthy Bites section. Maybe you are experiencing the same struggles, or maybe you have already been there and done that.

If you have any suggestions, tips, comments or questions I would love to hear from you.