Consistency – an optimal but elusive path

img_3838You know, as someone who has written extensively about consistency and even developed a PDF on consistency, I’ve only been to the gym three times in the last three months. What is the problem then? To know what to do yet not do it when we’re in the throes of hardship. What’s that about?

I can’t say that I’ve found the answer for myself because I know that working out and managing my diet would have aided my mood immensely while going through the hard time I went through in the last 6 months. After all, all that I asked of myself was show up just 3 days a week, workout for 45mins to an hour and call it quits. I know that this is a sustainable practice yet I wasn’t able to do even that.Read more“Consistency – an optimal but elusive path”

image Fat Loss | Mental Health | Nutrition | Self Love

donā€™t touch my hair

In Ghana, where I grew up, school age girls were expected to have a hair cut with hair no longer than an inch or so. The only ones exempt were the one or two mixed girls in the school. This meant that during our senior year, all of us girls would start growing out our little ‘fros (but we’d tie them down overnight so as not to alert the teachers that it was longer than the 1 inch maximum allowed) in preparation for graduation because that’s when the magic happens! Many of us get to relax our hair for the first time! We get to have straight hair that swang in the wind.

So, as expected, I graduated and dove head first into the world of relaxers and braids and wigs and weaves and every iteration of it. It wasn’t until 2008, in the midst of the new natural hair movement that was sweeping the US did I stop to investigate what my hair as it grew out of my scalp looked like. I promptly did the “big chop” as it’s known. I.e., I cut off all my relaxed hair and went back to less than an inch of hair. I embarked on a journey of discovering curls I hadn’t known existed in my 23 years of life.

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health education is a must – this nurseā€™s perspective

Baby Nurse Christabel circa 2012

My work as a nurse isĀ fulfilling, but itā€™s also often saddening. The sadder parts for me is the realization of myĀ limitations. I have a hard time accepting those limitations because often; I feel thatĀ it is all unfair. Disease and death are the two most difficult things for me to accept as the inevitable part of our human existence. It has become even more difficult since I do not actively have a belief system I subscribe to. When I was a Jehovahā€™s witness, the promises in the bible about a day when there will be no more sickness and death were my favorite ones:

Revelation 21:4: ā€œ…he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.ā€

The above scripture and many like it brought me such comfort. I could always refer to them when I felt the crushing hopelessness of the human condition overcome me. While being empathetic is a good quality to have as a nurse, it has to be tempered by acceptance of our limitations as caregivers and healers. I can only do so much. We can only do so much. And the acceptance of those limitations is even more imperative when weā€™re dealing with incurable, chronic, progressively degenerative or congenital diseases. I rarely see miraculous recoveries rather, disease progression is usually predictable.Read more“health education is a must – this nurseā€™s perspective”

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how strength training and therapy saved my life. *trigger warning: self harm and suicidality*

  My passions run deep and are varied but not by happenstance. I am who I am today and care about the things I care about today because of a very rough journey through life that has resulted in a lot of self-discovery and self-love. I’ll write a book one …

Fat Loss | me | Mental Health | Movement | Nutrition | Self Love

is the effort it takes to maintain a weight loss worth it?

When I started this journey to shedding body fat, I was 210 pounds. I loved myself. In fact, I loved myself so much that I almost had to be talked into losing fat. I wasn’t unhealthy, I could dress my curves, I was strong af…I didn’t see what the problem …

Fat Loss | Mental Health | Movement | Nutrition | Self Love