TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

Happy New Year!

People around the world celebrate the New Year with their families and friends either in a small gathering or some party. People use this time to reflect on the past year, and come up with their  New Year’s Resolutions for the upcoming year.

So the loaded question is, how was your year, and what are your new year’s resolutions for this year?

This year was full of a lot of changes. We decided to pick up everything, and take a travel nurse assignment in Alaska. We had been travel nursing the last two years, but nothing was as far as Alaska. It was definitely uneasy accepting this assignment at first, but as soon as we got there, we realized this was the best decision.  It was absolutely incredible, and one of the best experiences. We did travel nursing in Alaska from January to the end of July. During this time, we traveled around Alaska, and explored different national parks. Along with hiking, we took trips to Juneau, Seward, and Fairbanks. Along with traveling, we picked up a sourdough hobby, and continued to blog. Which are now, two of my favorite hobbies. Along with all the hobbies and traveling, I also worked at an Alaska Native Hospital. I worked with a lot of incredible people. It was a different experience compared to other hospitals. 

We attended my brother’s wedding in May. It was a really happy time for my family. We traveled back from Alaska a few times, and spent time with family and friends. Our nieces and nephews continue to grow, and become wonderful little humans.  We also spent time with our rental dog, Nevaeh. Sadly, Nevaeh passed away from Cushings in May. This was a hard moment for both my husband and I. This dog was very special to both of us. She was older, and lived a great life, and we are eternally grateful to have shared this life with her. I know it sounds silly, but if you have read any of my earlier blogs, I talk a lot about how I met my husband through her. 

In August, we made the hard decision to stop travel nursing.  Travel nursing was supposed to be a year plan, but three years later, we decided that things needed to end. It was an incredible experience, but we needed consistency, and wanted to buy a house. I signed on as permanent staff at a hospital in Portland, Maine.  It has been a change to come back as full staff, but I am overall happy with our decision to move home. We will embrace the New Year with house hunting. 

Since we’ve moved back home, we’ve continued to travel. We traveled to Arizona, Florida, and New York. It’s been a busy few months, and I think we are ready for some much needed rest. We became godparents to our friend’s baby, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary, and I will be teaching clinicals in January 2025! I’m very excited to get back into teaching young new nurses. 

Overall, I think 2024 was a good year, but I think we all need to remember things aren’t going to be perfect. If you did not reach your new year’s resolutions last year, that is perfectly okay.

Every year my number one New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. I would like to say that I’ve always had this, as a New Year’s resolution to improve my health, but instead it’s to become thin. If anyone wants to know, I’m not thin. I didn’t reach this New Years resolution. Out of curiosity, was this your New Year’s resolution? If it was and you didn’t reach it, don’t get down on yourself. I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I’ve continued to work on this every year, but this year I plan to tackle it in a different mind set. 

This mindset didn’t come overnight. I have seen many nutritionists and dietitians. They all focus on what you ate this week, how many calories you consumed, and why didn’t the scale move. Did you know that people that are chronically on a diet are more likely to gain weight? This new nutritionist I’ve been working with, focuses on intuitive eating, and improving your relationship with food. If you are asking yourself, what is intuitive eating? Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework that integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought. Intuitive eating focuses on a non- diet approach to eating that emphasizes hunger cues. The non-diet approach takes the focus away from the scale and helps promote health- enhancing behaviors, better body image, and gaining a healthier relationship with food. In return, intuitive eating has positive impacts on the scale, lowering binge-restrictive eating habits, decreasing the amount of eating disorders, and improving lab values. When I talk about intuitive eating, I always worry, “Will it work? Will the scale change? Will my lab values improve”. The data shows that it does, but it’s definitely hard trusting the process. It’s not a process that happens overnight. I hope I’ve convinced you to look into intuitive eating more, and help reject the diet mentality (first step of intuitive eating). 

Before I come up with my New Year’s resolutions, let’s talk about goal setting foundations. These are a few rules to help you come up with some New Year’s resolutions that you can accomplish.

1. The goal needs to be measurable and have an end date. 

It becomes difficult when you have a ‘goal of losing weight’  in the New Year. Is this weight loss goal measurable? Without an end date or a specific goal, how are you tracking your progress? You are better off having a goal of losing 10 lbs in the new year. 

2. The goal must be reasonable and sustainable.

People have unrealistic goals all the time. I know i’ve made a goal myself to lose an unrealistic amount of weight in a short amount of time. Sometimes this requires you to work with a professional, to make sure your goals are realistic. 

3. Take a minute and check in with yourself and ask why you made this goal.

Sometimes we lose sight of why we wanted something so bad. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves, “We wanted to lose weight to improve my health and my relationship with food”. 

For more information on the goal setting foundations, visit the Arc Monroe. They came up with a lot of good advice on how to move forward with your goals.

With this in mind, my New Year’s resolutions look different this year. 

I’m very curious on how your New Year’s Resolutions look this year. Are they different from last year? If they aren’t, I hope you rethink them. You still have time. Did this blog help you come up with realistic and measurable goals? 

I’m excited to see what 2025 has in store for me. Is anyone hoping that travelingbeebryantrn covers anything in particular? How about Flicks_withNick?