I'll be MIA from my blog for a wee while as I work on my PhD and travel this summer. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you my favorite resources.

I’ve been meaning to write this for ages! 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy knows the secret to coming up with the perfect story idea.

Top three reasons why introverts should lift weights.

I only just discovered the magic of using Trello to keep my novel organized. Read more to see how I do it. 

Facing the Fear Series, the beginning of a long journey towards overcoming the fear of public speaking. This is my number one fear. 

On February 28th, I typed the ending to my novel and clicked Ctrl+S (save). Now that I've got a well-rounded first draft, here's what I've learned: 

Once upon a time, when I was a pudgy, cuddly little girl, my brother announced: "Kelly doesn't eat to live, she lives to eat." He was making fun of me but I agreed, and I still identify with that rule, but here's the problem—I don't know if I want to be someone who lives to eat anymore. 

Here's a video of my favorite fitness-related things, from pre-workout, to workout, to post-workout. Hope you find it useful! 

I bumped up my calorie-intake to maintenance after 2 years of cutting. Here's how I feel about it. 

Boredom sucks, but don't let it suck you in. When you start making small steps towards being productive with your free time, you'll train yourself to get used to it and stop filling the time with food.

A little while back, I found Jelmer on Instagram and checked out his fitness and lifestyle blog over at JMRfitness.eu. Since we had so much in common, I wanted to give Jelmer a shout-out on my blog and share his story with you. Hope you enjoy! 

If you want genuine fitness advice, look no further than YouTube. Here's why... 

In this post, I'll tell you about my history with anti-depressants and whether I think it's helped or hindered my progress. 

I could not have achieved this without the coaching and support of Iain Brown, creator of Stag Aesthetics and I'm proud to announce that he has launched his own website: Stag-aesthetics.com!

When it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, snacks don't really fit into the plan. First, it's unlikely your snack will fill you up, therefore you're left unsatisfied and will either continue eating or eat more in another hour or so. Second, there are a lot of calories in snacks. This post will explain what I mean in detail. 

To continue with my post series on Facing the Fear—of Panic Attacks, I delve into my experience with graduation ceremonies. This has been a rollercoaster experience for me and I hope it inspires you to take action against your own fears. 

Holiday breaks completely throw me off my game, which means getting back to my normal routine is very appealing. Here are my tips on how to get back into the swing of things and enjoy the process instead of clawing for that end result. Happy 2018! 

I need to plan my novels. I don't want to be formulaic but for the sake of sanity, a formula for writing a novel is helpful. This is how I've planned my novel for my PhD.

Hey, it's been awhile since I posted so I decided to do something a bit fun, unrelated to fitness or mental health. It's almost December, the sun sets in Edinburgh at 3:45 PM (I'm not kidding), and it's effin' freezing outside. Here's how I handle the cold weather in Scotland and in Connecticut. (For some reason, there's a slight JK Rowling theme here.) 

Three reasons why I don't train abs... but I get abs anyway. 

As promised in my How-To Track Macros post, here I will give you my top tips for tracking while eating out.  

It's just as important to keep your mental health in check as it is to keep your physical health in check. If you aren't taking care of your mind, you could very well end up with a sniff neck, like yours truly. 

Does the idea of saying "Thank you" to yourself sound weird? A little bit, right? 

In this post, I show you how to track your macros. Tracking macros means you're adding up all the protein, carbs, and fats in everything you eat to calculate how many calories you're consuming.

Facing the Fear Series, when I was 19 and asked a stranger beside me to help me. 

During my first-ever conference in Chicago, Illinois, I ended up learning things about myself that I never expected.  

I haven't posted about anxiety in awhile. I think it's just because I've been doing well, so it's not really crossed my mind as much. Instead of overthinking things daily or bi-daily (if that's a word), it only happens when I'm doing something completely new. 

Pre-workout isn't as commonly known as protein powder. I didn't know about pre-workout until I started following "fitspo" YouTubers on social media. They'd put a scoop or two of pink powder into a glass of water and chug it before the gym. Normally it comes in tubs with neon labels and a list of gibberish ingredients meant to turn you into a lifting machine for an hour. Intense right? Well, it isn't as intense as it sounds!