A New Day

I love that every day is a new day. You get a fresh start every morning. A clean slate. The only problem with that philosophy is that if something bad happens to you, you chalk it up to a bad day and the rest of your day goes to hell. Not so much a fan of that. So on top of every day is a new day, every choice is a new choice. I can choose to not let the fact that I had a rough moment ruin the rest of my day. Living moment by moment, not allowing one bad decision to mean that more bad decisions need to follow. I did that today. We went to the Rennessaince Festival today. For many people that means gorging on food. Thankfully I am not one of those people. However, today was the wine and chocolate weekend. I am nursing, so the wine tastings were out for me, which I am totally ok with. But there was chocolate! There were a few places sampling chocolate, so I had a couple of bites. I even indulged in a chocolate covered strawberry! I had a slice of cheesecake covered in chocolate (that was my big treat, my hubbie got cheese curds). All in all, I ended up doing all right. I allowed myself to have little tastes of things, knowing this isn't a normal day for me. Treating myself in situations like this is ok because I do not overindulge. I had enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, but not so much that I felt sick (which is something I usually do). So I will take my successes today and move on to the next moment. The next choice.

We walked a ton and my feet are sore. However, I am thinking I will try and get up before the kids and walk on the treadmill in the morning. Either that or I will walk during Elise's nap. I watched The Biggest Loser's premier on nbc.com tonight. I didn't even realize it was back on! That show always motivates me so much! I know that the weight loss and progress shown on the show is quicker than it will be for me, but it keeps me going when I feel like I am struggling. While I was watching I realized that for the first time in my life I am THAT heavy! I mean, I know I just had a baby, but some of those women were only a little heavier than me. At my heighest weight (which was the day I gave birth) of 224 put me 100 lbs overweight. I am now, as of this morning, 198.4. The heaviest weight I remember being at non-pregnant was 186. So I am still 12 pounds heavier than my heaviest weight prior to this pregnancy. I am not proud of the fact that I gained so much weight. I am very excited that I have lost as I have already. Last pregnancy I lost 22 pounds right away and then stayed like that for 10 months. Yuck. I am already down 25.6 which is almost halfway to prepregnancy weight.

Oh, and my water goal? I am almost done with my 4th Camelbak of water for the day, plus I had a 20 oz bottle of water at the Festival. So I am counting today as a successful water day as well. And just because it will help me keep things in perspective, I will end with my food intake for the day:

Small bowl of Oatmeal Squares
1 banana
slice of cheesecake dipped in chocolate
1 cheese curd
bowl of white rice w/terriyaki chicken
4 very small pieces of chocolate
1 chocolate covered strawberry
turkey wrap w/shredded cheese, spinach, mayo
leftover chowmein
2 slivers of fudge
1 white chocolate macedamia nut cookie
2 vanilla cookies
1 sugar cookie

Total overload on sweets. Again, I know this was because of the day and it's not normally like that. It also looks a lot worse than I thought it was! So tomorrow I will make sure to go easy on the sweets!

Good Intentions

One thing about good intentions...they don't usually turn out the way you want them to! It's like, sometimes I know that other people do things with good intentions, yet it still irritates me that they are doing it. Same thing with my good intentions to eat healthy and walk...of course I WANT to do them, but taking those good intentions and making them a good reality are two totally different parts of the process.

So after reading Week 2 of Elaine's Corner, I realized that my goals weren't very SMART. Now, I have used the SMART system before and thought I was doing a pretty good job of setting goals. My exercise goal is SMART. I set time frames and it was measurable, however I just didn't do it. Partly because I am still so tired, but that is getting better! I was going to walk tonight but decided to fold laundry instead. So anyway, back to the SMART goal. I know I need to revise my "eat healthier" goal, so here goes.

One thing I know about myself, and probably every single person out there, is that I cannot just overhaul my whole life at once. So I am going to break this down even further. I can't just say I am going to choose healthier foods, because it is still ok to have my treats every once in awhile. I am not going to drive myself nuts feeling guilty for having ice cream cake (last night) to celebrate my good grades this last quarter (still managed an A and a B- even with the new baby!!). The easiest meal for me to eat healthier is breakfast. Today, for example, I chose my Quaker Oatmeal Squartes over the Coco Puffs. Much better, right? I am sure I can still do better than that, but honestly I don't always have much time. I am working on even getting the whole family to have healthier breakfasts. Lunch, dinner, and snacks are where I really struggle. I am going to focus for the next 2 weeks on having a healthier lunch. Choosing whole grains, veggies, and fruits over the processed boxed food like my daughter's favorite: mac and cheese. After 2 weeks of focusing on lunch, I will focus on snacks for 2 weeks. I know that during this process I may naturally start to snack healthier or make better dinners just because I will want to feel better, but they will each have their own 2 weeks for me to really focus on accomplishing them.

So the past 2 days I have spent slaving away in the kitchen. I made 2 great low calorie, low glycemic soups to freeze (it would have been 3 but I ran out of time!). I made a yummy low calorie chow mein (also low sodium!) for dinner. We did top it off with ice cream cake, but like I said before, not gonna beat myself up over it! I also made a batch of peanut butter oatmeal cookies. Today I made tuna hotdish for dinner (only had a small portion of it) and made 2 batches of cookies, sugar and vanilla. Now, the cookies are for my husband and daughter to take in their lunches. Of course I know I will be eating them too, so after today my limit on cookies is 2 per day. I didn't eat much of anything healthy today (my mom was baking too!) so when I got hungry this evening I made myself a turkey wrap with spinach and a little cheese. I know I still need the calories, so again I am still not calorie counting, just making a healthier choice.

Tomorrow is Rennaissance Festival (if the roads aren't closed due to the rivers rising), so that will be my walking. I am bringing the baby to wear in the sling, so I know I will be tired by the end of the day! He gets heavy fast! If I don't end up going, I will walk at least 30 minutes on the treadmill. I know that blogging in the evenings really helps. It also helps to make these a little shorter! I will try to get on here to blog every evening. My evenings are just usually taken up by the little man wanting to nurse the whole time, which makes it difficult to type! So at least every other evening. I don't typically like to journal my food on here, but if it helps more I may end up doing that. Still haven't decided on that one yet. My last goal is water intake. It has to be up since I am nursing, but on days like today having a solid goal amount will make it easier to do. I am pretty sure I HAVE to get at LEAST a gallon a day! I fill up my awesome Camelbak which holds 24 oz at least 4 times a day if I can, sometimes 5. So I will make my goal 5 a day.

I am feeling really good about myself these past few days. I know part of it is catching up on sleep some. The other part is I know my 6 week visit is coming up. Sometime this next week I am going to figure out rewards for my weight loss progress. Once I can figure out how to put tabs on the top of this blog....still trying to figure out how it all works :) Well, I must get some sleep since little man is sleeping now!

Challenge...

Well this challenge seems to be just that, challenging!

I am having a really hard time with making sure I am eating healthier and walking more. I don't know why it's so hard! I still haven't gone to the grocery store! We have so many canned goods in the house so I have been playing around with different things in the kitchen. Most of them involve pasta since we also have a plethera of that in our pantry. I am just trying to clear some stuff out of there. We also have a TON of beans and lentils. I want to make soups, but I need fresh veggies to do that. Which means I need to go to the store. It's so hard to coordinate the two little ones in order to go to the store. We are totally out of milk now, so I HAVE to go tomorrow. I am planning on putting some oatmeal in the crock pot tonight so we have steel cut oats for breakfast tomorrow. That way I don't have to worry about making breakfast in the morning. Mornings have been pretty hectic here.

As for the walking, well I should be walking while Elise is napping. That has been my goal. However, today Sean happened to sleep at the same time as Elise...so I totally took advantage and I crashed for about 1 1/2 hours. I totally needed it! Sean has been pretty much sleeping through the night, but I am still up a lot because he's supposed to be up...I just wake up when he should! Anyway, I am still so exhausted from that, and I guess maybe from the calories being burned by breastfeeding. I haven't weighed myself in the last few days. I know I am not down though, but that's from sodium. I need to flush out my system! I could get up earlier in the morning, but that's tough because I am so tired. I know that if I start walking daily I will have more energy, but it's so hard to believe when you are on the back side of that. It's a tough cycle to be in! If Sean eats early enough tomorrow (would have to be around 6 or so) I will try and get on the treadmill for at least 20 minutes. I should have done it this morning after he went back to bed, but my bed was totally calling my name even though I only got about 10 more minutes of sleep! I am really struggling with how to fit exercise into my day. I need to just do it. My 6 week visit will be next week and I will be given the go ahead to exercise again and I am not going to be ready for it! I wanted to have been walking this whole time so I could start running right away. I am beginning to think that running may actually be a little painful right now...

I am going to try a little harder this week to get back on board. Being done with school for a quarter now will definitely help. I had my last few weeks of school and being really behind in homework weighing over my head last week. This weekend we were out of town. But this is no excuse, especially not for the almost completely empty bag of candy corn that has been mainly consumed by me since Sunday! Yikes! I need to make HEALTHY choices!

Bottomless Pit

That's how I feel today...like a bottomless pit! I can't seem to eat enough to satisfy me. I am drinking lots of water to try and help the situation, but I still seem to be hungry. I did not get to the grocery store today, nor did I get a chance to walk, but I did make dinner. It wasn't the "healthiest" option, but I had a small portion of it and had a salad with fresh from the garden veggies. But then I topped it off with a Hershey's bar (I seriously need to get this junk out of my house!). My day started a little hectic again, I think it will until we get a routine figured out. And I almost didn't get breakfast, so I grabbed the rest of Elise sandwhich from Jimmy Johns from the night before. It was about half a sandwhich. I was so hungry I thought I might pass out! We didn't have anything else easily accessible. So when we came back from the bus stop, I had a bowl of Raisin Bran. Lunch was a huge helping of leftover spaghetti and some garlic bread, with 3 oreos for dessert. It would have been only 2, but there was 3 left in the package, and who leaves 1 oreo?? I mean, come on! Dinner was "crap in a pan" which is something my mom makes. It's chicken and either rice or noodles covered with either alfredo sauce or spaghetti sauce plus whatever else you have in the fridge. I used alfredo sauce since we had spaghetti two nights ago. I put some cheese (not as much as I used to use), chicken broth, cream of mushroom soup, a little ranch dressing, and a little water. I poured that mixture over egg noodles and four chicken breasts that I cut into smaller portions. I took about a cup of the noodle mixture and two small cut up pieces of chicken for my dinner. It was sooo good. I need to figure out the calorie count on it. I am sure it's pretty high. I am going to try and figure out what veggies would be good to put in there and make it lighter. I thought about putting broccoli in it, but my oldest does NOT eat cooked broccoli. So I need to figure out a way to sneak veggies in it without her knowing. I used the other 2 chicken breasts that came in the package to make a topping for salads for lunches the next few days. I just cut the chicken into strips and put it in a pan with some extra virgin olive oil and put some spices on it...so yummy! I usually cook it until it's a little crispy.

So that's my day today. I feel like I ate all day, but I guess I really didn't do sooo bad. Not as bad as I thought, unless I am forgetting something that I ate...oh yeah, I had a blueberry bagel with cream cheese too! I knew I forgot something. I am just trying to listen to my body's cues and eat when I am hungry. Again, the problem is not having healthy options in my house. But getting to the grocery store is tough since I am supposed to be doing homework. I have 10 papers due by Friday, granted they are all short, but still. I have 2 quizes, 1 final, and I have a convention to go to tomorrow. I still don't know how I am going to swing that since I am still breastfeeding and I am supposed to be gone for several hours. It's also downtown Minneapolis. I hate driving downtown. I am really not looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe I just won't go...but then I would probably have to write yet another paper...ugh! I am feeling very stressed out about it right now.

8 Week Challenge: Days 2 & 3

Well my next two days of my challenge were not as great as the first day was. I am still making sure to choose healthier options on most of my foods, but now I am thinking I am eating too much. It's hard to know because I am starving all the time, and I don't know if it's a legitimate hunger or not. I don't know if I am eating too much. I didn't weigh myself this morning due to not enough time to even breathe getting the kids ready to get out the door on time. It was a little frantic at my house today. I was very pissed today, as a matter of fact. I left the house with no breakfast, something I NEVER do these days. I haven't missed breakfast in over a year! So I was really annoyed. I could have tried to find something healthier than Arby's breakfast, but I didn't. It was on the way to my next stop and I didn't have much time. So I ate a greasy, fatty breakfast. Ewww. The rest of my day wasn't much better. Half a pizza at my mom's house (a Tombstone pizza, not delivery) and one and a half Jimmy John subs. Just junk all the way around today! And I am feeling it. I also did not get a chance to walk yesterday or today. Things seem to be soo busy during the day! On the brighter side, I made a homemade dinner last night...granted it wasn't all that healthy, especially when you have two helpings of it. I made spaghetti sauce and put in the crockpot to simmer for the afternoon. Next time I think I will use ground turkey. I may also find a substitute for the noodles...if I remember correctly you can use zucchini instead of half the serving of noodles?? I will have to look it up later to find out. Part of the issue of not eating better is I still haven't made it to the grocery store. That will be my goal for tomorrow. I HATE grocery shopping, but I have to get over it and just go. I planned out my meals for the week yesterday and already had the hubby stop and get Jimmy Johns on the way home today. Ugh...I have to stop that! Not only is it not healthy, but we can't affor it either!

So tomorrow is a new day. I will wake up with a new attitude (well I think I will go to bed with one!) and make sure that it's a fresh start. I will get to the grocery store and I will get a walk in and I will get my homework done...not sure how I will accomplish all of it, but I will!

8 Week Challenge: Day 1

Yesterday I had really high hopes to take a nice long walk with my husband, Elise, and Sean(Neika was at her dad's). However, when Sean's diaper managed to explode on me, I had no pants to wear and was therefore unable to actually go on my walk. I was very sad about that since I had set those goals for myself. Although, I knew it didn't have to happen yesterday, I just really wanted to get out there. So today my husband made sure we were able to go. I went to my mom's house so he could take a nap without me being mad that he was sleeping :) Then afterwards we drove over to Excelsior and we walked about 25 minutes down the trail and then turned back. We turned back mostly because of the bugs, plus Sean was going to need to eat soon. The walk was great. I was pushing Elise in her stroller and she kept putting her hands up and saying "shake your whole body...SUPER FAST!!" which is from the little Disney cartoon show Little Einsteins. So when she would say super fast I would run for about 5 seconds, maybe 10 depending on my mood. She thought it was hilarious. I thought it was wonderful! I really miss running! I can't wait to start up again! So it gave me a small taste of running, which really motivated me. It wasn't hard...now I know I didn't run for long times or distances, but I did do this the whole 25 minute walk back to the car. Probably ever 2 or 3 minutes. I felt awesome that I finally got out for a nice walk.
I also managed to do ok with food, for the majority of the day. I measured out Raisin Bran for breakfast this morning rather than free pouring a bowl of Captain Crunch. I made a HUGE salad for myself to take to my mom's. It had a whole fresh homegrown tomato, half a fresh homegrown cucumber, a handful of baby carrots...it was really good. I allowed myself to have ranch dressing since I can't cut my calories too much. The point isn't to cut my calories at this point in time, but to make healthier choices. So the reason I had the salad was so I wouldn't eat a huge plateful of chow mein at my mom's (it's homemade and lower in sodium than most, and absolutey delish!). I figured out the calories for it, definitely not a high calorie dish, which is good to know! So I had a small serving of that. Then when we went for our walk, I realized that I really hadn't had all that many calories and my lunch was wearing off. So I stopped at a gas station and got a ham and cheese sandwhich. Not the greatest option, but it was something. I wanted to treat myself, so I bought a Skor bar. This would have been totally fine in my book, but then when we went to dinner we went to Adel's which has really good deli sandwhiches. I got a club, which is also delish. I only ate about half my chips. Adel's is actually famous for it's custard. So we couldn't leave without some of course. I got small (usually I would get a large) concrete with snickers. Extra snickers. I am a little upset at myself for getting it, but on the brighter side, it was a smaller size than I normally get, so that's a better choice. I also didn't finish it. So that's another positive. Baby steps.
Now I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow and get some good food back in the house. I need to plan out a menu for the week so that we have dinners all figured out ahead of time. This will eliminate the need to order out or anything for the week.

Goals

So one of the blogs I follow is Roni's Weigh, which actually is the blog that led me to Blog To Lose which is the site that I have been blogging at for the last year and a half, off and on anyway. I was reading up on Roni's blog today and catching up on the last weeks worth of postings since I hadn't been able to read them yet. She had someone else to a posting on goals this week and it looks like she will be posting something there once a week during an eight week challenge. I was actually hesitant to post any goals for myself since I am still within the first six weeks of giving birth. But then I figured that this was a very lame excuse, so I set two goals for myself for the next eight weeks. Eight weeks seems easy enough! If I don't start now, I won't start until I am done nursing. I need to stop being nervous about my milk supply. There are plenty of mom's that workout and still feed their babies. So, that being said, here are my goals for the next 8 weeks.

Goal 1: For the first 3 weeks, I will walk 3 times a week. Then once I am given the go ahead from the doctor, I will start running again. My goal for the last 5 weeks is to get back into training for a 5k at least 3 times a week. I am sooo excited to do this!

Goal 2: I need a food related goal. I know I need to eat a lot of calories, but they don't need to be empty calories. My goal is to eat healthy meals at least 5 days a week. I am not going to kill myself over it if I can't do it 7 days a week, that seems unreasonable. 5 days a week seems reasonable. I need to be making healthier choices for snacks. I have been doing ok, but I have been really craving sweets. No more DQ trips though. They have to stop. I will be making a grocery list to stock up on some healthier options for snacks in the house.

I am planning on starting an excel spreadsheet of my weight progress as well as how often I workout. I am hoping to be able to take that information and see how the exercise affects the weight loss. Not sure how that will all work out, but it will give me one place to track it all daily. I weighed in at 201.8 this morning. So I finally broke through the 202 barrier. I can't wait to be out of the 200s. I really don't like being this heavy. I know that there are moments that it really affects my mood...especially on the days that my clothes just don't fit right. I know I need to give myself time since I just had the baby, but I am very anxious to drop this baby weight.

New Blog, New Start

After having a baby less than 3 weeks ago, I am ready to get back to eating healthy and getting fit. I must say that I did not have the best day today, seeing as how the church was providing our meals for the past couple of weeks as well as my favorite blizzard of the month at Dairy Queen right now. So I did not eat well today. I know that this weekend will be filled with meals out or meals brought in since it is a holiday weekend. With the start of a new school year for my oldest on Tuesday, I hope to get things into a routine rather quickly. I can't wait to get back into running on a regular basis, but in order to do that I have start somewhere, which is walking every day. So with this new start I will have to learn how to eat right all over again, since I still need to eat enough calories to keep up my milk supply, but low enough calories to be able to lose weight. I think that before I get into counting calories, I will work on concentrating on the quality of the food I will be eating.
I am noy really new to blogging, as I have been blogging on Blog To Lose for over a year now, but I have never blogged really on my own. I have started this blog in hopes it will help to keep me on track. I also started one about my family. So I guess we'll see how this goes! I am looking forward to having this outlet to go to during the frustrations and successes of weight loss, eating right, and exercising.