The GYST List

I have been trying lately to get it together. I am turning 23 this year and I feel, for some reason, that there is more pressure on 23 than I’ve ever had. More pressure to succeed, to get organized, to start a family, to buy a house. And I can hear my mom now saying, “Cass, it’ll happen when it happens, stop worrying about it. You’re doing fine.” And as much as I may appreciate her words, the pressure doesn’t go away. If I could draw my perfect life, I would have already bought a beautiful starter house with my husband and have my first mini me on the way. I would have money in the bank, and an organized and healthy lifestyle. And although some of these things are in the works, and unfortunately no, I do not mean the mini me, I still feel that life right now is not all that I would have pictured with 23 around the corner.

SO! I have been trying recently to change all things in my control. I am trying (with many obstacles and hiccups) to get healthy, and I am really working on organizing my life. I have come up with something that I call my GYST list. It is something I do once a week and it stands for “Get Your Shit Together”. I find it fitting for my current state of mind. Here is what it is for me:

My GYST list is a list that I made for myself to complete once a week to make sure that I can stay as “on top” of life as I can. It includes all of my house chores, errands, bills to pay and typically a special project to complete. It changes week to week usually but here is what I generally have on my list:

1. Laundry
2. Iron/ Put away clean clothes
3. Vacuum and dust
4. Wash bedding and throw blankets
5. Clean bathroom
6. Special project
7. Pay *insert list of bills here*
8. Wash and vacuum car
9. Review budget and update calendars

Seems simple enough right? And since I work 4 10 hour shifts, I get 3 days off. Which basically grants me a full cleaning day and a weekend still, and is, by the way, the best thing ever. Making this list for myself has given me a bit of the structure that I need to make sure that things get done and as anyone can plainly see, it’s not the least bit intimidating.

Even though I have very little control over most things in my life, I can at least take action to accomplish small victories, (yes getting all the laundry done, ironed and put away in one day counts as a victory), and this helps me to stay on track in general.

Try it out and make it your own! I know that many of you have no issue keeping yourself in line but that is just not me. This has become a necessity for me!

Also… ladies, I promise you that taking charge in areas like cleaning and doing your hubby’s sweaty gym laundry gets you back rubs and kisses. So I call it a win-win.

 

I know this was a quick post but I just felt like sharing! Thanks for letting me ramble about ironing!

XOXO

10 Things That Will Lead to a Happier You

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a mentor of mine recently and was trying to come up with 10 things I could start implementing in my life today that could make me a happier person. Things that could be easily added or changed in my life to help my stress levels lower and put a more constant smile on my face. After thinking about it, I figured that some of you are likely going through a similar journey of discovering the kind of person you want to be. So today I am sharing with you my 10 things. Maybe they will inspire you to make some changes yourselves!

 

1.Meditate- I have always loved meditation. Every time I am consistent in it, it’s like there is suddenly a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. It’s like taking that time to gather and organize my thoughts and release some of my stress literally takes a weight off. I am committing to myself to meditate before bed again every night I am able to take a few minutes.

 

2.Cultivate Optimism- I am a very negative person sometimes. It’s almost like I am afraid to turn every corner because there is bound to be some bull shit around it. That needs to change. It is time for me to maintain a positive attitude and to remember that you attract what you are.

3.Practice Gratitude- This goes hand in hand with the above two bullets. Meditation for me breeds gracious thinking and gracious thinking breeds optimism! It’s simply that. I just need to remember to express my gratitude for everything I have in my life, both material and non. Because I have a pretty great life and I should be happy about it.

4.Practice Self-love – One thing that I constantly put on the bottom of my list of priorities is taking 20 minutes out of my day to practice self-love. And what I mean by this is taking a bit more time on my skin care routine or maybe doing a face mask and listening to a good playlist with a candle lit while I get ready for bed. Some things are so simple that you’d think they didn’t need to make this list but they do because that is how little I think of them. But I am deserving, damn it! I’m going to make sure that I am prioritizing that mani-pedi and glass of red wine!                                                 

5.Ignore What Others Think and Say About You- I was bullied quite a bit in my younger years. Because of that, I tend to put the opinions of strangers on a pedestal when they belong no where near one. It’s time to put my needs and desires above what others believe I should do or not do. Hence my blog. It’s for me.

6.Let it Go- I know… you’re singing Frozen songs in your head now. Sorry… But really. I need to remember that not everything is a big deal. I don’t need to hold grudges and I definitely don’t need to remember an argument from 6 years and 5 days ago to bring up in tomorrow’s argument with my husband. Like Buddha once said, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” So I’m letting it all go.

7.Surround Yourself With People You Want To Be Like- It is a well known and studied idea that you are a combination of your 5 closest friends. So why hang out with shitty people with no life? I need to make it a priority to surround myself with positive, fun-loving people who not only have goals but want the best for me and each other as well.                

                                                                              

8.Invest In A Hobby- I have this one covered. I started my blog for this reason; to be creative and to discover and express my interests. I wanted to branch out and get out of my comfort zone. My goal for this blog is to post once a week for the entire year of 2018. I want something to look back on and see how I have grown.

9.Go Outside- This seems so stupid so other people I bet. Especially since I live in debatably the most amazing state in the country. Being a Colorado Native you would think I love hiking, skiing, and so on but I hate it . Immensely. So I am making it a goal to get out in nature once a week. It could be as simple as taking a long walk with my dog, or something a little bit more unlike me and going hiking with my husband.

10.Enjoy Your Journey- There will always be roadblocks and obstacles in life. And instead of freaking out every time I am inconvenienced I want to take some time to evaluate the events that lead up to that situation and the options I have to get out of it. There is a plan in place for my life and I just need to enjoy the ride!

XOXO

 

For Better Naked Tomorrows

As many of you know, I have been struggling with my weight and body image the majority of my life. It has been so hard for me to maintain a physique that I am comfortable in. There was a very short period of my life where I could look in the mirror and say “daaaaaamn whose sexy ass is that?”. The rest of my adult life I have looked in the mirror and said “god damn, what IS that… gross…” that feeling has grown old. It’s time to prove to myself that I am worth my own affection and love and it’s about damn time to reverse all my bad eating habits.

Now that I am married, I have a new outlook on my life and what I want to stand for. I always see those soccer moms with adorable little ones, carrying trays of snacks to the team after the game. They usually dress in cute workout gear and ball caps and have the best shape. I want that image for myself. I want to give my husband some eye candy to be proud of and to show off. And I want to show myself off. Every diet I have tried has felt so restrictive and so unnecessarily hard. I have tried fad dieting like the Master Cleanse and wrapping my stomach in lotion-filled plastic wrap while I slept. I have tried prepping a week’s worth of bland food to reheat for every meal of the day and worked out way too hard in the gym only to see a couple measly pounds lost after a month of intense dedication. And I have tried the old fashion diet of “fuck this, I’m eating whatever I want” which obviously had the opposite effect of the one I was looking for.
My typical diet before I changed over consisted of white rice, lots of pastas and pizza, sweets and Starbucks was the love of my life. I would typically start my day with an everything bagel with cream cheese and a venti iced coffee with cream and vanilla syrup. Terrible for me obviously and plain addicting! I had a BAD relationship with carbs and my body was a very clear reflection of this.

Until December 3, 2017… my diet consisted of a main course of hopelessness with a side of ever-growing hatred for my body. I decided that it was ACTUALLY time for a real change. My dad, who also really struggles with his weight, told me about the diet he was following after he had lost close to 30 lbs in 5 weeks. He explained to me that he gets to eat bacon and burgers and cheese and eggs and his fat was melting off. I didn’t believe that was a thing that could happen literally eating exactly what I already was… He told me he had been following a ketogenic diet which is essentially a high fat, low carb diet. It didn’t make sense to me but I obviously was so intrigued! If I could eat super fatty foods and just cut my carbs and drop weight like that I was determined to learn every thing possible about this lifestyle and make the necessary changes to my diet.
Now I am very clearly no dietician, nor am I educated super thoroughly on this lifestyle yet but I have learned some things. Most of what I read and watched mentioned that the most effective way to become ketogenic is to intermittent fast simultaneously. And to also include a caloric deficit. I thought, you know, that’s easy! And it was! I already have been in a pattern of not eating much. Mostly because I am never hungry. My metabolism before this was shot to hell. I just changed what I was actually eating and have kept my calories at about 1400 a day since that Is my goal body weight multiplied by 10. I also fast everyday from 8pm until 12pm the next day. I only eat in the remaining 8 hours of my day. At first It was so hard because my body was so used to burning carbs as energy, which burn up really quickly. I was cutting my carbs down to about 15g or less per day as opposed to eating a diet that was mostly carbs. As I became fat adapted (when your body is adjusted to burning only fat for fuel), I noticed I was less and less hungry because my body was finally using up the fat from my fat stores as well as the fat that I was eating. Along with my appetite being suppressed, my energy levels were through the roof and my clarity of thought was insane! It was like I was a color blind kid putting on those glasses that adjust your vision and seeing in full color for the first time. I never knew that I was missing out on having such clear thought processes! The change was noticeable within a few days of following a high fat low carb diet. Things were looking up already. I had taken photos of myself (which are hidden in my phone to never be seen by other human eyes) along with measurements and starting weight.  Through the first couple weeks my weight fluctuated from 11 lbs to 9 lbs to 13 lbs lost etc. After two weeks, I decided to weigh myself for an official weight and I was down 9 pounds and 16.5 total inches! I chalked some of that up to water weight which, don’t get me wrong I was still stoked about because pounds are pounds! I was shocked. I have never seen that much weight fall off of my body that fast ever in my life! I knew that this was for me. 
The above pictures were taken a month apart. The top was at thanksgiving and the bottom was Christmas Eve!

I was able to eat such savory foods and I felt so full and satisfied all the time and I had never ever felt like I was missing out on anything! At the start of my 4th week, Christmas Eve came around. I told myself that since ( at that point) I had lost 14 lbs, I would let myself have a cheat day. All that consisted of for me was a couple of cookies and a DELICIOUS enchilada that Phillip’s mom made. I didn’t feel like I needed to binge out on bad foods because I was already fat adapted. I still felt amazing that day and on Christmas as well.
The week following Christmas I gave myself a little more slack getting back in to ketosis. I upped my carb intake to about 25g a day as opposed to my typical 10-15g. I noticed that the second time transitioning back to ketosis was much quicker. It only took about 2 days. As I write this, it has been 5 full weeks of following this diet and I have not wanted to quit once. That is monumental for me. Normally in the FIRST WEEK I want to quit and just crawl in to bed with a pint of ice cream and a glass of wine. But I haven’t wavered once. If I have any kind of craving for sweets I will eat a couple squares of 72% or higher dark chocolate and I am good to go. This diet has been so good to me and I am currently sitting at a total weight loss of about 17 lbs, 19 total inches lost, and my pictures I have taken show such a drastic difference!
I have no intent on quitting and this is a lifestyle change I am so happy to have made. I plan to create a separate blog post including some of my recipes that fit my macros since this post is super lengthy. I will also be including updates through out this year where I will include some of the pictures I’ve taken!
Stay tuned! XOXO

 

Reflect On The Old, Plan For The New

So… today I’m sitting here on the first day of the new year and I wanted to take my first real post to reflect on 2017 and to plan a little bit for 2018. I think it’s safe to say that 2017 kicked my ass in more ways than one. I know that I speak for both my husband, Phillip and I when I say that 2017 was one of our harder years. There was so much that happened this year that was just really hard and it definitely tested our strength.
For one, our financial situation was ROUGH. There were a couple months there in the middle of the year that were awesome and we were swimming in money. But the rest of the year was dry…. I tested my ability in used car sales and that was just a nightmare. I was either making enough on my own to support the both of us and then some, or I was completely dependent on Phillip’s income as a server (which for the record was a feast and famine type of income as well). It was really a challenge for us. We also dipped our toes in self employment this year as full time Uber drivers. This is where the couple of good months came from during the summer. Business was amazing and we were virtually stress-free financially. Once a few news stories came out about Uber drivers and the fact that winter began to roll around, business died. Like completely…. We went from making $150 each per day to barely making that in 5 days… It was like overnight Uber was killed for us.
As for our relationship, people always say the first year of marriage is the hardest and I have nothing to say to contradict one bit. It was so hard. We were tested for sure. And I know that obviously every marriage (or relationship in general) has their regular ups and downs, but maaaannn… we got our asses kicked. Every day was a constant fight over nothing. Sometimes things as small as a water bottle being put on the floor instead of the table. We would just explode out of nowhere! And I’m sure that our financial situation had a ton to do with how we treated each other. Not to mention any type of intimacy was OUT THE WINDOW. And I mean ANY type. An occasional hug was about all we gave each other for a while because we had just become so irritated with life that we took everything out on each other. Oops… We’ve since gotten over the majority of those issues by realizing that God has his plan for us and that we’re on the SAME TEAM.
Now obviously this year gave us some amazing things as well. We got married in April and although there were a couple months where we wanted to tear each other’s throats out, we had a great time this year together. We got married on our 6 year anniversary. It’s a day that is extremely meaningful to us both because it is the day that; after MUCH persistence and effort, I decided to give the poor guy a shot back in high school. It is also the day that we got engaged 4 years later. So we thought that keeping everything all on that day would just make it an even better day for us. Our wedding was amazing…. Small and simple just like we wanted. Super non-traditional, as I wore a blue lace dress I saw at Target 2 weeks before (when we decided we were going to just wing the wedding). We had no friends there and only our immediate families. We took our pictures with iPhones and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant after the ceremony. It was beautiful and perfect and I have no regrets.

This year was also full of many more amazing experiences as well. We went to see Metallica together down town for his birthday, thanks to his Mom’s generosity. Those tickets were damn expensive. (Thanks Mel.), we went to Comic Con and geeked out over meeting the cast of Stranger Things, we went to Portland, Oregon again, just like every year and spent about a week with some of our most dear friends. And the freshest memory of this year that I have is Christmas Day. My sister in law (who loathed my very existence for 6 years by the way), decided I’m not so bad and bought tickets for the two of us to see Sam Smith in August!!! Like, what! I’m so thankful and excited, I almost cried when I opened it.

2017, although was extremely tough on us, also holds a place near to my heart and I am extremely grateful for both the struggles and the celebrations. Our family has been so supportive this year and I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of people to be surrounded by.

Now that I’ve reflected on 2017…. I want to take some time to plan for this new year.

I have always been the type of person to set resolutions that are either way to easy to attain (go a week without pizza) or completely impossible (grow my hair to my ankles). So this year I decided that I want to set some goals for myself that don’t necessarily have an end. What I mean by this is I am setting goals that I can work on, not only through out this year, but also continue as a lifestyle.
The first being my health. I recently changed my diet to a ketogenic, low carb diet and I feel AMAZING. This is something I plan to continue this year. I don’t have a weight goal or a size goal at all. I just want to feel great physically and in my appearance. I plan to expand more on my keto experiences so far and my journey in general down the road.
The second goal I have for myself is to focus on and prioritize my relationship with God. As a renewed Christian, it has become important for me to remember to express my gratitude for everything I have in my life and to maintain a dialogue with God. For many years of my life, I was a self-proclaimed atheist. I was that person that would roll their eyes at someone trying to share their love of God with me because I was just bitter. This year, after Phillip and I got married, it was like something switched on in my brain and triggered me to really dig down inside myself and find my spiritual side again. We started occasionally going to church together and I was really working on myself in that way. I plan to continue to build my relationship with God this year and make sure that I remember to be thankful for the things he has given me in my life.
The third thing I desperately need to invest myself in is my financial health. Our living situation currently is far from ideal. We live in the basement of my in laws. And although we are extremely grateful to have their support, we want out. Being newly married and living under someone else’s roof is really hard and sometimes very depressing. Phillip and I vowed to each other to pay off our debt, build our credit, and move in to our own little town home before the summer this year. We have been working on our ability to budget and plan ahead and we are looking forward to seeing the changes in our scores and our bank account.
I plan to expand on each of these topics in later blogs to update and to make sure that I am keeping myself accountable and I look forward to the changes and positive, forward movement that 2018 is going to bring for us.

Thanks for reading my rant and I hope that seeing some of my goals inspires some of you to make some positive lifestyle changes this year as well!

XOXO

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, The Denver Daydreamer! This is all new territory so bare with me. I created this blog because lately I have been feeling a lack of creativity and have been itching to get in to something new. I have always loved diaries and journaling and I figured that starting a blog would not only cause me to hold myself accountable to maintaining the habit, but would also scratch my creative itch.

I don’t exactly have a plan for what I want this platform to be about (because I am the most impulsive person on this planet and get in to things with zero forethought) but I have a general idea about what I would like to create.

I hope that (like other blogs have helped me) my blogs can help you through a tough time, inspire you, or just make you laugh on a bad day. I will try to get on a regular posting schedule as soon as I have some sort of method to this madness..

Stay tuned…

XOXO