Greetings from Venezuela!

[Guest Radical Ed]

Hi everyone -

I’m mg and I’m joining the rebellion. I hope this community becomes my support system in the journey to a full life. I’m here to share my experience and acquire some long lasting friends. Before talking about myself, I would like to apologize for my poor english and the length of this post. 

About me

I’m from Venezuela and I’m a 26 year old woman. I’m a computer science student and I’m currently doing my thesis. I’m always listening to music, the genre depends on my mood. My passion is drawing and, although I haven’t drawn in almost 10 years, I know now it’s as fundamental part of my being (I know it sounds extremely dramatic but it’s really hard to describe how essential it is to my peace of mind). I also enjoy video games, movies and books, anything that involves my imagination. I love to travel, explore new cultures and see what nature has to offer. I go by the philosophy of trying all that life puts in front of me, unless of course it’s detrimental to my health. As you can imagen my bucket list goes on forever… skydiving, rock climbing, surfing, diving, snowboarding, etc. if I get to do 10% of what’s on it I’ll be one happy camper at the end of my journey.        

My story

Before I tell you who I want to be, I want to share some key moments in my life.

For the first few years of my life I was an explorer with no preconceptions or expectations a felt the need to meet. I was free, I was myself and I definitely loved life. I didn’t like to be indoors and I had a great imagination, so I spend all my time in some dirty and crazy adventure. I grew up in a big ass family and spend everyday in my grandma’s house with my 10+ cousins. As you can imagen to control that kind of crowd my grandma needed some help, so we had all type of after school teachers. With them I had the chance to experience music, art and about every sport learned to mankind. At a young age I discovered the magic of creating and developed a passion for drawing, it was just a natural way for me to express myself. Life was perfect.

At age 12 something great happened a karate exhibition came to school and it blew my mind (what 12 year old wouldn’t want to do flying kicks and flips?). I join the dojo with some of my cousins and Karate became the thing to look forward to everyday. A couple of month later I earned my yellow belt and I was ecstatic. Then a competition was coming and my sensei wanted me to go, for some reason that freaked me out and I told my mom I wanted to quit. She didn’t like the idea of her little girl fighting so she let me quit with no discussion. Now looking back to this point in my life, I know it was a turning point, it was the moment I realised that if things weren’t going as plan or something that I didn’t want to deal with came up I could just quit. Consistence became a struggle for me.

After Karate I went through many group sports but set my long term interest on soccer. I played soccer all through high school and the first two years of college till I got injured. I screwed up my back and had to take some forced rest. With all this bed time I started spending more and more time playing online gaming, and I have to tell you I enjoyed myself tremendously to the point where I didn’t go to class, didn’t sleep… you know the drill!

 

My wake up call came when I fainted while waking down the stairs in one of those midnight trips to the kitchen. I got up to check myself in the mirror and I couldn’t recognise myself. It was disturbing to realise I’d let myself reach that point. So I took a shower, came back to the pc and erased every trace I had of online gaming including all my accounts. I had to peel it of like a band aid, thats how I deal with addictions, one fast motion. I’m prone to them, be it online gaming, reading (yes! reading) or watching tv.

At this point, I took a good look at myself, I had gained over 20kg in those few months and my sleeping habits where a disaster. Also, I was getting constantly dizzy, fuzzy around the edges while at class and my energy levels where all over the place. I decided to get a full check up and ended up diagnosed with reactive hypoglycaemia. I started working out and did the proper changes to my diet, which meant I went Paleo. When I was injured my doctor recommended yoga and swimming to strengthen my back, so I joined a yoga class 3 times a week and started swimming 2 times a week. Yoga was an eye opener, I was practicing asana to train my body but the true treasure was the discovery of consciousness. Every action I took had purpose, I was involved in every step of my day. No more auto pilot while eating, driving, showering, etc. Swimming became an active meditation (a time just for me). After a while doing this regimen my back strengthen and the remaining pain disappeared.

About a year ago I was diagnose with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and went through a hormonal treatment. I wasn’t prepare for the severe depression and the physical disconfort the treatment gave me. For a year I didn’t recognise who I was and where all my energy to live had gone, I had lost my true sense of self. I had no tools to climb out of the hole I was living in, so after 8 month of this hell I found some professional help. It’s been a couple of month since I started going to therapy and a month since I stop the hormones. The sessions have been very insightful and I feel better everyday. Parallel to the sessions I’ve started working on small day to day habits that move me towards my picture of a full life. First, I worked in a sleeping schedule and getting some sunshine every morning (some rem sleep and vitamin C, works wonders for your day's disposition). Then, I added some physical activity and started walking 20mins everyday. The 20mins walk turned into Couch to 5k program. And when I felt like I needed exercise everyday I started swimming 2 days a week. A couple of weeks ago something happened, we decide to decorate for christmas so as every year I went to get the boxes out of storage and to my surprice I couldn’t even pick up the dam tree box. In a year I’ve lost my physical strength (it’s hard to believe it was a year, the sense of time gets all screwed up when your severely depress) and I plan to get it back, so a week ago I started basic body weight training and did some adjustments to my diet. 

My stairway to heaven:

• Be the kind of person who treats herself with respect and care. Be more permissive and less reproachful to myself.
• Embrace my passion for drawing and find a way to make it an integral part of my day to day routine.
• Be the kind of person that finish what they start in there own terms.
• Be the kind of person who takes care of her mind and body.
• More to come…

My Battle Plan:

At the moment this are my steps for the next 30 days:

1. Diet: Eating every 3h, Paleo diet 100%. With reactive hypoglycaemia this is the only way to feel well. Adding anything out of the list gives me migraine, insomnia, dizziness and ugly mood changes. I’ve tried adding dairy and whole grain but the results are always ugly. If you keep consistent with a 100% paleo diet for a couple of weeks, staying in the diet will be really easy. Each time you try to eat something not included you’ll feel really crappy and it will become a negative reminder not do it again. At least people with blood sugar issue will fell strong negative effects. Another thing, those first weeks are not easy your going through a detox and your body needs to purge all the crap you been giving it and adapt. Also, a good way to break with the habits of certain food at certain times is drinking water when ever you feel the need to eat that food.
2. Fitness: Couch to 5k; Swim a mile; Basic Body Weight training (I’ll add a daily workout log for details)
3. Life: 
   1. Work on my thesis everyday (at least a page).
   2. Pick a pencil to draw everyday.

Next steps in each category (will be my first 6 week challenge):

1. Diet: Try one new recipe each week
2. Fitness: Join a Karate dojo for a period of time in which time I hope to end my Karate experience in my own terms or make it part of my future (will talk to the monks to determine what would be a good testing period). Karate has been one of those things in life that I feel has not been concluded and till I do I’ll keep asking myself if I’m missing out on something that could make my life even better. I’ll keep swimming, running and hiking, etc. in off training day. 
3. Life: (…pending on 30 days result…)

 

- mg - 

[citizenkade]

Oh, you are all ready to go! Great goals and battle plan!

 

Nerd Fitness is a great group, you're going to have people from all over the world cheering you on and supporting you!

 

Have fun, and let us know if you need anything!

[Enoch]

It seems you've already experienced an odyssey.... Welcome to to NF! Best of luck in all your goals. I look forward to accounts of your progress!