Feeling Good.

I am feeling soo good a few days into eating better/less. I know the weight watchers honeymoon won't last forever but for now I am doing well. It is reminding me of how hard it is to stock your food because I feel like I cant just eat anything out of the cupboard. I am trying to avoid buying 100 calorie packs and anything too processed. My grocery budget does not have a lot of wiggle room so I really need to plan. That is really the part I do not miss, having to plan everything that goes into my mouth. The baby is getting up sooo early lately. 5:30am is just not nice :( I am so grateful that I have such a supportive husband who takes his job as a dad/husband very seriously. I do not know what I would do without him <3

Back on the WWwagon.

A great friend of my recently sent me her weight watchers plus materials including the new points plus calculator. WW has been the only strategy in the past that has shown results for me. I am going to give it another go. I am combining ww with weekly goal setting. I found a goal chart in some healthy eating materials that my husband brought home from his nutrition class at work. It have 2 weeks of boxes and spots for 5 goals. Each day you check off the daily goals that you completed. My Goals - walk 30 minutes a day -get outside/read on my porch -drink 2 bottles of water a day -track my food -eat breakfast Pretty simple goals to hit everyday and although 2 bottles of water is barely meeting the recommended amount of water I should be drinking I wanted to set a goal that I was likely to be able to meet. Right now drinking any water during the day is challenging because I do not even think about it, so 2 bottles is a huge improvement. Now you probably don't know this but I am a huge list maker. I love checking items off of my to do list. I think this goal chart plays into my list making obsession. I know it is time to focus because my weight is not healthy and I am not setting a good example for my son. I feed him all fruit and veggies because I know that it is what is best for him right now, why don't I care enough about myself to eat better? As much as I want to believe that I can not change and the weight will magically disappear the truth is it hasn't happened yet. Right after having the baby I dropped weight at a 2-5lb loss a day. It was so amazing to see the scale go down every single day but in reality that will never happen again. I need to acknowledge that if I want to see change in my body I need to change my lifestyle.

hunger pangs

Is it okay to feel hungry? I have always feared my stomach rumbling like if I didn't eat right away I would starve. So, I know it is important to fuel your body and it is good to eat many small meals a day to keep hunger away but is there anything wrong with feeling a little hungry? Now I am not alluding to starving oneself. What I mean is it might be 10:30 and I am eating lunch around 12 is it okay to wait for lunch? I don't feel faint or sick. Just ever so often my stomach rumbles and I think "oh no I better eat". Instead I am going to try to wait, planning my meal, and eating at 12. Why are we so afraid of being hungry?

Well we lasted a week doing the shred and fell off the wagon on the weekend! It was a start I guess. It is so stinkin easy to lose momentum. I know morning workouts are really the answer for me because once the baby is in bed I am right behind him falling in to my own bed! I can make a thousand excuses not to work out in the morning but the bottom line is that I hate waking up early, it is that simple. You know what else I hate? Being fat. I hate that no matter what size pants I buy, I still have muffintop. If the waistline touches my body, I swear I get muffin top. None of my clothes fit right, most don't fit at all. I am buying clothes I don't even like just because they may hide my muffintop. I hate that. I love clothes, but because of my body I am starting to feel so much anxiety about clothing. I guess I will just sit here and cry about it. This is the shittiest blog ever and I apologize to my readers. I am not motivating or even interesting. I will try harder. I have got to get it together. It is so easy to make plans but so hard to stick to them. I am just trying to keep my head above water being a new mom. My house is constantly a mess and laundry is piled up to the ceiling. I'm not even just sitting her blogging, I am also bouncing the baby in his seat while he sleeps. Thank god for naps. I need to focus on one thing at a time. Today is laundry, I am on my 4th load. Tomorrow I will figure out a workout schedule. I just need to do something active everyday.

Hi to everyone who is too lazy to delete me from their reader.

Just kidding, maybe. Well I am still alive and adjusting to the amazingness that is being a new mom. My son is 4 months old, I cannot believe it. I have finally hit the I need to lose this serious post baby muffintop. It is like my muffintop is on steroids, seriously. I hate it. I hate that there is nothing in my closet that makes me feel good or even okay about my body. I love clothes but nothing looks good right now. I am dressing so boring just in an effort attempt to wear anything that will hide my muffintop (It isn't working, trust me) and I hate it. So I could sit here and wah wah wah but instead I am making a plan. Yeah, I know another plan. Most, ok all of my plans tend to flame out in a matter of days but without a plan I have nothing, so here it goes. I set a challenge, you are going to love this, trust me. I challenged my husband to a 30 day shred off. So here are the rules, the person who shreds the most days in a week "wins" sleeping in on the weekend! Genius, I know. I mean if you know anything about me then you know that the thing I love to do most in the world other than eating, is sleeping. IT. IS. ON. The weeks runs Saturday to Friday, that's when we tally up the days shredded and see who gets to sleep in. If we tie, then we each get a day and we worked our butts off. I am totally sleeping in all weekend :) Wish me luck and I will try to post more, I promise <3

What am I eating?

Well not a whole lot. Ever since I had my son I have struggled with a lack of appetite. Now you may think that is a good thing but the truth is in order to stop my stomach from rumbling I have to eat something and the only things that are palatable to me are carby. I have been eating crackers, chips, toast, and drinking coffee by the gallon(ok not gallon but still way too much). My post baby belly is ridiculous, it is low and smushy and I do not care for it one bit.
I am back at work now, it has been a week and it is going ok but I am so tired. I love coming home to see my son, it is truly the highlight of my day. I hope soon to be back to a regular schedule as he gets more into a routine and going to daycare in the morning is the norm.
My husband is on vacation this coming week and will be finishing the flooring in our small spare room, I plan to put my treadmill up there and use it during the baby's 3-5pm nap. I think his nap will be a good reminder to work out. I know I will feel better once I get more regular exercise in my day. Maybe I will even be able to stay up later than 9pm.

So other than that I am just being a mom and loving it. I really hope to check in more frequently, even if it is just a Saturday weekly check in. This baby belly is not going anywhere until I recommit to my health that is for sure. Without further adieu, my handsome, happy boy.

NYR

My new years resolutions are so different this year. Typically I would list lose weight, drink more water, and exercise which are always goals of mine but this year my priorities seem to have shifted. This year my goals are more family orientated.

1. Be present in my life, enjoy those around me and stop rushing. Times goes too fast as it is.
2. Be more conscious of my health because my son deserves the best role models in his life.
3. Take time to take care of myself.
4. focus on my marriage and show my husband the appreciation the he deserves.
5. Lose the last 10lbs of the baby weight. This is important because right now I hate seeing myself in pictures and I want to look back at these memories without cringing at my appearance! Although 10 lbs may not quite cut it but it is a very manageable goal.

Well they are very open ended and definitely not in a measurable goal format (except #5) But then again it is just an outline for the year!

Life as a mom.

It is amazing how quickly time passes when you have a newborn. Yes, that is right I am a mom complete with a sagging empty belly! A small small price to pay for my amazing son. Now that is not to say that I am not a little freaked out to have the extra baby weight to lose on top of my prior excess.

I will say that I am happy with the amount of weight that I gained with my pregnancy, it was really appropriate. I gained 28lbs and 20 of it was baby! So I am about 8 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. That drops me off around the 200lb mark, most days 199.

I miss my hard round belly and knowing that my son is always with me. I miss looking at my stomach with the pride of knowing that it was holding such an amazing treasure. My body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. I had a shockingly uneventful pregnancy with the exception of gestational diabetes that I was able to control with diet.

Now on to my son Cal, he is absolutely perfect. He was born 7lbs 3oz and 19.5 inches on November 26th. He is a happy healthy boy and he makes me want to be a better person everyday. I am currently on (unpaid) maternity leave until the end of February and I want to make the most of it. I spend my days caring for his every need and I know that one thing he will need his whole life is a healthy mom. I want to be the best role model that I can for him.

Overall I am taking mommyhood in stride and loving just about every minute. My husband is amazing and I don't know how I would do it without him. I love to see him lay on the floor playing with the baby. He has jumped into fatherhood with both feet and is wonderful at it

SO now I need a plan to work on me. With the little guys schedule slowly starting to form I am hoping to figure it out. I am thinking that I can work out in the morning while the baby sleeps after his 6am meal. I am just waiting to get cleared to work out by my doctor. Although I am sure that walking would be ok. I did have an episiotomy so I don't want to push it too much. I think that the place to start will be food, I plan to keep up with my gestational diabetes diet plan because it kept me from gaining too much while I was pregnant. It is basically high protein and lower carb. The main thing that I learned from that diet was that I needed to not skip snacks and cut sugar. I need to focus on planning meals and grocery shopping accordingly to avoid spending too much and blowing the budget.

SO that is update and I will try to post more as I go along! Without further adieu pictures of my son.

This is all I am doing right now.

20lbs 25 weeks.

Holy Moly She's alive!

Yep alive, 18 weeks pregnant with a baby BOY! I am just growing and preparing. I have school break for one more week then I start teaching summer school a couple days a week. So far I am feeling good, no complaints really. I have been really lucky in the morning sickness dept for sure. I can't believe I am almost half way there!

Everything is GREAT!

More belly talk

I am still just hanging about being pregnant. I have been very anxious these past couple weeks because my first ultrasound is this Friday. I am dying to see that everything is ok with the baby and that it is growing well. I will be almost 11 weeks along which is 1 week shy of being in my second trimester! That is a long wait, especially since we found out early at 3 weeks.

I am feeling good, just tired, and I have no reason to worry about the health of the baby. I guess it is just the not knowing whats going on in there. Since I have little morning sickness I have no big signs of being pregnant. Truthfully I feel like everything is fine but sometimes I worry that I have it too easy. So I guess I am holding my breath until Friday, think of me and send positive vibes my way around 3:30pm!!

I will post ultrasound pics as soon as I can!

Cloth

Today's adventure included dropping little Moxie Mayhem my italian greyhound off to get fixed and researching cloth diapers! Very interesting and slightly overwhelming stuff I tell ya. We made the decision to go the cloth diaper route before we even started trying to get pregnant.

It just makes so much financial and environmental sense. We are looking at spending $3-400 dollars (depending on the style we go with) for the entire diapering of our child's life and also any other future children. If went end up with only one child cloth diapers resell for around 75% of the original cost. To put a dollars and cents point of comparison the average child goes through aprox $3000 in disposable diapers. That is about 10x more that cloth.

Cloth diapers get a bad wrap I think. People have not seen the amazing leap and bounds that cloth diapers have gone through. No more pins and folding cloth. They are just as functional as disposables and even come in velcro (I'm going with snaps because they last longer) They also come in one size diapers that adjust as your baby grows. Now this barely scrapes the surface on cloth diapers and there are many other moms out there that know WAYYYY more than I do but I do plan on giving my honest lokk at using them!

life as an undercover prego

SO only a handful of people in my life know I am pregnant at this point, since I am not seeing my Dr until 11 weeks I still have a way to go before we let the news out. I feel like I am constantly exhausted, my house is a wreck, I am moody at work and I can make no excuse (even though I have a good one) I cannot wait until I can finally say "sorry I have been so lazy lately! but I am pregnant"

Did I mention that I had the stomach flu this week? Oh yeah full blown vomiting and diarea. No, it was not morning sickness it was the real deal flu. Bonus, since I am pregnant I couldn't take ANY medicine to help. Pure torture, I wanted to die. I missed 2 days of work (Tues/Wed) and really shouldn't have gone in on Thursday because I was still hurting pretty bad. I lost 3lbs, I thought it was mostly water weight but I still haven't put 2 of them back on.

The most part of being sick was worrying about the baby, I was so afraid. I guess it was my first mommy moment when I realized I would rather choke down water every 10 minutes to stay hydrated for the baby even if it meant I would throw some of it up.

I am feeling much better now but really yesterday was the first day I started to feel like myself. SO far I haven't had to deal much with morning sickness(knock on wood) and I am now 6 weeks pregnant! I hope that I am lucky enough to stay the way!!

In other odd pregnancy news although I am down 2 lbs none of my jeans fit. Holy bloating Batman!

Pregnant!

So I guess if you missed my last post then this one should catch your attention! I am officially 5 weeks pregnant with my first baby! I am so excited I am dying to tell all the people in my life however I have only told a few. I haven't seen my ob yet, apparently they don't see you until you are 8-12 weeks along. I will be seeing a nurse to go over family history etc and getting set up for blood work in a couple weeks. It is truly painful to wait to share such amazing news. Not to mention to explain why I am so tired! I think everyone at work thinks I am staying up all night partying j/k I do wonder if anyone is wondering. I have only dealt with heartburn through out the day and mild queasiness at work (knock on wood) but overall I think I am acting mostly the same if not only moving slowly but getting things done!

I am soo happy and tired : D I can feel that I am very bloated already and my pants are not fitting as comfortably as before. In preparation I have ordered some maternity pants because I carry my weight in my belly as it is. I ordered a couple of work pants that were on sale at Motherhood maternity and scored a couple pair of motherhood maternity jeans on ebay. I knew what size to get because I tried on a pair of my friends and adjusted a size down. One work pair has arrived and I have to tell you they are awesome, so comfy and the fit my legs and bum perfectly. To be honest I look better in them than my other pants!

So my blog may be more baby centered now! I hope you don't mind!

Long time no post!

Sorry I haven't been posting much, life took over! I haven't been focusing too much on diet but just making good choices. BUT that will definitely be on the back burner now because I'M PREGNANT!! So excited! I only found out today but I feel safe sharing it here!!

Sorry MIA

Life is not fair or kind right now. Weight loss is on the back burner. I am struggling through winter blues, money woes, and job dissatisfication. I don't want to post negative nancy posts so instead I am just reading other blogs.