On Living in the Moment

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Achieve with Athena

I think it’s obvious that the best part of my 2014 had nothing to do with this blog, fitness, food, or work.

Tim and I got engaged smack in the middle of a year we’ve dubbed as our year of weddings. Even though we had 6 weddings in 2012 and 7 weddings in 2013, we had 8 in 2014 (one was in Missouri that only Tim could make it to). So much of last year was spent celebrating eight amazing couples, including some of my best friends in the whole world. It got a bit crazy at times, and I’m still not quite sure how we did it, but I wouldn’t change it. We are lucky to have so many wonderful friends in our lives, and we created so many memories during all the showers, bachelorette and bachelor parties, rehearsal dinners, and weddings that filled our latter part of the year. I’m only sad that I didn’t have the chance to recap each wedding and wedding related event how I would have liked to on F&F!

Aside from all the wedding fun, some of my other favorite parts of last year include:

A winter weekend getaway with Perfect Vermont,

my April trip to Chicago with Ashley and Jen,

tons of other gym friend fun,

running my first obstacle 5k,

a Memorial Day getaway to Falmouth,

multiple New Balance Girls Night Outs with blog friends and all the other fun blog stuff I got to do this year,

going to the Boston Magazine health and wellness retreat,

having a week off over the 4th of July to spend at home with each other,

becoming an official wellness coordinator at work,

spending my 29th birthday in Newburyport,

picking our wedding venue,

and spending some time in our happy place.

That’s what comes to mind first.

The time spent with Tim.

The time spent with all our friends.

And the time spent with family.

The things that DON’T come to mind right away when I think about last year?

–The nights worrying about getting everything done

–The time spent feeling anxious about my messy apartment

–My type A to do lists

–All the stress and frustration from work

–Feeling like I *should* post something on F&F every day

You guys get the idea. And yet, I know that I wasted so many nights just worrying, worrying again, and then worrying some more. I get so wrapped up in this idea of perfection, being able to do it all, and being able to do it all RIGHT NOW. It’s crippling sometimes. When you look at someone else’s highlight reel and think they must have their shit so perfectly together and organized, let me tell you, it’s not always the case. So many people ask me how I do it all, and you know what? I don’t. I make sacrifices. I have bad days.

I mess up.

So many of the pictures from last year capture the feelings we were feeling at the very moment the camera went off. They show us living in the moment. And I want to do more of that for the rest of 2015. I want to stop thinking about the next place I have to be, the next meal I need to prepare, and the next thing I have to do. I don’t want to feel bogged down by too many commitments, emails, and too many people asking me to do things. I want to put my phone down. I want to leave work undone if it’s too stressful at the moment. I want to leave the dishes in the sink and a let a blog post go unwritten.

I want to create more space and just enjoy being present.

I want to plan our wedding and actually relish in the experience together, not rush it.

But I know I can’t have everything and do everything at the same time.

I just need to remind myself that when I look back like I enjoy doing around this time each year, it’s not all the time spent worrying I’m going to remember.

What I’m going to remember are all the times truly spent living in the moment.

Readers, let’s chat! What are your tips for being present and living in the moment? How do you control endless worrying or always thinking about what’s next on your to do list?

2014: Best of F&F

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Achieve with Athena

As I mentioned in my New Year’s post, I prefer that a few weeks in January go by before I begin reflecting on the year before. Now that we’re mid month and I’m feeling a little more into the swing of things, I want to do some blog reflections and share the best of F&F in 2014 with all of you. I did something similar last year with my 2013 posts, and it was a lot of fun!

Ready for a content dump?

Best of F&F in 2014

2014 was a breakout year for Fitness & Feta. The blog celebrated its third birthday and got its own logo and header. I hosted my first blog event/workout class. I had a Reader Focus Week and hosted a Heart My Health social media campaign in February. In December, I hosted my most life changing and inspiring challenge yet. Also, the F&F newsletter was born! If you aren’t subscribed, please sign up! I’m sending out a fun update this weekend.

Athleta Legacy Place: Birthday Bootcamp

2014 was also the first year that I finally started monetizing this blog, which I attribute to being selected as a FitFluential ambassador and a PopSugar Select fitness blogger. I was able to attend a lot of really awesome events thanks to my relationship with New Balance Boston, and I received several other products to review and give away as well. 2014 was also the first year that I actually started turning opportunities away! This was partly because I couldn’t keep up, but also because I didn’t believe in the message of the some of the companies trying to work with me. Below are the blog projects I was able to participate in over the past year, so THANK YOU to for reading this blog and supporting not only me, but the companies I choose to work with for a little extra income. I appreciate each and every one of your clicks. 😉

2014 F&F Blog Opportunities

New Balance Fresh Foam 980s

Perfect Vermont: Warm Welcome

Fitbit Charge Review

2014 F&F Blog Series
On F&F, I launched a few different series, some of which stuck, and some of which didn’t. You guys look forward to my F&F Friday Favorites every week, and I really believe in sharing other bloggers’ content, so that continues to be popular!

Friday Favorites For awhile, I continued to write about my weekly workouts, but I grew bored of that and changed it up to giving you guys updates every month or so instead. There was also Journey to Fit, a series that features an F&F reader with an inspirational weight loss or weight gain story to share. I want to thank Mary, Liz, Laura, Jen and Kelly, and Jackie for sharing their stories. Keep your eyes out for more stories like this in 2015, and please let me know if you or someone you know would be a good fit for this!

Finally, at the beginning of the year, I launched Sunday Sweat Talk. I really, really enjoyed posting on a different fitness topic each week, and I think it helped me branch out a bit with my writing. Once our crazy wedding schedule picked up in the spring, having this little “fitness chat” with you guys was just too much to keep up with. I miss it, but here’s a list of the Sunday Sweat Talk topics I wrote about last year!

Sunday Sweat Talk

2014 F&F Workouts
Of course it wouldn’t be a successful fitness blog without continuing to share workouts with you guys. Here’s a rundown of the sweaty favorites I posted last year. Have you tried any of these?

4x4 Medicine Ball Ab Circuit

Park Bench Circuit Workout

2014 F&F Recipes
Last year I shared tons of food pictures in my weekly eats/catching up on eats posts, but here are the recipes that debuted on the blog this year. Have you made any of them?

Pistachio Muffins

Asparagus, Mushroom, and Ricotta Pizza

Cranberry Avocado Salsa

2014 F&F Personal Favorites
I also thought it would be fun to share some of my personal favorite posts that I wrote over the course of the past year. They aren’t necessarily specific workouts or recipes, but these are fun and different posts I want to remember and remind you guys about. Also, if you are new to F&F, you may have missed some of them!

Blogging Lessons Learned

2014 F&F Life Recaps
Finally, one of the best parts about having a blog is being able to go back and see fun recaps of my life! It was too hard to write about every single thing we had this year in individual posts (I still have some major 2014 things I never got around to recapping), so I introduced Life Lately as a way to capture monthly recaps. Aside from my monthly Life Lately posts, here are some other fun recaps from throughout the year:

Engagement BBQ: Me and Tim

And that’s that! I’m excited to see what 2015 has in store for this little space of mine. Thanks for continuing along for the ride! You guys are the best.

Readers, let’s chat! What on F&F from 2014 stands out to you as most memorable? What do you want to see more or less of in 2015? Bloggers, what were your blog accomplishments last year? Anything you are setting out to do or grow in 2015?

Happy New Year! Make Commitments, Not Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Achieve with Athena

Happy New Year!

Whether you rang in 2015 with a crazy night out, a nice dinner, or a low-key night at home in your sweats, I hope you had a great time and were able to live in the moment.

A lot of people use the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day to reflect on the year past and review their goals for 2015. Along the same lines, a lot of bloggers use this time to post their “best of recipes/workouts/etc.” posts and give a rundown of both blog and life highlights.

I typically like to let the holiday hustle die down a bit before I do any reflecting or commitment making of my own. I don’t think there’s any magic rule that says all of that needs to be done by January 1st.

One thing I do want to do today is point out how I used the phrase “commitment making.” I didn’t say anything about New Year’s resolutions.

When I hear the word resolution, it makes me think of the result of something that was once broken or a situation that needed fixing. Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions, and this has a very rear-view mirror way of looking at things, don’t you think? By making New Year’s resolutions, we essentially acknowledge all the baggage and crap we’ve carried around. We dwell on the things we’ve done incorrectly in some way, and then through our New Year’s resolutions, we resolve to fix them.

When we resolve to fix something, it implies that something was broken in the first place.

That seems like a pretty negative way of looking at things, if you ask me. Not exactly the way I would want to start fresh and anew.

My advice to you this year? Forget all the crap!

If we kick off 2015 focused on what we CAN’T eat anymore or what behaviors we WON’T do anymore, then we will immediately start our year with a deprivation mindset. It will make us feel like these items are off-limits, and that’s typically when we’ll feel MORE compelled to eat the junk or indulge in the “bad” behaviors.

So let’s make a little shift this year. Let’s make POSITIVE commitments for ourselves instead by looking ahead. Let’s ask ourselves:

What WILL I do this year?
What foods will I eat MORE of?
What behaviors will I START doing?

To commit to something means to make a pledge or promise. Today, or when it feels right for you, set yourself up for success and make a commitment that is meaningful to YOU.

Pledge to take positive action.

Promise yourself you will add choices and behaviors that add purpose, health, and happiness to your life.

Isn’t this a much more positive way to start the year than looking back on the could have, should have, and would have?

Readers, let’s chat! I’m wondering, what do you think of this concept? Have you made any personal commitments yet for 2015?

Wishing everyone a fresh start and a wonderful first weekend of the new year. ❤