Taking pressure off myself.

This means not only failing to complete my to-do list over a weekend but refusing to feel guilty about it. I don’t have to do it all right now.

In this season (a very long season) of life I have accepted that I’m not going to be able to keep our house organized. There are messes behind each cabinet door. Closets resemble a dusty corner at Goodwill, and I’m lucky if I wash linens once a month. I struggle with this frequently as there is so much judgement around having a tidy, perfect house.

I have found when I balance household tasks with doing activities I enjoy and adequate rest, and I am more regulated and less spicy.

Maintaining boundaries

Saying “no” more often than “yes” to social outings. I have begun blocking days on my calendar as Amy Day which means I won’t make other commitments and allow time for myself. That can be going to get a massage, reading a book, or staying in bed all day.

Letting things go.

I used to live in fear that if I didn’t eat the perfect diet, I would have a MS flare. If my animal protein wasn’t from cows who had a happy life and I paid a paycheck worth for it, I felt guilty.

I let that all go.

I do the best I can with my diet, but no longer concerned about the very best. It is the same with personal products. I am thoughtful about the harmful chemicals in products, but I do use a foundation with full coverage and full chemicals, because it does the job well.

I let perfection go and it feels freeing.

Managing my energy.

This is something I have had to learn because of MS. Those with chronic illness do not have the same amount of hours in a day.

Spoon theory offers a helpful way to understand this. A person who cancels plans, or cannot commit to something months in advance, may not be uninterested or unreliable. They may be trying to calculate whether they will have enough physical, emotional, and mental energy available.

Social activities require energy, but so do worry, conflict, caregiving and constantly consuming upsetting information. I have become more selective about who and what gets to live rent-free in my mind.

I have stopped consuming as much political content and returned to watching cooking reels made by delightfully quirky content creators. My nervous system seems grateful for the change.

Protecting my peace.

All of these practices contribute to the area where I may be doing the best: protecting my peace.

I actively work to regulate my nervous system through boundaries, rest, breathing and meditation. None of it comes naturally, and none of it works all the time.

I visit my mom in senior living at least three times a week. Before I enter her building, I often sit in my car and breathe. Sometimes I say aloud, “You’ve got this.”

Sometimes I yell profanities.

Also helpful.

These are some of the things I am doing well each day to support my overall well-being. They do not prevent hard situations from happening, and they certainly do not keep me out of survival mode. When something happens with my mom, I can still find myself surviving on wine, chips and doomscrolling socials.

But maybe doing well does not mean remaining peaceful all the time.

Some days, protecting my peace looks like meditation, boundaries and deep breathing. Other days, it looks like closing the laptop, opening a bag of chips and starting again tomorrow.

Subscribe now

Last week I saw my functional nurse practitioner to review my routine bloodwork and it was the spark I needed to refocus on my health. While many markers were optimal, it was the cholesterol markers that gave me pause because of my age and genetics. I am going to focus on my health, the best I can, for the next 3 months before having my blood work retested.

I have worked with functional medicine doctors for 16 years because they look for root causes and understand the importance of diet and lifestyle to overall health. They look for answers, not just fill a prescription for the symptoms.

Over the last 16 years, there have been times where I am dialed in to my diet and lifestyle and other times, I was living like I was 25. Over the last year, I have found myself going back to my comfort coping mechanisms. That involves too much wine, an obscene amount of “cylinder chips” (healthier pringles chips), doom scrolling, and less reading and more bingeing. Which was all fine.

Until last week when my NP started talking to me about potentially having to take a statin.

I would like to avoid a statin. I would also like to avoid a cardiac event but want to put some healthy habits back in place before deciding to take a medication. I have put a plan together using things that have worked in the past and also going to keep it simple and not strive for perfection but consistency.

Goal: Blood work improvements: reduce triglycerides and decrease LDL Small Particle Size.

1. Diet: Follow Weight Watchers GLP-1 program (I have been a member for decades but need to refocus. It is an excellent program, especially for someone like me who needs external accountability)

2. Movement: Continue 2 days a week of strength training at gym; walk 8,000 steps a day, 5 days a week

3. Stress Reduction (This is the HARDEST for me):

a. Meditation and breath work, 3-5 times a week

b. No phone after 8:30pm

c. Morning light for 15 mins, 3-5 times a week

d. Journaling 3 times a week

e. Watch or read something that makes me laugh daily

f. Mindful of consumption of social media, negative people, and news

4. Grace: Give myself grace on the hard days. On the days I drink wine and eat chips while bingeing Off Campus. On the days I say “screw it, I’ll take the statin”

That’s the plan. I’m bringing you along for the journey because accountability has always worked better for me than willpower alone.

In May 2017, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Like many people who receive a life-changing diagnosis, I spent a lot of time searching for answers. After a year on medication that didn’t seem to help and left divots from injections, I began focusing on the things I could control: how I ate, how I moved, how I managed stress, and how I cared for myself.

That worked really well for many years and then everything changed the summer of 2021.

Five years ago, I became a caregiver for my mom. If you’ve ever cared for someone you love while trying to manage your own health, you know how quickly your own needs can slide to the bottom of the list. The routines that once felt manageable suddenly become much harder to maintain. For the first 3 years of this new role, I was purely surviving and some days I still am.

At 51, I’m also navigating a few other challenges. I have celiac disease, I’m deep in the adventure that is perimenopause, and I have PMOS, which means hormones, insulin resistance, and weight management are ongoing companions. Writing all of that out makes me sound like I’m collecting medical issues as a hobby, which I promise is not the case.

This blog and newsletter isn’t really about diagnoses.

It’s about trying to live well in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. It’s about caregiving, grief, aging, nutrition, movement, resilience, and finding joy in ordinary days. It’s about the lessons I’m learning, and relearning, as I try to become the healthiest version of myself.

My interest in health began in 2010 after I quit smoking. At the time, my diet consisted largely of convenience food (the employees at Taco Bell knew my order) and at 35, I felt exhausted. A nutritionist who happened to live in my apartment complex changed everything and I learned the impact diet and lifestyle had on how you felt. I became so fascinated by nutrition that I enrolled in nutrition school in 2012 and never really stopped learning.

So why start a Substack now?

Partly because writing helps me process life. Partly because I hope sharing my journey might encourage someone else. And partly because putting these thoughts into the world may be the accountability I need to prioritize my own health again.

If you’re a caregiver, navigating midlife, trying to age well, struggling with your health, or simply looking for encouragement along the way, I hope you’ll join me.

Welcome to my season of life.

Subscribe now