For some reason this blog did not post. I am posting it here now. The blog I had planned to post will drop later today or tomorrow.

Greetings and Salutations, blog readers! 

I vlogged about this a few days ago on my vlog, but I thought I could take this time to also blog about it. 

The Epiphanies I had in Colorado. 

Namely, my health, and how I treat myself.

As you all know, I am shitty at taking care of my health, and I am not very good at prioritizing my health, either. Not only do I still enjoy the occasional cigarette, I never work out, the few times I do, it tends to be yoga and stretching, not cardio. 

I was looking into some hikes, when we were in Colorado, loving the mountains I was seeing and eager to get tons of footage for not only the vlog but also for my own personal or artistic uses, when I had a horrible realization. 

I will sometimes get winded running up stairs…what happens if I can’t do a light hike?

Not only would it be embarrassing, hell it would be horrifyingly humiliating, but, worse yet, logistically, how would that go?

Imagine my horror if I couldn’t finish hiking up a mountain. 

The thought alone terrified me. 

Now, admittedly, I could likely manage the hike, probably only being embarrassed by how heavy I would be breathing, but, it is likely that even if I was successful in getting up the hike, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my time getting up, or the view once I arrived. 

I can go on and on about my health needing to matter more, but when you want to take a hike for a number of reasons and realize that you may not be in good enough health and shape to do so…it hits differently. 

So, I realized I actually have to do something, if nothing else, to ensure that when I go back in a few weeks or months, I can hike without fear. 

In an effort to achieve this goal, I have been, obviously, doing yoga and stretching, and, before even starting this blog post, I spent an hour rearranging things a little to make pulling out my bike a little easier so I will actually work out. I also did some research on better ways to make sure I actually do my cardio without getting discouraged, and I am going to be doing a hybrid method that I think may actually work out for me, where I will do a nice warm up, and then do my cardio in spurts in between doing yoga and other exercises, to keep from getting to dizzy, tired, or discouraged. 

Obviously, my goal will be to be able to do large amounts of high intensity, but a lot of recent research points to doing ten minutes of cardio with five to ten minutes of other physical activity, makes both activities do more for your body. 

I don’t know that it is per se better than what I have been doing, physically, but if it makes me actually do the damn work out, I would say it is a wonderful thing. 

I am sure I won’t stick to the ten minute limit and will go over and under here and there, but if I break it up, it is possible that I won’t get bored and try to cut the whole work out short. 

There is a better chance of me actually working out, if I know I won’t hate it and get bored, or won’t spend large chunks of time doing the same things that suck so much, instead spreading it out across smaller times. 

All this to say I have been claiming my physical health is important and I need to prioritize it, but I have to actually do it. 

It isn’t just about the hikes…either. 

I need to do this because I need to make sure I am treating myself well. On the way home from Colorado I realized that I am constantly telling others they need to demand that they be treated as royalty, as gods and goddesses (in a not blasphemous way), and that unless they demand the best, people won’t treat them the best. 

But the same is true for how we treat ourselves. We must treat ourselves as we wish to be treated. We must treat ourselves as the Goddesses we are, or else we can’t expect anyone else to. 

And that isn’t just doing nice luxury baths with face masks, either. 

Sometimes that means doing hard work and working out. 

Sometimes that means taking a good hard look at anything that makes you miserable, and removing it from your life…including bad habits you yourself are committing. 

To be treated better, you must demand better, and that includes demanding better of yourself. 

And that is my epiphany from my trip in Colorado. 

Take care of yourself, you deserve it. 

Thanks for reading!

❤

Abbi