Two Freaking Weeks

I’ve had a few weird weeks.

Most of you know I had some minor oral surgery. Nothing dramatic. I was fine. But for a few days I couldn’t eat the way I normally eat, I couldn’t work out, and my usual routine had to change.

A few days. That’s it.

Except somehow those few days turned into almost two freaking weeks of me trying to find my way back to normal.

And this surprised me because I am very much a routine person. I have spent years creating a lifestyle that is practically rinse and repeat. Some people might call that boring. I call it easy to maintain.

I don’t wake up every morning trying to find the motivation to work out. I don’t need an inspirational podcast before deciding what I’m going to eat. I don’t spend half my day debating whether today is going to be the day I take care of myself.

Most of it just happens. I wake up. I do the things I normally do. I eat mostly the same types of food. I move my body. I work. I have my little rituals.

My brain doesn’t have to negotiate with me all day long. And it just so happens that the life I’ve made very automatic is a pretty healthy one.

Apparently, the Old Me Was Still in There

Give me a few days off, though, and apparently some version of me from 2020 was standing backstage waiting for her opportunity.

“Ohhhh. We’re doing this again?”

Because suddenly every day became a negotiation.

Should I work out today? Maybe tomorrow. Should I eat something decent? I could. Or I could sit on the couch and eat something considerably less decent while watching puppy videos.

Should I get off Instagram? Absolutely. Did I? Absolutely not.

I was scrolling through the news, watching videos about things I did not need to know, looking at dogs I do not own—which is saying something because I already own enough of them—and somehow losing ridiculous amounts of time.

And every day I thought, Tomorrow I’m going back.

Guess who kept winning.
Definitely not my better judgment.

It was some strange little reminiscence of an older version of me. A woman who wasn’t working out consistently, who spent too much time on the couch, ate whatever was kind of healthy and convenient, and somehow believed she needed to “feel like it” before doing the things that were good for her.

And I kept thinking: How did this happen so fast?

This Is Why Routines Matter More Than Motivation

Here’s what I realized.

When you do something over and over again, your brain starts connecting it to everything around it. The time you wake up. What you do first in the morning. Putting on your workout clothes. Dropping your child off. Walking into the kitchen. Making your coffee or Argentinean mate in my case. Finishing one thing and automatically moving on to the next.

Eventually you don’t have to make a decision every single time. That’s what a habit does for us.

And honestly, I think this is one of the most underrated parts of creating a healthy lifestyle, especially in midlife. We talk so much about discipline and motivation.

I don’t want to need either one all day long.

I want my healthy habits to be so woven into my life that most days I barely have to think about them.

That’s the beauty of routine. You are no longer making a hundred healthy decisions every day.
You already made most of them a long time ago.

But disrupt enough pieces of that routine and suddenly all those little decisions land right back on your desk.

Now you have to choose. And choose again. And negotiate. And bargain.

And your brain, which happens to be a very enthusiastic fan of easy pleasure, remembers that lying on the couch watching puppy videos requires considerably less effort than doing squats.

The funny thing is that the interruption was necessary.
The almost-two-week extension?
That part was me.

My First Instinct Was to Get Stricter

Once I realized what was happening, my first reaction was exactly what you would expect.

Enough. Tomorrow we work out. Enough. Tomorrow we eat better. Enough scrolling. Enough excuses.

Get your shit together, Gaby.

You know what to do.
And technically, I did know what to do. That wasn’t the problem.

I didn’t need another nutrition plan. I didn’t need a new workout. I didn’t need to save another post about morning routines or listen to a podcast telling me how important consistency is.

I know all of that.

So instead of making another list of everything I needed to fix, I stopped and really looked at my day.

Something else was off.

I wasn’t just skipping workouts. I wasn’t feeling quite like myself.

So I Started Looking for the Small Things

I started thinking about the little things I hadn’t been paying attention to. Not the big things.
Not my goals. Not my food. Not my workout schedule.

The tiny things that make an ordinary day feel a little better.

And this is going to sound ridiculously superficial to some people, but I realized I wanted my nails done.
I spend hours working on my laptop. My hands are right there in front of me constantly. And anyone who knows me knows how much my surroundings matter to me. I notice details. I love things that feel beautiful and put together. Give me creamy neutrals, earthy colors, gorgeous fall browns and deep muted tones and I am happy.

So yes, looking down while I’m working and seeing freshly manicured nails in a beautiful fall color makes me smile.
Tiny smile. But still a smile.

Then I looked at my hair.
Dear God.
It needed help.
It needed some life. Shine. Vibrancy. A treatment. Something that would make me catch myself in the mirror and think, Okay, there she is.

Again, completely unrelated to whether I work out. Completely unrelated to what I eat for lunch.

Except maybe it isn’t.

We Don’t Live Our Lives in Separate Little Boxes

This was the part that really got me thinking.

We separate everything. Food goes over here. Exercise over there. Mental health in another box. Beauty somewhere else. Work. Relationships. Our environment. Fun.

But I’m not six different women.
I’m one person.

Of course the way I feel when I look in the mirror affects how I move through my day. Of course my environment affects me. Of course feeling put together affects me. Of course small pleasures affect my mood.

And when I feel better, I tend to treat myself better.
That doesn’t mean a manicure cures a bad week or shiny hair suddenly gives you an uncontrollable desire to eat broccoli.

Please.
But one small thing can change the next thing.
Maybe getting your nails done makes you feel a little more put together. Feeling more put together makes you want to get dressed instead of staying in whatever you’ve been wearing around the house all day. You get dressed and suddenly you feel a little more energetic.

You feel more energetic and going for a walk doesn’t sound so terrible. You go for the walk and you come home feeling better than you did before you left.

One thing moves another.
And suddenly there’s momentum.

Maybe This Is Part of Self-Care in Midlife Too

I think self-care has become another one of those words that we’ve made unnecessarily complicated.

Especially for women in midlife.
We’re told to manage our stress, protect our sleep, strength train, eat enough protein, take care of our hormones, improve our relationships, drink enough water, meditate, walk, stretch, journal, get sunlight and somehow also enjoy our lives.

It can turn taking care of yourself into another full-time job.

But sometimes self-care is much smaller than that.
Sometimes it’s paying attention to what makes you feel good in your own life. What makes you enjoy your home. Your body. Your morning. Your clothes. Your work. Your face when you catch yourself in the mirror.

Not because you’re trying to become somebody else.
Because you like feeling like you.

And maybe we underestimate how much those little feelings influence the choices we make afterward.

I Didn’t Need to Start Over

That might be my biggest realization from these two freaking weeks.

I kept thinking I needed to “get back on track.” And I understand the expression. I use it too.
But I hadn’t destroyed anything.
Years of healthy habits didn’t disappear because I had a weird couple of weeks. I didn’t need a Monday. I didn’t need a reset. I certainly didn’t need to punish myself for having gotten off my normal routine.

The lifestyle was still there.
I just needed to start reconnecting with it.

And strangely enough, my way back didn’t begin with a workout.
It started with noticing myself again.
I got my nails done. My hair is shiny again. I started putting a little attention back into those tiny details that make me happy.

And I could feel something shifting.
I wanted to get dressed. I wanted my normal food. I wanted to move. I wanted my mornings back.
I wanted my life to feel like mine again.

There she is.

If You’ve Been Off Lately...

Maybe you don’t need to overhaul your life on Monday.

Maybe don’t start with the meal plan, the workout calendar, the supplements, the 5 a.m. morning routine and the seventeen habits you have decided need immediate attention.

Before you do any of that, look around your life.

What has been missing lately?
What small thing have you stopped doing that makes you feel good? What makes you smile when you see it? What makes you feel more attractive, more organized, calmer, lighter, more alive—or simply more like yourself?

Start there.

Because when we talk about building healthy habits in midlife, I think we sometimes forget that the goal isn’t to spend the rest of our lives forcing ourselves to be healthy.

The goal is to create a life in which taking care of ourselves becomes normal. Easy enough to repeat. Good enough that we want to come back to it when life inevitably knocks us out of our routine for a while.

And if you’ve been off for a week, two weeks, a month, whatever...
You probably don’t need to become a new person.
You might just need to find your way back to yourself.

And apparently, in my case, that required a manicure and a really good hair treatment.

I can live with that.

With so much love always,

GABY