My Story

May 13, 2013 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

I think it is about time that you all hear my story. I have shared a few insights into my health journey in some of my posts but I haven’t given you the full spiel. It was brought to my attention that readers might not relate to me because I seem to have it all together health-wise (trust me I’m still learning and growing on that front) and I want you to realize I have been in some of the same situations that you might find yourselves. My story probably starts a lot like yours….

I was a pretty normal kid (I use normal very loosely here, I am a bit quirky!). I didn’t have any major health problems and I was the same as most kids in my class. I had no issues with my appearance and I had no reason to have any issues. I was your average American kid.

Yes normal children sing for their Grandma in their bathing suit…

Then I entered fifth grade and puberty hit, which is totally normal, but I started puberty before all of my friends. That is when a lot of my issues started. I couldn’t understand why suddenly I was developing hips and boobs and my thighs were getting bigger and hair was sprouting places, yet my friends were still skinny and flat-chested and seemingly hair-less. I’m a naturally shy person and all these changes made me feel awkward and ugly and made me retreat even more from public situations. I didn’t want anyone seeing me or focusing any type of attention on me. This is also when I started to hate my body and when I started to go on diets to try and look like what I thought was normal. The diets would work for a little while, I would lose weight, feel good about myself, go off the diet and, you guessed it, gain the weight back.

Pretty sure this is fifth grade, I’m the one with the glasses flexing a non-existent muscle

Quite the attractive face, I think I was going for “I’m cool” ? Either way it didn’t work

High school wasn’t much different than junior high. I came from a small parochial school, so public school was a bit of a shock for me. I had never been around so many kids at once. My graduating 8th grade class was 21 kids and suddenly I was in a class of over 500. This made shy Katie nervous and panicky. Luckily, I got involved in the marching band and made amazing friends and had amazing experiences. I excelled in band and was a squad leader by my sophomore year and a section leader my junior and senior year. As cheesy and nerdy as it may sound, I really believe that marching band saved me during my high school years.

I believe this was my senior year? I wasn’t a big fan of pictures

But, high school was also a really hard time for my body, especially my self-image. Now that I was in high school I had more freedom over my food choices, and not knowing anything helpful about nutrition, I made HORRIBLE food choices. Our cafeteria was full of fat and calorie laden food, and I was drawn to those choices. I would eat bread bowls full of cream of broccoli soup, drink tons of soda (diet is fine right?), get candy as a snack from the vending machine, munch on bacon potato skin chips dipped in cream cheese (yes, it is as gross as it sounds). Of course I would also make sure I got “healthy” food like bottled smoothies (fruit is good for you, even when it is in liquid sugar form, right?), and baked potato chips.

Told you I was quirky

Needless to say I gained weight. While I might never have been considered obese, I was definitely overweight. The added weight did nothing to help my self-image, which I already struggled with, and I started to crash diet, in the most unhealthy way possible. I would skip meals and at one point even tried weight loss pills, anything to try and make myself skinny and pretty. Of course, none of these things worked and I was miserable. I hated my body and felt that I was so ugly that no one else could ever love me. It was a very difficult time for me. But things did look up my junior year when I got my first boyfriend. I was elated that someone of the opposite sex actually thought I was worthy enough to date Trust me, I know how sad and pathetic that sounds, but when you have such a low opinion of yourself, you look for anything to validate your worth, even a boy.

Freshman year of college

By the time that I got to college, I had had a few boyfriends. Sadly, having a boyfriend made me feel like I was worth something. I felt that if someone else other than my friends and family thought I was good enough, then I really was good enough. I entered college feeling both petrified and excited. Petrified because I was leaving home and my comfort zone and stepping into a world that I knew nothing about. Excited because I was finally going to become a little more independent and adult like. I decided one of my new major goals in college was to become healthier and finally lose weight for good and be happy with the way I looked. Great goals, but I still went about them in the wrong way. For the first year or so of college I was a vegetarian, partly because my boyfriend at the time was and partly because I thought it would help me lose weight. But you can still eat junk food while being a vegetarian (hello mac n’ cheese!) and having a prepaid meal plan where you can get all the food you want can be dangerous. But I was determined not to gain the freshmen 15, and in fact I actually lost weight. This was because I started to work out on a regular basis. I had free access to the Rec center at my college and made working out a part of my routine. While I had never been totally sedentary before and had worked out in spurts in junior high and high school, I had never had an established routine. Being able to go to the Rec center for free was great because it got me started on a great habit.

But I still ate some not-so-great foods and I still had self-esteem problems. I had hoped that once I lost weight I would magically be transformed into this happy, self assured person. At the time I didn’t realize that I needed to work on more than just my body, I needed to work on my mind and my relationship with myself. I never gave myself the chance to do that though because I was always relying on other people to make me feel better about myself, mainly my boyfriends.

And then something happened that really changed everything for me. The summer before my last year of college, I worked as a trainer with my dad. My dad is a kinesiotherapist (specialized area of medicine in which exercise and movement are used as the primary form of rehabilitation), and we would work with all different kinds of people, from athletes to the elderly, to make them stronger or faster or better in whatever they did. I got to create exercise programs for people and then work with them one on one to help them improve. That summer my dad also had another intern working with him, also my age and a friend I had known for awhile. It was a great summer, I got to step outside of my box and do something I didn’t think I was good at and I actually did fairly well. I also got to interact with my dad and become better friends with his other intern. It was that friendship that really turned things around for me. And the one thing that he did that pretty much changed everything for me? Encouraged me to sign up for a 5k race through our church. Yup, that was my big epiphany moment. At the time, I hated running. I thought it was pointless and stupid and I dreaded the thought of running. But my friend convinced me to give it a shot and we even trained a little together at work. I’ll admit, it wasn’t very fun and I was just doing this to make him happy. I figured I would get through this one race and never have to run again. Boy, was I wrong. The day of the race arrived, and I was a nervous wreck. There was no way I was going to be able to run 3.1 miles and I was about to make a huge fool of myself. But I didn’t, I ran really well. I never stopped or gave up and I didn’t die. I crossed that finish line and I felt amazing. Finishing that race made me realize I could do things that I never thought I could do. I was a stronger person than I thought possible.

Running became my therapy. Each time I laced up and went for my run, I proved to myself how strong and amazing my body was no matter what it looked like. I could do things that I was always too shy or scared to try. I started to love myself on my runs and started the long process of healing years of self-hatred. Yes, this all sounds spiritual and hippie-dippie, but running really changed my life and opened so many doors for me. Before running, I would never go up and talk to a person I barely knew. After running, I finally got the nerve to actually talk to a boy without him approaching me first. Good thing too or else I would have never met my husband. Before running, I would never have picked up nutrition books or health books or researched about eating right. After running, I completely overhauled the way I ate and learned as much as possible about being the healthiest me I could be. And you know what? I finally found that happy person I longed for ever since fifth grade. Yes, I lost weight along the way (about 45 lbs over a course of 7 years), but for the first time in a long time I didn’t care about the weight. I cared about how I felt on the inside. I cared about treating my body with exercise and good, wholesome food. I finally believed myself that I was worthy enough.

I’ve been in dark places in my past health-wise. Please believe me when I say I know how you feel. While I might not have the EXACT same story as you, I know what it’s like to go through rough times. Do I have my whole life together now and never struggle? Heck no. I still have my moments. I still struggle with self-image and self-esteem and have to work on it daily. I will probably have to work on it daily for the rest of my life, but I am in a MUCH better place than before. Life is so much more than how much you weigh or what you look like and sadly we (me included) get so wrapped up in trying to meet other people’s standards. But we can change that. Let’s work on setting our own standards and move towards a healthy life. Realize that getting to your happy place may look very different than how I reach my happy place. Not everyone is going to run a race and change their life. You do have to go out there and WORK at what will change your life for the better.

I hope that my story gave some of you inspiration. It is hard to share some of these personal moments with the whole world as well as make sure that I am sending a message of hope and encouragement as well. Remember, I’m here to help you find your way to a healthier life. Because I know how hard it can be along the way and how amazing it is once you see the light at the end of the tunnel! Have a fabulous week everyone!

Happy!

Moving, without all the stress

April 15, 2013 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

It’s official, we have finally moved! I know I haven’t mentioned much on here about us having to move, mostly because we weren’t really looking to move. We found out in February from our landlord that she was not renewing our lease and that we had until May to find a new place. Needless to say we were a little shocked.

Living room, with gorgeous sunlight coming in off the balcony!

From that point it was a mad dash to try and find a new place in the area and within our price range. Because we were not expecting this, it was obviously a bit of a stressful situation. I’ve mentioned it before in the wedding post, I do not tend to handle stress very well. I pretty much turn into a huge mess and no one really wants to deal with me. Plus it messes with my health big time. My acne flares up, my digestion goes haywire, I become more susceptible to illnesses, and overall, I just feel awful.

Dining room!

Knowing this about myself, I was determined not to let that happen to me this time around. One of my health goals this year is to really work on how I manage stress, as well as how I react to stress. An unexpected move seemed like the perfect stressful situation to try and work through. I know that everyone goes through stressful times in their lives, so I thought that I would share with you some of the steps I took this time around to try and minimize/manage my stress. You can tailor these to your specific needs and hopefully they will help you out as much as they did for me!

Office/guest bedroom. Hi Adam!

Accept the stressful situation. Huh? Yes, I said accept. I am a person who loves to have control over every aspect of my life. Unfortunately, life does not care about that and will inevitably throw curve balls your way, causing you stress. It has taken me a very long time to learn and begin to accept the fact that there are just some times when I will not be able to control a problem. I had no control over the fact that my landlord was not going to renew my lease. Nor did I have control over the fact that I had less than three months to find a new home and move. Worrying or stressing over the situation was going to get me nowhere, so rather than let it bring me down I decided to just accept the fact that this was happening and move on from there. I am not saying you have to be happy about unplanned stress in your life, but there are times when all the worrying and fretting will amount to nothing. In fact, it will just add to your misery. So once that curve ball is thrown your way, take a deep breath, accept that this is happening and move forward. Which leads to my next point…

Make a plan. Once you accept that some stress is going to enter your life, create a plan to help and work through that stress. For me, creating a timeline showing how we would deal with the situation helps to lessen the stress. For this move, I made a timeline of when certain things needed to be completed. The time when we needed to find a new place, the time we needed to tell our landlord, the time when we needed to start packing, and the date we needed to move by. Having checkpoints for me to reference helped me feel more in control of the situation and it also helped to make sure we were getting things done in time. Having a basic outline of how you can tackle your dilemma will help you to feel more in control of your situation.

Our bedroom… don’t mind the laundry on the bed

Realize there will be hiccups. Even if you plan down to the very last detail, there will probably still be some unforeseen issues that will arise. Clearly there is no way to make sure everything goes 100% smoothly, 100% of the time. By knowing that beforehand, it can make it a little easier to deal with the little things that pop up. Don’t let those little things stress you more, handle them in the best way possible and keep moving towards your ultimate goal.

Laundry room/mucho storage! I love having a washer and dryer right in my home!

These tips are obviously of the broader type, meant to be utilized in most types of stressful situations. Here are some of the more specific things that I did to deal with this move and not freak out.

1. I asked for help. This is a huge thing for me because I generally have the attitude of I can do it all by myself. I have learned the hard way that I can NOT do it by myself, and I have a ton of people in my life who are more than willing to help me when I need. All I have to do is ask them. I asked both my parents and my in-laws for help with the move as well as my sister and to our surprise and delight, some of Adam’s friends offered to help us the day of our move. Everyone was ready and willing to help and never once made it feel like it was a huge inconvenience. I was overwhelmed with their gusto and both Adam and I were super appreciative.

2. I started packing early. Instead of trying to jam all the packing into just one day, I spread it out over a few weeks. This helped it to seem less overwhelming and made the process go fairly smoothly. Plus, with the way the timing worked out on our lease, we were able to move some things in stages, which REALLY made the actual moving day less stressful.

3. I became best friends with my slow cooker. I was already on fairly good terms with my slow cooker before this move, but I really gave it a work out that whole weekend. Because I knew that I would not have the time (or quite frankly the energy) to make healthy dinners, I planned to have three slow cooker meals for that weekend. It was so simple to just throw the ingredients in in the morning and have a delicious meal at the end of a long day. It was so important for me to eat, and eat healthy, so that I could function properly. I also made sure to save some leftovers from the week before so that we could also have quick lunches ready.

Kitchen, and yes that is the crock pot cooking our dinner!

All these things helped to greatly reduce my stress levels this past weekend. Did I still freak out and have to calm down? Of course. Like I said before, this was my first real test of better handling a stressful situation. There were times I felt like crying and giving up, but rather than bottle that up and let it destroy me, I talked with Adam or my friends and family. They were able (and happy) to listen and offer advice and encouragement and it really made a difference. I experienced none of my usual health problems, and in fact have felt even better than I did before the move! You can work through a stressful situation and come out better on the other side. Just take some time to compose yourself, create a plan of attack, and call on the ones who love you to lend a helping hand!

I hope that these tips can help you guys out whenever life gives you some lemons and that you are able to better maintain a healthy life while dealing with adversity. I think that I am going to start writing more about what Adam and I do to eat healthy throughout the week. I think it will be helpful for those of you out there who might not be sure what to do to even start eating better and taking care of your health. Again, if you have any suggestions just let me know! I would love to hear from you! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are ready to attack the week ahead with some energy!

Hello everyone!!

November 14, 2012November 14, 2012 / ktbuchs87

My two week hiatus has come to an end and I am ready to jump back into blogging headfirst. I had an amazing wedding this past weekend and still find it hard to believe that I am a wife now!! After our wedding, we spent the weekend in Chicago because our actual honeymoon isn’t until January. So we have something else to look forward to!

Now, let’s get onto the reason you are reading this blog. As much as I would love to relive every single detail of our wedding and write pages and pages about it, I suspect that you would get VERY bored fairly quickly. That being said, I do want to talk about some things I learned health/nutrition wise these past few weeks. Hopefully my experiences can help you to avoid some of the problems I ran into.

Stress is BRUTAL. I know that I am stating the obvious here, but man did stress kick my butt the past few weeks. I knew that stress was not a good thing and that it should be avoided, but what I didn’t realize was how much it can really wreak havoc on a person’s body. I told Adam that is was a good thing we finally got married because I was sure that I would not survive another week of planning the wedding. I was shocked to see the toll that stress put on my body. I couldn’t sleep through the night, I had no energy during the day, my workouts felt 20 times harder than they should be, and I felt cranky most of the time. But even more than all of that was how my appetite was affected.

I have never really had a problem with eating food before. I like food. I usually have the problem of eating too much and having to control my appetite. So I was very surprised when I suddenly did not want to eat at all or would just miss meals because I would be too busy with something else. I have never had the problem of having to force myself to eat some type of food. Maybe this is all old news to you, but I was a little out of my element. I had been eating so well for such a long time that I did not even think that that would somehow disappear. It was rough and I admit that I didn’t always choose what would be healthiest for me. Fortunately the whole experience did help teach me, so it wasn’t a total loss.

First of all, never think that because something has never happened to you that it never will, especially when it comes to your body and your health. You just never know how you will respond to a certain situation or how your body will react to something you put it through. I think that was a little part of my problem with this whole loss of appetite. I wasn’t prepared for it and so along with the stress of the wedding I had the shock of something else that had never happened to me. My body just didn’t know how to handle all of that. I know it is impossible to be able to prepare yourself for every single type of reaction that you could have to a given event, but you can be prepared that anything, even something that has never happened to you before, could happen. If you’re even a little prepared for that, your body won’t be totally shocked.

Second, food is important. Duh, you all know this. But it is especially important during times of high stress and it is crucial to eat well. Junk food will make all of your problems worse. You’re already going through enough, why add bad food on top of that? You have to eat regularly too. I cringe thinking about the amount of times that I missed a meal because I was just too focused on something else or the thought of food just didn’t appeal to me. I am thankful for the times that someone made me eat or I forced myself to put something in my stomach. While it might sound cruel to force yourself to eat, in my case it was the only way to get that fuel in my body. If you know that you are going to be going through a stressful time soon, take some time to prepare meals/snacks for yourself. This might sound time consuming but trust me, when that stress hits you and you think about all you have to do, you will be glad that you thought to prepare food. It will just be one less thing that you have to think about.

Lastly, we all need some type of support holding us up during tough times. Again, I know that I am stating the obvious on this one, but you can NOT do it all alone. Trust me. I tried and sadly that just made all of my problems worse. I didn’t want to burden anyone with the million problems/thoughts that were running through my head 24/7. I knew the chaos they had brought into my life, why would I want to give that to people I care about? Finally, though, I knew that I could just not take it anymore. I knew I needed help or I would literally just fall apart. To my surprise, people stepped up and helped me when I asked. I shouldn’t be shocked because my friends and family are amazing, but I was blown away by how much they wanted to help me. Once I had other people behind me, helping me, some of my stress and problems were alleviated I kick myself for not asking for help sooner, and possibly avoiding the train wreck of a person that I had become.

This post makes it seem like planning a wedding is along the lines of pure torture. But it isn’t, I just didn’t know what to expect and I let the stress get the better of me. On the bad side of things, I really let my stress dictate my life and I didn’t like that at all. I felt out of control, sad, and just plain old tired. On the good side, I learned how to not let this happen again and I can maybe give some helpful advice to others so they can avoid it entirely.

Everything turned out fabulous and by the end of the whole ordeal I was married to the man I am in love with. That was the most important thing and I get to spend the rest of my life as his Mrs.! Pretty great reward if I do say so myself! Have a great day and I will see you all on Friday!

Friday Funday!

September 28, 2012 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

I thought today would be a good time to do a different, fun post. One of the blogs I read, Live and Love to Eat, does a post every Monday called Miscellaneous Monday. Well, I thought that I would try something along those lines for this Friday and give you 24 (my age) facts about me. I figure that you guys know a little about me, but not much other than the little tid bits I slip into my posts. Plus, it’s fun to do a random post! Now, I won’t be doing this every Friday, this is a health and nutrition blog, not the “let’s know everything about Katie” blog, but for today I’m playing it fast and loose with the rules. Ok, not really but enjoy! So without further adieu…

24 Random Facts about Me

1. I have a Bachelors Degree in Music from Northern Illinois University. While I love music and it will always be a part of my life, I probably would not choose this as a career path if I had to do that all over again

2. I am about a month away from marrying this guy. This is my fiancé, Adam and he is pretty much the bees knees! Can’t wait to be his Mrs!

3. I am obsessed with the fall season. I literally love everything about it! The scents, the weather, the clothes, the trees, apples, pumpkins… I could go on and on I may or may not have a decent sized pumpkin collection….

4. For my 23rd birthday Adam got me a cat, Dot. She promptly settled into our home and fell in love with Adam. She tolerates me, but truly adores him. Oh well, it gives me a good excuse to pester Adam for a dog so I can have a pet that loves me!

5. I am a big Doctor Who fan. If you have no clue what that is, it’s pretty much just wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. No, but seriously it’s a sci-fi show on BBC and it is awesome. Start watching now and thank me later.

6. I know I have mentioned this before but I really LOVE to cook. Being in the kitchen making something delicious gives me great joy and I don’t care if that makes me sound like a 50’s housewife. Get over it or I won’t let you have any of my homemade apple pie…

7. My favorite color is purple and I would wear it everyday if my sister (who has a far better fashion sense than me) would let me get away with it!

8. I have the dream of one day living in a super awesome cabin in the mountains of Colorado. It is so beautiful there and how awesome would it be to wake up to mountains everyday?

9. I love reading. Like really love reading. So much that when I was younger my parents would punish me by taking away the book I was currently reading. Yup I’m a dork.

10. While on the subject of dork, I was in marching band all through high school and for a few years in college. I loved every second and would gladly do it all again. Some of my best memories, and friends, are from band and I wouldn’t trade those for the world.

11. If I could eat one thing for the rest of my life it would be sweet potatoes. I can not get enough of this tasty tuner. Ask Adam what food I have threatened him with bodily harm if he tries to take it from me. Sweet potatoes.

12. At least once (or five) times a day I will make a Friends reference. It is literally one of the best shows ever made and thanks to Adam’s Christmas gift to me last year I can watch it whenever I want. Which is a lot. Ok every night. Don’t judge me!

13. I have one younger sister, Jodie, and she is pretty much awesome. She is a senior at Valpo, and while I don’t get to see her as often as I would like, I know I can text her some random movie quote and she will come right back with the next line. Like I said, pretty much awesome.

14. The farthest out of the U.S. I have ever been is Canada. I know, crazy word traveler right? Long plane rides are just not my thing, but someday I would like to visit Spain, Italy, and Greece. That would be neat.

15. I am lucky to have two of the best parents ever. They support me in everything and have shaped me into the person I am today. Plus, I had to get my good looks and witty charm from someone (mom)!

15. On that same wavelength I am also uber blessed to be getting some of the best in-laws a gal could ask for! After hearing horror stories about my mom and granny, I was so glad when Adam’s mom turned out to be amazing! She already treats me like a daughter and I can’t wait to make it official! And Alan, you gave me pumpkins, what more could I ask for?

17. I think I may be one of the last people on earth who does not have a smart phone. The 1year old I nanny for has an iPhone. I kid you not. Good thing he likes to share….

18. Maybe this is because I like cooking so much, but I love to grocery shop. It has become our Saturday ritual (along with the pancakes) and I know my weekend would be wonky without it. I just love picking out the foods I will turn into yummy and healthy meals!

19. I may or may not have gone to a Barry Manilow concert for my 17th birthday and totally loved every second. Ok I so did this and judge all you want Barry is one heck of a performer!

20. I have been growing my hair out for the past two years, and while long hair is nice I can not wait to chop it off after the wedding. I plan to donate to locks of love and rock a super cute pixie….

21. It is really hard to think of 24 random facts about myself. What does that say about me?

22. I am TERRIFIED of squirrels. Laugh all you want, those evil buggers are plotting our demise. So don’t come crying to me when it happens. I warned you.

23. I still sleep with my childhood blanket. It’s well loved and I plan to love it until it distengrates.

24. My favorite place to be on a Friday night? Curled up on the couch, next to Adam with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine, watching a movie. I’m a homebody and would choose that over any club or bar. Yup, I’m a 60 year old in a 24 year old’s body

There you go. 24 (very) random things about me. I won’t do this often but thought it would be a good time to share some things about me with you! Monday it will be back to business with a post on another one of the senses and it’s relation to eating. Until then have a great weekend!