 Hey learners, how are you today? Happy Monday to everyone watching. Welcome back to my channel. I'm Lauren. If for anyone that's new here and today I just wanted to update you on my kombucha scoby that I tried to make the other day. I'm really disappointed in the results actually. I don't think my kitchen has been warm enough to see good colonization of the bacteria. My results look like this and I'll show you. There's little pockets of bacteria starting to form, but nothing looking like a true scoby where you have that thick foam on top. I'm going to give it a couple more days and then update you again. Try to do my second ferment and bottle everything like we had talked about. Stay tuned for that. Be watching for it. I promise I will do it. It's just going to take some more time. Real life. Here we go. On that note, I'd also like to talk to you today about fitness and how I've come to really appreciate my body where it's at. I want to just go move to my desk and we can chat more there. I can be comfy. All right, let's go move over there. Before I get started on all this, if you have not subscribed, go ahead and clickety click right there or don't. You don't have to, but it'd be really cool if you did. In high school, I would run to counteract all the junk food I was eating. Can I get any like amen in that? Like I, I mean, everyone needs crappy in high school, right? It's like a ridden passage, like kind of what you're supposed to do. I remember this running crazy I went through. I'd run two miles to like our family church and then I'd run two miles home and be like, sweet, I can eat top ramen now. I continued that cardio mindset like, okay, I'm going to eat whatever I want and then I'm going to go kill my body in the gym so I can counteract it. I'd pick myself apart in the mirror and I was wanting to look perfect, but like, didn't know how. It seems like duh, but I didn't realize that my diet was affecting the way my body was looking. Like, I don't know how I didn't make that connection. Well, the first year my husband and I were married. We got married really young because he was in the army and deployed Iraq and that whole thing. So the first year we were married, he was deployed. And I mean, I killed my body in the gym just to stay busy. So I was going to these 5am spin classes, 5am cardio kickboxing, and then I'd go work at a coffee place and then I'd go to school the rest of the day and I was doing this every day and just killing my body and I was not making good food choices, kind of getting fast food where I could. I didn't appreciate my body or like it even until I had my first baby. And if you're a woman that's gone through birth, you might understand that it's just the weirdest thing to think that your body is creating human life and you could feel it moving inside you. I mean, I was growing a person in my body and then the person was born and I was feeding it with my body. I just saw it in a new perspective and God made my body for amazing things and I was selling myself short to think my body was meant to look thin. I was selling myself short. It was so sad and so I finally saw my body for what it was creating. My dog, sorry. I finally saw my body for what it was created to be which was strong and capable and I could endure pain. I had my babies at home for those of you who don't know and that was just such an amazing experience for me. I know that's not for everyone and that's totally cool. I just I liked sounds a little weird but I liked feeling the pain and again that's not for everyone. I feel like like I'm big on birth. You're all entitled to your own birth experience, however that looks for you. But for me, I was really happy to have my babies at home. So I had my son then I had my daughter a couple years later and my husband and I knew we were done having kids. Like we were pretty sure and so we uh I just wanted to get I just wanted to get skinny again. I just wanted to get thin. Like a cute mom of two little babies and feel perfect and have it all together and like I mean what mom doesn't want that right? So again not healthy to have that mindset or those standards because it just wasn't practical. It wasn't reasonable or sustainable even like I was taking care of two little ones. My energy was being spent on other things but here I get here I was again throwing myself in the gym beating on my body trying to beat it into submission and cutting all my calories and it just like it wasn't working. Like I was miserable and like I was happy during my workouts but then I'd get home and pick apart my body again and I was like why isn't this happening? Like as hard as I'm working why isn't this happening faster? And my husband and I got into CrossFit and I was doing CrossFit workouts like a mad woman and I felt good but I still unhappy with the way I look. I kind of took a step back from from working out for a little bit and did a couple months of yoga and just kind of tried to be happy with where I was at and it just occurred to me like my kids are gonna see me interact with fitness and health and diet and all of that and I want them to know that it's coming from a place of strength and that like I have gratitude for what my body could do to bring them into the world and like that's just so important to me so I finally so this year I have made a new commitment to weightlifting because that's where I feel like I'm the happiest and I like the challenge that weightlifting brings I like being able to push myself in my lifts go heavy and it's very counterintuitive but what I've learned from a couple of like trainers along the way is that like lifting heavy for women does not create bulky guy muscles it creates a lot of feminine definition increases your metabolism so that you can eat more and I'm like who is not all about that right what I'm trying to do now is lift heavy three days a week I do full body workouts and I've upped my calories so that I can see more muscle muscle growth and I'm really happy with where I'm at I'm not at my thinnest and I'm good with it like but I'm strong and I feel a lot of energy I feel really confident in the way my body looks because I feel strong not because I'm thin it's just good to be coming from that really healthy mindset about who God created me to be that I'm living up to my full potential that that I'm pushing myself and having like the ultimate growth mindset about fitness and diet and nutrition and I think my biggest piece of advice is find something you enjoy doing like don't do it out of self deprecation don't do it because you're not thin enough don't do it to please other people you have to find the right type of exercise that you enjoy doing and you look forward to doing every time you go do it and diet I am like I have really come to enjoy like I am in all things in moderation girl like except crack do not do crack crack hills don't you know what I mean like I had myself some nachos and some pizza and I'm good with it I didn't feel guilty I got up this morning and did my lifts and I felt just awesome I felt strong and now that I up to my calories you guys like I'm actually getting hungrier because I've sped up my metabolism it's fun to see how your body is like a machine like if you feed it the proper nutrition and you are treating it well and you're in your exercise like it's gonna perform it's gonna perform well and that's that's an amazing feeling I'm so excited to share that with you that's kind of what I've been learning I'm excited to continue to learn and grow with you and talk about life talk about family and stuff in the kitchen like it's just so fun being able to do life with you people so thank you so much for supporting this don't forget to subscribe like I said again and go get messy have fun learn and I'll see you again soon