Is it Wednesday Yet?

Full disclosure: it's been a bad string of days for me. Last Wednesday was my last excellent day, and it's all gone downhill from there. I won't bore you with the grisly details, but that's mainly because I don't want to see the grisly details in writing!

Yesterday was so-so. I didn't track everything at the end of the day, but I think I stayed just barely within my limits, or just over. Today was looking good until I was blindsided by goodies at work. Cookies galore! Chocolate chip (from my mother in law), peanut butter, snickerdoodle....yum. Naturally, I've been indulging. The weather is blah, I'm exhausted, feeling down, and I've been attempting to fix it with cookies. It's not working. Go figure. Now I'm feeling more exhausted, more down, AND I'm sugar-crashing on top of it all.

Is it Wednesday yet? I need a new start and a hug. I'll leave you with a less-than-professional (read: taken by my iPod) look at the goodies directly behind my desk. Happy Tuesday?

Little Victories

In the past several days since my last post, I've been a little dumbfounded as to what to write about next! By all stretches of the imagination, I live a fairly normal, average daily life, and nobody really wants to hear about that, now do they? I mean, compared to most healthy living bloggers, I'm downright boring. I'm not making a new, healthy recipe every day, nor do I even get a chance to work out every day! I have an active 9 month old daughter, I work three days a week, and I eat a lot of leftovers. I work out when I can, and even then I'd much rather do a whole lot of things instead of working out.

All that left me a little short on blogging words. What can I say about this "journey" when it's only just begun? I've gone over my goals, and I don't really want to post a blog every day that's just like the day before. "I drank 8 cups of water today! Yay!" that's all well and good, but it doesn't feel like enough.

Then this morning (walking out of the restroom, since we all know the best thinking happens in there), it hit me: little victories. I think it's something that SparkPeople.com promotes, celebrating those little "healthy streaks" and small victories along the greater journey. So today I will celebrate a little victory: tracking!

I have tracked my food intake, to a T (or as close as possible) for at least the last 5 days, and for me, that's a huge deal! I have a tendency to track only my good days, conveniently forgetting all those extra calories consumed on the side. I was brutally honest on Friday, tracking every last thing that I ate at my in-laws, and lo and behold, I consumed 1,000 more calories than my budget allows. Once in a while, that's okay, but every week? That's a lot of extra calories, especially if it happens more than once. As a result of having tracked all of this information, I was able to use my handy-dandy loseit.com app to see what my week looked like overall.  With a bit of compensating (and a well-placed, killer Jillian Michael's workout on Saturday), I found that over the course of the entire week, I had only gone 100 calories above my weekly caloric budget!

I guess you could say this encompasses two "little victories" for me: the first being my consistent tracking, and the second being that I only overate by 100 calories.  I've been a pretty big overeater the last few months, so it's a nice "you can do this!" reminder for me.  The other good thing that comes out of this knowledge is that I've been much less likely to "throw it away."  In the past, I would have looked at those extra 1,000 calories I ate on Friday (Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks, by the way), and considered the weekend/my diet a complete wash.  Saturday would have been filled with lots of snacky, cookie-food, I would have felt like a failure, and it would have been that much harder to get back on the wagon.  Instead, I can look at my entire week and see that though I threw on an extra 1,000 calories on Friday, overall I only consumed an extra 100 above my budget.  That's much better news, in my opinion!  I was able to balance it out between exercise, and the days when I ate a little bit under the budget.

So hurray for victories like these!  When people say "it's the little things," they're pretty much always right.  What will I do now?  I'm going to take these newfound victories and run with them.  It's like something clicked when I realized all of this, and all of a sudden I realized that I am much more in control of my calories than I thought.  It's easy to feel out of control, between having Amy, working, keeping the apartment "clean" (HA!) and dealing with various other issues.  It's nice to be reminded that it is within my power (and with the help of God!) to reach these goals.  Thank goodness!

Happy Tuesday!

What's Your Kryptonite?

If you're even remotely familiar with the Man 'o Steel, Superman, you should know that his one debilitating weakness is Kryptonite. That weird, glowy, green crystal stuff from his home world. Or something like that.

I, of course, am not Superman (though I hope sometimes I pass for SuperMom), therefore I have countless more weaknesses than he does.  My Kryptonite, however, is sugar.  I can have a serving of chips without too much problem, but present me with a package of EL Fudge cookies and I'm toast.  The double-stuff kind?  You don't even want to know.  I can't buy stuff like that, solely because I either lack self-control, or I choose not to exercise it.  I prefer to tell myself that I simply lack that self-control-around-cookies gene, but the truth is, I am capable of saying the word "no," and meaning it.  I think that while compulsive and/or emotional eating happens a lot (to me, and others), sometimes I am knowingly making that bad decision.  I've even gone through the process of asking myself, "Am I hungry? Do I need to eat this? Can I eat just one?" and then answered, "No? Oh well, I want a cookie anyway."  And there goes the package.  Not in one sitting, but in far less time than a package of cookies (or chocolates, or sweets...) should disappear.

The simple solution to this appears to be this: DON'T BUY THE STUPID COOKIES!  The problem?  I don't stay in my home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Sometimes I venture out into the real world (gasp), and three days a week, I go to work.  In this real world, Kryptonite-candy can lurk around any corner.  This week in my office, a bag of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups has been lurking in the closet, mere feet from where I sit.  Normally, this information is enough to keep me moving all day; not because I want to get more exercise, but because I want to get more peanut butter cups!  I rarely stopped at two or even four....and of course I always regretted it.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but the sad truth is, I'm not.  It makes my teeth ache a bit to think about how much sugar I've consumed.  My mother-in-law makes these delicious, frosting-stuffed sugar cookie sandwiches around the holidays, of which I'm sure I've consumed dozens.  As you can see, I have a bit of a problem here! 

Here we have one of the biggest things I would like to work on in this journey to health: choose to exhibit self-control when it comes to sweets, but also with food in general.  My three days of work this week went pretty good. On Monday and Tuesday, I stopped myself at two Reese's mini-cups.  Yesterday, I had one cup, and one cookie, but I had to remove a healthy food (yogurt) in order to fit the cookie into my calorie budget.  In retrospect, the cookie was tasty, but it wasn't my favorite kind.  Was it worth giving up my healthy yogurt, something that was bound to keep me satisfied longer?  Honestly, not really.  I've learned a valuable lesson here, but only through making self-control a habit, an automatic reaction, will I really get on the road to conquering this weakness.

How do you maintain self-control around your so-called "trigger foods?"  Do you just ignore it, eat something else, or do you have some other method?  My method this week was to drink lots of water, which did take the edge off, but it was a real battle.  It's something I'll need to conquer to get to my goals, though, and I think that makes the battle worth it.

All this sweet-talk has me thinking chocolate. I'd better go have a glass of water! Over and out.

A History of Weight Gain

The baby's napping, so I might as well get cracking on my back-story while I can!  As I said in my previous post, there *was* a time when I was well on my way to my healthy weight.  From 2009-2010, I lost about 40 pounds, had some pretty excellent eating habits, and exercised almost every day.  I dabbled a bit in the Couch to 5K program, but never really became a "runner." I think at best I could run 3-5 minutes, but any movement is better than none.  We had a recumbent bike that I used quite a bit, and also utilized some Tae Bo and Jillian Michaels/Biggest Loser DVDs.

Somehow, all of these great habits came to a grinding halt when I started my current job in September of 2010.  My work day shifted from a 9-5, Mon-Thurs. schedule to a 10-6 Mon-Fri. schedule, and for some reason I just stopped exercising.  In the beginning I assumed I would just exercise in the morning, since I was losing an hour of my evening, but that never happened.  I simply slept a little later, said "Oh, I'll exercise tonight" and got around to it MAYBE once a week, which eventually devolved into "never-per-week."  As a result, from September 2010-January 2011, I put on about 20 pounds.

Then, in early January 2011, I got pregnant.  I found out on February 11, and of course vowed to eat better and start exercising again.  I vowed these things, until, of course, the first trimester nausea kicked in, and all I could stomach every morning was Cheerios. For a while it was Cinnamon Cheerios...which now the thought of them makes my stomach turn.  Never. Again.  I was lucky, I never actually threw up, but it was a good solid 13-14 weeks of morning nausea.  I'd have enough in me to shower and make breakfast and get ready for work, but then for an hour before I left all I could do was lay on the couch and hope I wasn't going to vomit.  Those were some fun days, I tell ya.

Through the pregnancy I was rarely active, developed a good bit of low back/sciatic/hip pain, and then had severely swollen feet and ankles for the last month to month-and-a-half, which seriously limited my desire or ability to go for a walk, never mind stand up and cook a healthy meal. I seem to remember a lot of macaroni and cheese and spaghetti? I'm not sure, most of my pregnancy is a fog as far as those details go.

I know that most women don't enjoy the last month (or four) of pregnancy, and I was right up there with them, however a couple of things happened which really complicated things.  There was the usual pregnancy-related pain and swelling I described, but there were also a lot of very emotional things happening.  On August 28th, my mom called to tell me that my grandma and grandpa were on their way to the hospital because my grandpa wasn't acting right.  Over the following week, he was sent home and later returned to the hospital, and they eventually discovered that he had experienced a series of small strokes.  He was eventually transferred to a rehabilitation center, and around the time of his transfer, my father was also hospitalized.  Here they were, father and son, both in the hospital.  This all, of course, brought a great deal of anxiety and stress on us all as a family, and I remember a lot of emotional eating going on in the midst of it.

The details that follow are part of a much longer and more complicated, emotional story, which I may or may not share in full in the future.  Bear in mind that these details of my father and grandfather were all happening at the time time, even though I'm stating them separately. It's impossible to separate the details chronologically.  The long and short of it is that my grandfather didn't do too well in the rehab hospital.  We were unsatisfied with his care there, and eventually he was transferred back to the hospital. Meanwhile, the doctors could not figured out why my dad was feeling so terrible. It had been a very difficult year for him health-wise, but doctors had not yet figured out what was happening to him. Over the course of a week he was first admitted to the Beverly Hospital Cardiac ICU, and then transferred to Mass General's Cardiac ICU, about a day or two before my baby shower on September 10, 2011.  I went with my mom and grandma to see him after the shower, and at the time there was hope for improvement.  All of this came to a crashing, shrieking, grinding halt on September 12, 2011.  That afternoon, my father passed away from cardiomyopathy due to Becker's Muscular Dystrophy.  He was surrounded by his family, myself included, and he was conscious and lucid several hours before his passing.  I don't know that I properly said goodbye, because I think I refused to believe that was what needed to be done. But that's another story for another time.

Three weeks later, on October 7, 2011, my grandfather, whose health had not improved, and whose heart had been completely broken by the loss of his own son, also passed away.  I was with him the day before his passing, and even though he was not conscious, I was able to say goodbye.  He passed in hospice care that Friday morning.  He and my father are both buried in the same cemetary, with just one plot between them.

On October 16, 2011, we welcomed a bit of sunshine and joy into our lives in the form of Amy Danielle, named for my dad, Daniel.  There were some non-life threatening complications, and it wasn't the perfect hospital stay that I expected, but everybody was okay.  Since then, there have been ups and downs, and I've experienced quite a bit of sleeplessness and some severe postpartum depression.  I'm sure you can imagine how complicated it must be to sort out such great loss, followed by joyful birth, in the midst of sleep-deprivation and postpartum hormones.

All of these things, this "brief" history I have compiled for you, have brought me the place I stand today.  I am unhappy with my weight, none of my clothes fit well, and I am not the joyful, confident woman I used to be.  I have a beautiful, sweet, darling little girl who is my sunshine and my joy, and who I want to stick around for. I have a loving husband who cares for us and supports us, and I'd like to stick around for him  as well.  That is why I am on this mission to lose the weight and finally get healthy.  For me, for Amy, for Adam.  I have struggled with my weight my entire life, and I don't want Amy to have that experience. I also don't want her to lose her mother from some tragedy like a heart attack.  It's time to get healthy, to improve my life, and don't worry, I'm planning on getting some help for the PPD as well.

I am reminding myself that every day is a new day and that I can do this.  I am also reminding myself (and seeking reminders) that the God I know is a loving God who I can turn to. That is something I haven't done a whole lot of in the past few difficult months, but hope to do a lot more of in the coming months.

So here I am. 30-40 pounds heavier than I was in 2010, 80 pounds heavier than my ultimate healthy weight.  I hope to share my struggles and triumphs with you as I go, as well as chronicle my habits and other life-improvements.

I am a woman on a mission.

Woman on a Mission

Over the last couple of years, I have written only sporadically in this blog.  By sporadically, I mean 17 posts in 2-3 FIVE years. Yikes!  Where did the time go?! I have never written with any sort of specific focus, but I'm hoping to change that.  Why, you ask? Because I'm a woman on a mission.

Ultimately, my long-term mission is to get to a healthy weight and live a healthy, active lifestyle.  Through the years I have made some pretty successful attempts at losing weight. I've never reached my healthy weight, but from 2009-2010, I lost about 40 pounds and had a serious exercise habit going on!  This, my husband often reminds me, is proof-positive that I can do this.

Let me share with you my goals, both short- and long-term:
- Long-term: lose approximately 80 pounds to reach my "healthy weight." This number may change as I get closer to my goal, since a healthy weight is usually a range, not a set number, in my opinion.
- Short-term: lose 30 pounds by November. This is roughly 2 pounds per week, which I've never attempted before.

Along with these goals, I also am aiming to develop (or re-develop) healthier habits, such as tracking my food daily (using the LoseIt! app), drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day (generally tracked via post-it note on my desk, on the days I work), and increasing my intake of fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains, while decreasing my intake of sugar and highly processed foods.

I consider these to be fairly well-rounded goals, however I do know that this will be a long and often difficult road.  Getting into an exercise habit was more simple before I had a baby.  Even then I had difficulty creating the habit, but I know that this time around, I'm really fighting an uphill battle against the circumstances and my own free will (generally, I'm much more willing to sit on the couch than work out!).

In the next post(s) I'll chronicle the road I have traveled to get myself to where I am today.  Feel free to come along for the ride, and of course I welcome any and all encouragement you have to offer!  In this journey, it's helpful to know that one is not alone.

I am a woman on a mission.

Ambitious, Aren't I?

About three weeks ago, I voiced my intention to post here with some regularity. Obviously I am doing pretty awesome with that. It seems like the only time I'm at a computer is at work, and in my job, blogging would be a biiiiiiig no-no. So alas, I am here in the glider, rocking the kiddo, plunking away with my clumsy thumbs on my iPod touch. Good enough for now!

Anywho, Amy is now a mature 6 months and one week old, and she is sitting up pretty well! She's been doing it for about a week and a half, and she gets sturdier every day. It makes for some great photo opportunities (see below)! I just can't figure out where the time went! These have been both the longest and quickest 6 months of my life. It feels like a lifetime ago that she was born. And yet only yesterday. Time flies....but that's all for now. The child sleeps, and so should I. Good night!

A Long, Long Time Ago...

Oh, hello there. Once upon a time, goodness knows how many months ago, I wrote lots and lots of lovely things about being a parent/having a baby.

Ha. Amy Danielle is now 5 months old, and I can definitively tell you that owning a cat absolutely, positively, unfortunately, did not prepare me for having a child.

I really just needed to clear the air, there. I hope to begin posting again with some regularity, but this is just a start.

In the meantime, I'll give you a couple of shots of my little cookie - at birth and more recently. Enjoy!