5 Ways to Beat the Winter Funk

Late winter in Chicago.

Is there a more desolation-inducing sentence than that? I don’t want to be overdramatic, but we are experiencing a record breakingly cold February. The piles of snow and ice on the sidewalks and roads have cemented into solid rock. We haven’t had significant fresh snow in a while, so there’s nothing to cover the dirt and dog pee that are turning the white drifts into black and yellow arctic boulders… yeah it’s pretty grim.

It seems like everyone I talk to has been dealing with the winter funk. You know, the lack of motivation and energy, the “I don’t give a shit” attitude that sets in when your body is chronically deprived of sunshine and warmth. Unfortunately the only way out of the winter funk is to power through and wait for spring!

The “blahs” vs the “blues”

I like to call this lack of energy the winter “blahs,” and the blahs aren’t necessarily related to or affected by your overall mood. They’re more of a mojo and lack of groove thing, not a sadness or depression. The winter blues relate to seasonal affective disorder and actual depression, and if you are legitimately depressed to the point that it’s affecting your relationships, job performance, and confidence then I encourage you to find someone (ideally a professionally trained someone) to talk to!

This is actually the first winter that I can remember NOT dealing with winter blues! I hit a wall this time last year and decided to start making positive changes in my life, and over the past year those changes have given me a new level of confidence, self-assurance, and fulfillment and my anxiety and mood swings have mostly evened out. However, I’ve DEFINITELY been dealing with the blahs this month! I’m not necessarily sad, but I’ve been struggling with energy and motivation big time.

As of last week, I felt myself slowly emerging from the blahs and I am almost afraid to say this (knock on wood) but I think I’ve regained my mojo! Here are some of the ways I’ve helped myself beat the winter funk.

1. Embrace the funk!

You can’t resist it, or you’ll only feel worse. You know, that “hate yourself because you hate yourself” downward spiral? Acknowledge your emotions and energy levels, and don’t try to force yourself to tackle ambitious projects or new habits that you don’t HAVE to do. They can wait for spring! Maintain your life/family/work responsibilities, but this isn’t the time to be an overachiever. That new workout program or passion project will wait for you. Have faith that your energy will return, and that the world will get lighter and warmer soon. In the meantime enjoy hibernation mode! After all, we’re mammals and we’re biologically designed to go into a period of rest and downtime in the winter. Don’t fight nature! Surrender, accept your energy levels, take a nap or have a dance party depending on what time of day it is, and just do what you can, even if it means letting people down to unplug and embrace your inner hermit tendencies.

This podcast episode from Being Boss on staying motivated and happy really helped me shift my mentality and surrender to the funk.

This podcast on motivation and energy on demand from The Chalene Show will make you feel amazing and drag you out of your lethargy in a positive and comfortable way if you need to function at a higher level.

2. Treat yourself right with the trifecta of wellness: rest + healthy food + exercise!

Rest
If your body is craving rest, then respect yourself and prioritize sleep. This is SO important! Set an “unplug” time every evening and honor it. Disengage from screens, social media, work, and slow your body and mind down with a hot shower or bath and some reading in bed before an early bedtime. Sleep as much as you can. We can’t always control the time of day we have to wake up, but we can decide when to go to bed, so if you’re struggling to wake up in the mornings or have an unhealthy relationship with the snooze button, take back control and add more hours of sleep on the other side!

Healthy food
Just because it’s hibernation time doesn’t mean we get a free pass to eat all the unhealthy comfort food we might be craving. It’s so important to do everything you can to boost and maintain your energy levels naturally. For me, this means Vitamin D, lots of water and herbal tea, and lots and lots of veggies and whole foods.

Challenge yourself to eat a giant salad everyday for lunch instead of a sandwich and chips. Salads don’t have to be cold...here are some great warm salad recipes. Prep a big batch of veggies, whole grains, and lean proteins at the beginning of the week and portion them into tupperwares so you can grab and go in the morning.

I also love to roast a huge batch of veggies and eat them for dinner or an afternoon snack. Chop a variety of dense veggies, root veggies are my fave (carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, squash, onions), drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and bake at 400* for 45 minutes, stirring a couple times.

You can find lots of healthy comfort food in my recipe archives!

Exercise
It’s also extremely important to make sure that you’re moving your body at least a little bit every single day. I KNOW it’s hard to motivate yourself to change into workout clothes and hit the gym when it’s freezing, dark, and all you wanna do is curl up under a banket with a glass of wine and Netflix when you get home, trust me it sucks and I get it, but working out is SO FREAKING IMPORTANT. This is the only thing that I recommend forcing. Just do it. You don’t have to be ambitious or go to the gym, even a 10 minute circuit will get your heart rate up and the endorphins flowing!

Here are some of my favorite free at-home workout YouTube channels.

You can find more of my best fitness tips over here.

3. Show gratitude.

When you start to feel sorry for yourself, the easiest and fastest way to snap out of it is to remind yourself of all the blessings you have! Make a list of three specific and detailed things you’re grateful for every day. Get out of your own head and drag yourself out of that pity party.

4. Reach out to your tribe. Call a friend, talk to your grandma.

Remind yourself that you aren’t alone, and there is a world full of people who love you outside of your own little bubble. Catch up with your best friend or call your grandma and tell her you love her. Your grandma is a great resource for snapping you back to reality. Mine lived through the Great Depression, WWII, lost her husband and daughter, and single handedly raised three kids while running a farm in Iowa. She is one of my biggest inspirations and when I am feeling sorry for myself she reminds me what’s up and can snap me out of it like woah ;) I love you Grammy!

5. Do something creative.

Even if it’s hard to muster the motivation, I’ve discovered that if you do something passively creative just to keep your hands busy, your mind will calm down too and you’ll be able to relax into the funk and just enjoy your downtime. Bonus points for engaging your mind while you engage your hands.

My personal suggestions:

• Listen to fun or calming music + bake or cook something delicious
• Listen to a podcast + clean the apartment
• Watch Netflix + knit (I taught myself how to knit via YouTube!)

If you’re suffering from the late winter funk, try one or two of these suggestions and see if you feel a difference! Don’t try to implement them all at once, just add one new habit at a time to build a sustainable routine. After a few weeks I predict you’ll feel magically re-energized and back in your groove, just in time for spring! We'll get through this together.

Are you feeling the blah’s? Do you have any tips to add? Share them in the comments!

xo Anna

p.s. If you live anywhere where the average temperature is above freezing, please refrain from rubbing it in. Thanks :)

Balsamic Roasted Veggies with Garlic Chicken

Ok, it's official. Chiberia has returned. The highs this week are in the single digits, the snow and ice mountains on the sidewalks and roads have solidified into rock, Ben has another "cold day" off school tomorrow, and even though the days are slowly getting longer it's really hard to beat the winter blah's! This is the first winter I haven't struggled with winter blues exactly, but all week I've been seriously lacking motivation and energy! Instead of feeling bad I'm just leaning into the slump and giving myself permission to relax and slow down.

One of the good things about cold weather is that our metal firebox of an oven can heat the whole kitchen, and since I love anything baked or roasted it's been getting plenty of use!

One of my favorite weeknight dinners is roasted veggies and chicken. Roasted vegetables are seriously addicting to me, I could kill an entire batch on my own! I love how a good long roast brings out the natural sweetness. Yum. Tonight's variation was extra delicious so I thought I'd share the "recipe!" I love healthy comfort food that's simple and easy to throw together, with leftovers to spare.

Balsamic Roasted Veggies with Garlic Chicken

Serves 4

Veggies
+ 1 pound carrots
+ 2 large parsnips
+ 3 red onions
+ Glug of olive oil
+ Generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar
+ Salt, pepper, garlic powder, rosemary
(or your fave herbs and spices)

Chicken
+ 1 package chicken breasts
+ Juice of half a lemon
+ Balsamic vinegar
+ 4 cloves garlic, minced
+ Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400* F and line two baking sheets with aluminum foil. Chop all the veggies into bite sized pieces, spread in a single layer on foil lined baking sheets, and toss in the olive oil, vinegar, and spices.

Place the chicken in a baking dish coated in cooking spray. Squeeze lemon juice and drizzle vinegar over the chicken, then sprinkle with garlic, salt, and pepper.

Bake the veggies and chicken in the oven together. The chicken will be done within 25-40 minutes depending on the thickness. I usually slice into a piece after 30 minutes to test for doneness. The veggies can go a little longer, 45 minutes or so as long as you stir them a couple times. The longer they bake, the more caramelized and delicious they'll become!

Serve the chicken over veggies and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

21 Day Fix: 1-2 green, 1 red

Enjoy and stay warm!

xo Anna

Clean Eating 101

Clean eating is a really trendy topic right now. Pinterest is full of clean eating recipes, tips, and tricks, and all the health and fitness magazines at the grocery store check-out line promise to help you find ways to EAT CLEAN AND LOSE WEIGHT TODAY!

There are a lot of different types of “diets” or lifestyle philosophies out there that revolve around the clean eating concept: paleo, raw, vegan, just to name a few. Each one promises that if you eat according to their rules, you’ll lose the pounds, feel amazing, and all your life problems will be solved. But what exactly are the right rules when there’s so much conflicting information? And why is it so easy to feel like no matter what we do and what choices we make when it comes to our personal well being, we’re never doing enough?

I believe that what we put in our bodies determines how we feel, both physically and emotionally. I desire to feel energized, confident, happy, and joyful every single day and so I’m on a quest to figure out what I need to eat in order to achieve that state of overall well being without getting too obsessive. The more women I meet and talk to, the more I realize that we all struggle with the same fundamental desire to feel good and find that elusive healthy balance! So I’m feeling almost a desperate need to share EVERYTHING I’m learning and experiencing in my own life in order to help other women overcome their inner obstacles and achieve their ultimate state of physical, mental, and emotional well being too.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is clean eating?

My personal definition of clean eating means eating as many whole foods as possible and limiting consumption of processed and artificial food. More plants, fewer chemicals. More home cooked meals, fewer boxes. I try to stick to food that doesn’t have a Nutrition Facts label or ingredients list because it is a single ingredient in and of itself. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein, healthy fats, lots of water, alcohol and sugar in moderation.

A few more definitions that I feel good about:

“At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or "real" foods — those that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible.” 

"Eating Clean is not about deprivation. It’s not about giving up one food group or another. Eating Clean is about giving your body what it needs to thrive...Eating Clean is about choosing fresh, whole foods with all of their nutrients intact." 

Basically, eat more real food!

The more nutrient dense foods we put in our bodies, the more energy we will have and the better we will feel. It’s not about deprivation or eliminating certain food groups, or counting calories or restricting yourself from the food that brings you joy--it’s about eating to feel good!

The danger of the clean eating trap

All this being said, it’s dangerously easy to get too obsessed with making the best food choices all of the time. I actually am trying to wean myself out of using the term “clean” when referring to food because it implies that food is either clean or dirty with no in between. I don’t like putting restrictive labels on food because let’s be real--food is food and a calorie is a calorie! You can gain or lose weight no matter what you eat, and putting qualitative labels on foods just welcomes negative feelings of control, guilt, shame, and fear. 

My baseline for a healthy and happy balance is being able to go out to a restaurant and order a salad because I CHOOSE to, not because I "have" to. I don't want my food decisions to affect my life, stress me out at parties, or make my friends and family say things like "oh you can't eat that, right?"

This article on orthorexia really hit home for me, since it’s my job to spend a lot of my time immersed in the health and fitness community on social media.

Yes there are more healthful and nutrient dense foods that we should be choosing most of the time, but that doesn’t mean we are a bad person if we eat froyo or chips, and we shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed for indulging in food that doesn’t fit our restrictive definitions of “healthy” or “clean,” as long as it’s bringing us joy and fulfillment.

Just make the best choices when you can. If you’re traveling, visiting friends or relatives, or find yourself in a situation where you can’t control your food, go with the flow and don’t let your need for control end up controlling YOU! In my mind, family and friendships always trump clean eating.

My clean eating philosophy

I’ve been starting to really think about my emotional relationship with food and the pressures that society and culture place on us that cause so much negative stress and guilt.

Here's the thing: I love food more than I love my abs. I don’t have any medical conditions or digestive issues, so why shouldn’t I eat what makes me feel good, even if books or articles tell me that meat/dairy/grains are "bad"? The majority of the time I eat whole foods, but I allow myself to indulge in treats whenever I truly want to in order to feel emotionally good. Sometimes you have to eat what gives you joy, even if it doesn’t fit the label of “clean” or “healthy," like the bottle of wine, cocktails, ice cream, and pizza I splurged on over Valentine's weekend! Eating healthy, unprocessed, nutrient dense REAL FOODS most of the time makes me feel good, and gives me the freedom to indulge when the mood strikes. Then I enjoy and move on.

If I indulge too often, or start to develop bad habits (ahem wine and ice cream every night...), then I start to feel physically bad so I get back on the wagon and spend a couple days focusing on upping my veggie and water intake. The key is to not beat yourself up, and to not let one day throw off your entire mindset. Life is a long term balance, so if you have a couple days that make you feel crappy, just eat more veggies the following days and your body will re-set itself without having to resort to juice cleanses or extreme detoxes! Keep in mind it takes 2-3 days for your body to physically react to either positive or more negative choices, so just trust the process if you're trying to get back on track.

Final thoughts on "dieting"

If you allow yourself to believe you’re on a diet that you can “cheat” on, and view your health or fitness program as a short term project that will get you from point A to point B at which time you can go back to your old ways, guess what? You are setting yourself up for failure. You’re going to perpetuate the shame and guilt cycle and while you might lose weight in the short term, you won’t find fulfillment or self acceptance in the long term.

Crappy, right? You're worth more than that, girl! Treat yo'self right! Treats, not cheats ;)

10 Healthy Balance Tips

1. Focus on adding MORE to your life instead of removing or depriving things. Eat more veggies. Drink more water.

2. Limit your alcohol, sugar, and processed foods but have a “not right now” instead of “never” mentality because a treat won’t kill you or ruin your day!

3. Prioritize your treats. Indulge mindfully and always ask yourself “is this worth it?”

4. Cook at home! Make it fun :)

5. Move your body every day. When you feel like you’re making positive choices, you’ll motivate yourself to keep going.

6. Stop obsessing.

7. Trust the process and give it time.

8. Find supportive and positive friends who will motivate you to stick with your healthy lifestyle.

9. Make decisions based on what FEELS good, not what you “should” or “shouldn’t” eat.

10. Start living your life!

Once you establish a foundation of overall wellness, your body will become more resilient to the occasional splurge, and you’ll be able to enjoy life without feeling guilty or hating yourself for “blowing it!” Life is not an all or nothing straight line, and one weekend of pizza, pasta, and candy isn’t going to set you back if you can balance it out with a few days of nutrient dense, plant-based choices.

If you want to change your habits and mindset and overcome the shame and guilt roller coaster, you have to take it one day at a time. Don’t give up when you feel frustrated or discouraged. It’s going to take months and years to actually make lasting positive shifts, so be kind to yourself and celebrate each little victory along the way! You can do it, and you deserve it.

Resources

Books
+Food Matters
+It Starts With Food
+The Eat Clean Diet
+Make Your Own Rules Diet
+BodyPeace

Feel Good Blogs
+The Real Life RD
+Isabel Foxen Duke

+Here are some clear and easy to follow tips if you are just starting out on your wellness journey! 

+Find all my delicious and easy whole foods recipes here.

Do you want some one-on-one advice? Are you completely overwhelmed? Hit me up and let's work things out so you can break through your inner mental blocks and finally start living the happy and vibrant life you deserve!

xo Anna

Note: I am NOT a professional nutritionist or dietician, just a girl on a quest to live my life and love my body, and share everything I'm learning along the way! This post and everything on this blog is my personal opinion. If you need professional guidance, reach out to someone who is certified to help you <3