Week 3: Grief, Reflection, and Giving Up My Excuses to Exercise for Lent
In today’s episode, I’m sharing Week 3 of this very personal series where I’m documenting grief alongside my health and weight loss journey. Normally, we talk about fitness, mindset, and taking practical steps forward—but this series is about what happens when life hits hard and everything feels shaken.
I lost my dad recently after years of dementia, and this episode is recorded just after laying him to rest. I talk openly about the funeral, the emotions that surprised me, the moments of laughter mixed with sadness, and the experience of saying goodbye in a way that felt deeply human, imperfect, and real.
Dementia is cruel. It doesn’t just affect one person—it changes families, routines, plans, and futures. For years, it quietly controlled our lives, and now there’s space where that constant pressure once lived. In this episode, I reflect on what that space feels like, and how I’m beginning to steady myself again.
Because even in grief, I know one thing to be true: change doesn’t happen without action.
With Lent beginning, I share what I’m choosing to stop doing—not coffee, not chocolate—but the habit of finding reasons not to move my body. I’m committing to moving three times a week for at least 30 minutes and writing it down, without worrying about perfection. Walking, classes, fresh air, even walking up to the cemetery to say hello to my dad—all of it counts.
This episode is messy, emotional, and unfinished—and that’s exactly the point.
I invite you to reflect on your own journey and ask yourself:
What could you do for your health that doesn’t need to look perfect?
What small action could you take, even if life feels chaotic?
Where might you be waiting for the “right time” instead of taking a step now?
Grief doesn’t come with rules, timelines, or neat edges. Neither does progress.
If you’re navigating loss, feeling stuck, or struggling to find your footing again, I hope this episode reminds you that it’s okay to move forward while still hurting—and that doing something imperfectly is still doing something.
I’ll be back for Week 4 to share how things are settling and how this commitment to movement is going.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for holding space for my dad’s memory. And thank you for being here with me.
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