January has been filled with a lot of change for me, which has brought on a lot of personal development. I’m so excited for what’s to come, and have some big things on the horizon for I Only Came for the Cake.
I am, again, so extremely thankful for all of you who continue to support me and my recipes! Just a year and a half ago, this blog didn’t even exist. It was just a thought in my mind about something I was interested in, but wasn’t sure I could actually do.
Now, I continue to hone my skills at recipe development and photography, hoping that these recipes look good enough for you to want to eat and share with your family.
The creation of the Deluxe Meal Plan and the Mindful Eating Journal were just the beginnings of what I really want to do to help people live a healthier and happier life. Which brings me to the first big thing of January!
Piece of Cake: Nourish
It wasn’t until after college that I started getting into living a healthier lifestyle. I started with Weight Watchers and learned some great things during those 5 years about eating habits and incorporating exercise into a healthy lifestyle.
Three years ago though, I was tired of counting points and just felt like I had a poor relationship with food. A friend of mine had suggested I try mindful eating, and I felt like my life was forever changed.
As the blog grew, I wanted to start to share my knowledge on leaving a diet driven lifestyle and tuning into your body and what it needs. Which is what lead me to creating the Mindful Eating Journal.
Recently though, I’ve been wanting to take it a step further. To create a robust program that will be more hands-on and a much more in-depth look at how to really start eating mindfully/intuitively, and how you can truly have a healthy relationship with food and no longer rely on a diet to tell you what to eat and when.
So…I’m studying to become a certified nutrition and wellness coach! As my desire to continue to share this knowledge expands, I felt like this was a valuable next step in the journey.
Once I am certified, I will be building a robust mindful eating program. It will be 8 or 12 weeks long {still working to figure out the exact length of time}, will include all the steps on how to break free from a traditional diet and start to eat intuitively, and will also have group and 1:1 coaching.
I am so extremely excited for this next venture! So be on the look-out for the program, which I’m hoping to release in May or June 2019!
Piece of Cake: Designing my life
For those of you who follow me on Insta or Facebook, you might have seen that I lost my full-time job back in December. It came as a total shock to me, but I knew that this had happened for a reason and that there was something more I should be doing.
After a lot of talking with Burken and my parents and my in-laws, I decided to start my own business around personalized designs for both home and professional life.
I’ve been focusing a lot lately on all the print invitations for weddings, but I also create things like recipe cards, yearly planners, thank you cards, business cards and presentations. If you have an idea of something you’d like created, just let me know!
You can contact me at pieceofcakedesigns13{at}gmail{dot}com, or through my Facebook page, which is where you can find all of my services as well.
Piece of Cake: One last slice
What I’ve been loving: personal development
This past month and a half I have been all about personal development. Which is probably pretty obvious after losing a job and starting my own business and becoming a certified nutrition coach.
One thing that I’ve really been loving in this personal development realm is the book “Girl Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis.
I haven’t finished it yet, but already I’m finding incredible nuggets of wisdom. It’s all about personal growth and how to stop believing all the lies we’ve been told, or tell, to ourselves for years.
I’ve also really gotten into meditation lately. I tend to do guided meditations from YouTube. I’ve found that taking just 10 minutes out of my day to close my eyes, slow my mind and my breathing, and take a moment for myself has been incredible.
One last thing that I’ve really been loving this month: acupuncture! I honestly wasn’t sure what to think when I first started it. I worried that the needles were going to hurt, or that I wouldn’t be able to relax. Turns out I was totally wrong!
For those of you who haven’t done it before, but have been thinking about it, I definitely think you should try it out! The needles don’t even hurt, and aren’t at all like a traditional needle you’d see at a doctor’s office. It’s very relaxing, and gives me some time to just calm my mind again.
For any of you who live in the Madison area, you should definitely give Amy from Madison Acupuncture and Complementary Medicine a try!
What you’ve been loving:
There are a couple posts that continue to reign supreme on the blog, which are the 6 Best HIIT Workouts, and the Peach Upside Down Cake.
Looking past those two, here are the other top three posts this month:
- Running tips for beginners: even though it’s freezing here in Madison, and you will find no one outside, this post has been a big hit lately. Maybe all of you living in slightly warmer climates?
- Healthy peanut butter granola cups: it’s no surprise these babies are making into the top rankings. They’re seriously a new favorite treat of mine! Chewy granola cups filled with a peanut butter banana filling are what breakfast dreams are made of.
- Pink champagne cake roll: with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this spongy cake roll is a perfect way to celebrate the holiday!
And there you have it friends! The end of January. It has been an amazing month so far, and I have loved every moment of it.
How was your January? What extraordinary things do you do to kick off 2019?
