Spring is in the air!

Spring is finally here and I need a job!!! Unfortunately enough for me though, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon due to the recession :( I have no money at all which is proving to be a problem since I'm starting to get serious about maintaing a healthy lifestyle. 
For me, a healthy lifestyle consists of mainly 3 aspects:
1. Eating well
2. Exercising regularly/getting enough sleep etc.
and
3. Understanding and connecting with the spiritual side of things.


For the last 6 months or so, I've been running on-off. I'll get into it and go hard everyday for about a week and a half and then gradually slow to a grinding halt and do NO exercise at all for up to 3 weeks. Not a pathway dressed for success :S So starting now, I am beginning to identify ways to keep the exercise consistent rather than "yo-yo" as it were.
Some of my new ideas regarding this which i intend to put into action immediately are the following:
-Allowing my body adequate time to heal by resting every second day,
-Changing my jogging playlist each time to give variety so i don't lose interest.
-Reading motivating messages and blogs such as http://www.healthytippingpoint.com and http://www.operationbeautiful.com to give me a nudge in the right direction.
-Having an ultimate goal to aim for, and
-Not pushing myself too hard, if i only feel like running for 30 minutes one day rather than an hour, listen to my body.


I ran for an hour the other day and i felt fantastic for it, (aside from the fact that my knees felt like they were on FIRE and i had to ice them for 20 minutes afterwards) had it not been for my knees, i could have gone for at least another half hour. I rested the following day so as not to overdo it and today, i plan to run my little heart out again for hopefully an hour :) I will leave in roughly ten minutes, i fueled up with toasted pita bread with sanitarium peanut butter on top.


There are some things I feel I MUST do, 1. Buy a new sports bra, 2. Go see the physiotherapist about my knees, 3. Go to the gym and do weight-lifting, 4. Take up kick boxing and 5. Buy knee support thingy's from rebel sport.


As a 15 year old girl, mid-teens, I believe that now, during these adolescent years it is absolutely vital that we learn and practice to make healthy food decisions, prepare food and understand the importance of regular exercise. In your teens, this is where most of your major growth and development will occur as you go through the process of becoming an adult. Therefore supporting my opinion that having a healthy lifestyle is absolutely paramount as it can help prevent illnesses such as osteoporosis, heart disease and reduce the risk of cancer.
It took me a very long time before i realized how important it is to properly take care of myself, because if i don't, who else will?
I've started eating far healthier, making sure i have reasonable proportions of protein and calcium at breakfast to help keep me full for longer throughout the day. I make sure all the food i eat is good for me, with the occasional treat ^-^
I'm currently experimenting to see which foods work best for me to keep me full and give me good energy, and I'm staying well away from bread, sugar, trans fat and salt.
I drink at least 1.5 liters of water a day and usually 2 glasses or so of milk. I eat about 6-7 small meals each day usually between 250-600 KJ.
I plan to buy a camera so i can start taking photos of my running successes and my food choices, i feel like that alone will be a good motivation for me to keep up the healthy eating and exercise!


The school cross country is coming up on the 17th of September and for the first time in my entire life, i plan to actually run and COMPETE. Usually on cross country day i've either wagged school or just walked the course.
This year I'm going to try for REAL.
I probably won't do all that well, but i hope i do, and it will give me something to look forward to and aim for.


Ok, so I basically just covered the first two aspects of my idea of a healthy lifestyle so that just leaves the spiritual side.
I've always had the most trouble with this aspect believe it or not. It's always been a huge problem for me and i've never been good at it. Lately however, there have been a bunch of different things that have been helping to make it easier and more understandable.
I'm teaching myself how to be in a good mood the majority of the time.
I started by slowly leaving the people who I used to be surrounded by that were just downright unnecessarily negative, they always brought me down, and began being around happy people who are always positive and in a good mood ^-^ I was AMAZED at the difference it made to my mood!
Also I discovered http://operationbeautiful.com and that made such a huge difference to my personality. I was so touched by the movement, i felt motivated to take part myself and in doing so, made MYSELF feel 1000000000 times better about myself, whilst hopefully making others feel the same. It's worth it just to know that it could put a smile on the face of ONE individual.
I visit the site daily to read the new post-its and they always make me feel so happy and confident and beautiful and i think Operation Beautiful are a huge reason why i feel so happy and positive now.
I'm also learning to really relax and take time out to be in total peace and quiet at least for a few minutes everyday, just to do nothing. It's brilliant.
And finally, I've decided to do everything with PURPOSE and be more honest about my feelings and try to consider my own feelings more often, because as an amazing and beautiful friend of mine pointed out, she recognised a pattern occurring in all my friendships, and that was that I constantly put everyone's feelings before mine just to keep the peace and i ended up becoming extremely stressed and pushed to the limit, so i need to be more aware of my own emotions and to make sure my friendships are a give/take thing rather than just give.


That was the longest post I think I've ever done haha.
Well, i'm glad to get that all down :)
Have a brilliant night everybody.