Short Hiatus, Life Overhauls and Adventures in FitBit-ing

I can’t believe it’s been almost 10 days since my last update. I had so many things in my head that I wanted to write about and couldn’t find/make the time to sit down and type them out – so, poof! They’re gone! I should start toting a small notebook around with me to jot down ideas as they come to me… or I suppose I could just utilize that whole “notes” application on my iPhone.

For a while now months now I’ve been feeling like I need an overhaul on.. well.. my life. I posted a list of things I wanted to do/be/accomplish – I’m thinking now may be a good time to review those and see where I am.

Here were a few of the things from my list I posted:

1.       Get at least 7 hours of sleep nightly, and be in bed no later than 1am on weekends, midnight on workdays

2.       Plan meals for the week and shop for that menu

3.       Be more active in general

4.       Workout in the morning before work

5.       Spend Saturday mornings vacuuming/dusting/running laundry

6.       Save more $$

7.       Cut back on drinking/smoking

8.       Make more time for myself and doing the things I enjoy

Number 1: If I’m going to be honest with myself (and we’re all about honesty here – most of the time) the only thing on this list that I have really, truly, successfully accomplished is number 1. I regularly get 7 hours of sleep. 95% of the time I am in bed by midnight on work nights and 85% of the time I am in bed around 1am on weekends.

Number 2: I’ve been terrible at planning meals. There have been weeks here and there where I am on top of it and get it done, but mostly it’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type deal when it comes to dinner. The positive side: I have been regularly cooking and we order out maybe once a month these days, if that. That’s HUGE. We used to order pizza or Chinese at least once a week.

Number 3: I did really well on this at the end of the summer and into the fall. We were even occasionally getting lunch-time walks in once the weather turned colder. Then the holidays hit. On the weekends I do okay – lots of running up and down the stairs doing laundry and whatnot, but the week is pretty pitiful. Oh, and I pretty much quit exercising at the end of October. Because I’m awesome like that.

Number 4: This never happened. Not even once. Being able to get up at 6am to workout and shower before getting myself and my children ready for the day would require not being a social addict – ie: staying up until midnight drinking beer/wine and smoking while chatting with husband and/or various friends/family. HA! Fat  chance. I’m pretty depressed about this, actually. There’s just absolutely no reason other than total immaturity and selfishness that I can’t go to bed at 11pm and get up at 6am to do something good for my health, sanity, and body image. We’ll work on this.

Number 5: HA! Ha, I say! This falls along the same lines as number 4… only number 5 did at least happen a few different times. Nothing close to on-the-regular, mind you. Again it comes down to being willing to not make social time priority until the wee hours Friday nights in order to be able to get up and function on Saturday mornings.

Number 6: We are getting there. Slowly, but surely. We’ve cut back on eating out a LOT. I’m more conscious of my spending on groceries, and have cut back on going out to bars/restaurants for socialization quite a bit as well. We’ve had several new financial responsibilities pop up over the last 6 months, so nearly all of the money we’re saving on our cut-backs are being funneled to that – but a small portion does go into savings. This is a process, and I am definitely the biggest culprit when it comes to careless spending but I’m working hard every day to fix that.

Number 7: Since the weather has gotten significantly colder (and also since the baby got sick and then I got sick), it’s been easier not to smoke as much (7 cigarettes in the last week!). I’ve cut back on drinking compared to the summer. Again, not quite as fun to sit on your porch with a cold beer if it’s 28 degrees outside. I’m being much more responsible with it though.. slowly, ever so slowly, working toward those get-up-early goals listed earlier. Baby steps.

Number 8: ….  BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!! No, but seriously. I need to get on this before I reach the point where my husband will have to have me committed. I feel like this will be so much easier to do once I start getting everything else in my life/home organized and in order. I won’t have to feel guilty about taking time for myself because I won’t have to worry that I’m leaving Mike behind with whiney, messy children and a pile of housework on top of it. I also need to dump the Mommy Guilt and realize that I cannot possibly be the best wife and mother I can be if I’m run ragged all the time. Truth?

So I guess it is safe to say I am still working on all of 8 things to do/be/accomplish. And those 8 things were just a sampling from the list I wrote out back in June. I don’t feel like I can/should add anything at this time. I’ll just work on mastering at least one other thing from the list, aside from the getting enough sleep. But I’m leaving that one on there because, even though I know 100% is not necessarily a realistic goal, I feel like I should at least be at 98% for work nights AND weekends. Maybe I should explore why I feel like I’m somehow “missing out” on fun things if I take care of myself by going to bed at a decent time. (Can we all say “issues”?)

Last week I procured an item which I believe will help and encourage me in my “being active” – I got a FitBit from a friend, and have been wearing it religiously since. I never realize how little I moved during the day until now. 10,000 steps a day.. yeah, nowhere close to that. Even on weekends. Eesh! It also tracks my daily calorie burn which has been EXCELLENT since I obviously am not a very active person. My average burn is around 2200 – this led me to the realization that I need to push my calories back down to 1800/day. So far so good. We’ll see what the scale says tomorrow. The only bad thing is that it can’t track things like weight lifting, for example. But I track that on MFP which is linked to my FitBit! Nice, eh?

Since we are reaching the end of the month, I will do a quick review of my December goals (spoiler alert: none of them were met):

• Focus on healthy eating - not an entire fail, but there were lots of sweets indulged in (and continue to be indulged in. C’MON JANUARY!!)
• Implement simplified fitness routine - *loud buzzer noise* FAIL
• Start doing yoga with James – I’m incredibly disappointed in myself for this one. Absolute and total fail and I think a lot of the issues we had with him this month could have been resolved by just making this happen, even if it had only been once or twice a week. *sigh*
• Get those burpees in for 100 burpee challenge – I did excellent on this for the first 15 days. Then the baby got sick. Then I got sick. Then Christmas happened. FAIL.

It’s okay. We aren’t just coming up on a new month, we are coming up on a new YEAR. I am still young, and still have plenty of time to seize my destiny!! A little dramatic? Perhaps. I'm hoping to really get a firm grasp on what it means to be a Real Live Adult in 2013. And, as always, I shall be spewing about that journey here. As sporadic as the spewing may be. Stay tuned!

Positive Thoughts

A good thing about losing weight slowly is: limited stretch marks.

Normally I would have them all over my hips and thighs. Not so this time around since I'm going at a snail's pace a slow, but steady pace.

Real update coming soon, Dear Readers. Have faith in me.

Priorites. I don't got 'em.

Soo-prise! Soo-prise!

Guess what didn’t happen last week?! 30 Day Shred.

Instead, on Thursday, I drank 4 glasses of Malbec and watched the meteor shower. Then Friday… I can’t remember what I did Friday. I think just sat in front of the tv. Saturday during the day I did Christmas baking and tried to get the house organized. Sunday… I did nothing. I thought about working out for a brief moment, and then decided a nap would feel better.

Priorities. PRIORITIES!

My Christmas treat splurges led to a 1 lb gain last week, as well. Pretty bummed about that. That week of being under 190 was pretty fantastic… but alas:

Official weight @ 12/14/2012: 191 lbs.

This week, the baby has been super sick. This also means I'm functioning on very little sleep. How little? Let's just say I seriously considered just doing 30 Day Shred at 3am the other morning.. just to "get it in". That would never be a good idea, and would only seem like a good idea when either a) totally drunk, or b) totally sleep deprived.

Some good news: I've only had 1 cigarette in the last going-on 4 days. I didn't make a conscious effort to quit, nor am I deciding to make any conscious quitting effort - but if I can get through this week/weekend without feeling the need to suck down half a pack of cigarettes while consuming alcohol, we'll go ahead and call it "success".

Another unexpectedly positive side-effect of baby sickness: I have eaten under 1800 calories all week. Which is honestly where I probably should be since I haven't been active, like, at all for the last 6 weeks. Almost all of those foods have also been healthy, whole foods. GO ME.

But seriously... I need Nolan to recover from this Dreaded Sickness. We're all miserable and exhausted and about to seriously lose our cool over some really superficial stuff. Me especially. I wanted to punch a wall when I realized someone had eaten the last hamburger bun today. I mean, I'm a pretty high-strung person, but that's pushing it even for ME.

I think I've reached this point where I'm pretty much just going to try to push through the Holidays without gaining 10 lbs, and pick back up that whole exercise thing after the New Year. Perfect time, right? If I get the random motivation to start 30 Day Shred between now and then, then so be it. But I'm tired of beating myself up over it when things are so busy and stressful. Part of this feeling is a bigger more helpless feeling that what I've gotten into here - but that's a whole other post which will probably go up later this week.

Stay tuned!

Thoughts and Prayers

I'm sure most of you have already heard, read, and seen all you can possibly take of the tragic events that happened on December 14th in Newton, Connecticut.

The only thing I will say here is: thoughts and prayers for all of the victims, families, and community of Newton. But, I would also like to say thoughts and prayers to Ryan Lanza, who has also lost two of his family members and is probably dealing with an unimaginable amount of anger and hatred toward him for his brother's actions.



For my own sanity, I will be returning to my regularly scheduled blogging after today. Life must go on, and I've spent the last three days mourning over this event.

Calipers and Estimated Body Fat %

I went ahead and purchased a body fat caliper this week. For $5 I figured “Why not?” and it’s a heck of a lot more accurate than trying to calculate on tape measurements alone.

Official Estimated Body Fat Percentage @ 12/12/2012: 32.5%

I will take it again January 1^st to get my beginning measurement for 2013 – the year during which I will meet my goal weight of 160 lbs. I hope to also reach my goal body fat percentage in 2013 – that number currently being 24%. 

Wednesday on my lunch break I went ahead and picked up 30Day Shred and am hoping to start it tonight. I use the word “hope” because Mike has a work function this evening until 8pm and so I will be in charge of getting both the children to bed. I was also in charge of this seemingly easy task last night, but when you have a child like James… few things in the world of parenting are easy. Mike went out to get a new suit jacket for this event tonight… he didn’t home until after 10pm. James’ bedtime is 8pm. We began our bedtime process with screaming and yelling a our first time-out right around 7:45… our last time-out finished just before 9:30… and the BILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF TRILLIONS of questions finally stopped shortly before 10.

*dies*

So I hope to start 30 Day Shred tonight – but this will only happen if I can actually get James to go bed when he’s supposed to go to bed. Because I’m not crazy enough to start a workout at 10pm. No thank you.

If all else fails, I’ll get it started Sunday or Monday. (Famous last words)

Halfway, Lazy Workouts

Yesterday I ate so many Christmas treats it was ridiculous. I had finished dinner and had barely any calories to spare, but this did not prevent me from indulging in the deliciousness that is Danish butter cookies.

You know the kind. They come in that delightful blue tin, you can only find them around this time of year. Pure. Heaven. Their only saving grace: they are made from real ingredients. No high-fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated soybean oil in these suckers. Just wheat flour (notice how I did not say “bleached” or “enriched”), butter, sugar, coconut, eggs, salt, baking powder and vanilla. I wish I could say the same for my other splurge: See’s candies. There is currently a three pound box of those evil things living in my office kitchen. I’ve been pretty good about only eating 3 or 4, and trying to go mostly with the DARK chocolate variety… but when you’re talking 210 calories of assorted chocolates a DAY. Well, that adds up. And even dark chocolate loses it's nutritional positives when it's filled with ooey, gooey, chewy, nutty yumminess inside.

Part of me feels like, “Hey, it’s the holiday season. It’ll be over in less-than-two-weeks. This is about the only time of year you really indulge on sweets. Give yourself this.” But then I remember that I can’t even give myself the “you earned this” excuse – because I haven’t earned it at all! I’ve been completely off my exercise routine for nearly 2 months now! Now, if I had been working really hard, keeping up with my routine, upping my weights, etc etc – YES. EAT THE CANDY. I would deserve this splurge! But I haven’t done any of that. I’ve been supremely lazy.

So I’m logging my calories, I’m realizing I will probably also have a beer or a glass of wine (or two) at my mom’s later in the evening and that will add a couple hundred more calories to my already almost-limit… and then, there it was, out of nowhere: an ever-so-slight glimmer of motivation to get off my butt and put down the cookies and go workout.

I started by banging out my 11 burpees for the day (SO. HARD.). I had to break them up into 2 sets, but I got them done. Then I sort of goofed off for a few minutes while I got James into the bath. But THEN I put my workout clothes on, headed to the basement, and thought to myself, “Today I start my simplified workout plan.”

…but I had left my phone upstairs. Which is where I have my notes for my simplified workout. And I was too lazy to go all the way back up to my bedroom to get it. Surely I could remember it – no big deal.

WRONG.

My brain doesn’t function as well as it did before birthing another child and then dealing with two children on a daily basis. Ie: I can’t remember anything. Ever.

So I did about 5 minutes of HIIT doing fast jumping jacks and then jogging in place for my “rest” – 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off. Sadly enough this made me feel like I was going to die. Then I followed that with 2 supersets of 10 squats/push-ups and then some abdominal work. I did a little stretching to wrap it all up, which made me realize I need to get on that yoga kick soon – my flexibility is so bad right now. All-told, I did about 20 minutes of vigorous exercise. Nothing to get too excited about. But at least I did it. I got it done. I didn’t really push myself (with the exception of the burpees and HIIT – all 7 minutes it took to do those things lol). Laziest. Workout. Ever. But at least I did something and I’m feeling those push-ups and abs a bit today which means it was enough to get things going again.

I’m super mad at myself for going so long because now it feels like I need to start all over. As much as I hate her, I’ve really been thinking about doing Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I’ve seen so many amazing results from some of my MFP friends, and the forums are full of 30 Day Shred success stories. Plus it’s a 5-6 days a week thing with workouts clocking in at around 20-25 minutes. Short workouts, combined with near-daily workouts might help me get better about “sticking with it”.

Or it could just be a waste of $6. They are on YouTube for free… but I have a really old computer with a small screen and would rather just “waste” my $6.

Who knows?!

Anybody out there tried the 30 Day Shred? Thoughts? Advice? 

Little Victories

Friday I stepped on the scale to see:

Official weight @ 12/7/12: 189.8 lbs

It’s not by much, but this is the first time I’ve been under 190 lbs since Fall of 2009. That’s 3 years. I’m pretty excited, especially after stalling in the 190’s for almost 6 months.

Non-Scale Victory: wearing my size 16 Gap jeans that at my goal weight were my “fat” pants, then became my “just fit” pants when I started gaining after my wedding. I haven’t been able to fit into these pants since late 2008/early 2009. Not only do they fit, but they fit comfortably. I’m feeling super stoked about this.

I hope all of this will act as motivation to work hard to eat clean more often. Aside from Taco Bell on Tuesday last week and a few minor splurges on Christmas treats, I did really well with my food choices. My Qdoba addiction is still strong, but I don’t feel like that is nearly as bad because it’s FRESH food at least – not total frozen processed crap… just a-little-bit-processed crap. lol

The 16 danish butter cookies last night may have been a little extreme... but they still fit into my calories for the day, amazingly enough. 

Here we are, the second week into December and I still can’t seem to get back on the exercise bandwagon. I’ve reached another “I don’t wanna” phase. And now I’m looking for the quick fix. I’m on the lookout to spend money I shouldn’t on workout DVDs, books, etc. Maybe it’s about me finding something fun I will actually stick with, but most of the time I think it’s just another Jess-starting-something-she’s-never-going-to-finish type thing. That seems to be the only thing I’m actually really excellent at: finding some project or goal, starting the process, and then quitting part of the way through.

I’m not doing so hot on the burpee challenge – on the weekends I always forget, and then the catch-up kills me. I had to do 17 on Sunday in order to catch up to the challenge day. I did 6 in the morning, and then could only get through 3 later in the day. I think 9 or 10 is where I tend to putter out. But you know what? I’m going to do those 10 every day until I can push to 11… maybe this challenge for me is more about seeing if I can just do burpees for 100 days – not necessarily being at a fitness level where I can bang out 100 burpees in one day.

I walked again at work today. I kept hearing how bad this winter was going to be since last winter was so mild, and, yes, we have already had some really bitter-cold, nasty days. But for the most part, it’s been pretty tolerable. This is good since these short walks on my lunch break are about the only activity I’m getting lately. Warm weather or not, the shorter daylight hours are killing me and my fitness routine. I’m proud for the small improvements I’ve made on my food choices and eating habits, but I know that exercise is an important piece to this lifestyle change, and I still stress over feeling like I’m almost a full year in and there’s no reason I shouldn’t/couldn’t have hit my goal weight by now. The only thing holding me back is me and my lack of willpower to make myself do what’s healthy and best for my body.

Speaking of stress – I put one of my priorities and goals for this month to do stress-relieving activity and to spend more time with James in doing those activities. I’ve done none of this so far and I am at an almost-constant boiling point. I’ve had more explosions and breakdowns in the last 2 weeks than I think I’ve had in the last two years with the exception of the 2 weeks during my pregnancy where depression hit me full force and I started counseling – and even that wasn’t as bad as this. Only this isn’t depression  so much as it is just outbursts of either anger or crying. In between I feel pretty okay, but it’s almost like anything can set me off. This just leads me back around to feeling like I need to just make myself exercise. I will feel so much better, my stress level will be much more manageable.

It’s almost like someone who’s bi-polar and won’t take their meds… you know it makes you feel better, you know it makes life easier, but you think somehow you can just be “normal” without it. And for me that is obviously not the case.

I’m hoping the new year will give me new hope and excitement to get this done. I won’t have a newborn baby, so there will no longer be that excuse. I’m hoping 2013 will bring lots of good changes for me and my life, but somehow I think the lengthening of daylight hours offers more relief and encouragement for good choices than anything else… and that is only 12 days away!

The Stress Toll

The piling and piling of stress that I didn’t even recognize as stress finally broke me on Monday, ending in a pretty pitiful mess of raging at my husband and saying terrible, mean things to him (…maybe that’s where James gets it from – not that he was there or anything!!), driving like a crazy woman as if I had a death wish, eating lunch alone at my mom’s house while crying into my burrito bol, and then finally going home to tearfully babble on and on about how I can’t do “this” anymore. What “this” is, I’m not entirely sure. I guess… everything, maybe?

It’s a pretty terrible place to be when you feel like you simply cannot “do it all” any longer. The realization that you never really could, were just sort of playing pretend at being a Real Live Adult, and that you have absolutely no tools to manage stress and depression while working full time, mothering full time, house cleaning full time, chefing (totally not a word) full time, taxiing full time - laundering, food shopping, schedule-keeping-up-with full time.

That’s like a 168 hour a week job…s.

It kind of makes me feel like I want to say: Fuck you, feminists. It didn’t work the way you thought it would. You wanted us (your daughters and granddaughters) to feel as if we COULD do it all… and now we are stuck in a world that tells us we SHOULD do it all. And by should, I really mean MUST.

Gone are the days where it was perfectly acceptable to expect one’s husband to be the sole provider for the family. My husband, personally, would have his feelings deeply hurt by that notion. As if it would take some miracle for him to possibly be able to handle the stress of being the only source of income for his family.

-.-

Do you see how sorry I feel for him? Can you FEEL my sorriness pouring through your screen? My OVERWHELMING SYMPATHY?!

Be a fucking man. There’s a reason it’s called “man-up” and not “woman-up”. You are the provider. You provide. It is what God intended for you. It is what biology designed you for. Quit being a whiney baby.

Oops. There I go, being mean again. Apologies.

This is not a “I should be able to stay at home if I want to” conversation, though. This is a “I do it all and I do it all all the time and am allowed to be upset about that once or twice a year when life is so overwhelming I just wish I wouldn’t wake up tomorrow” conversation.

I am allowed to feel feelings. And I deserve to be happy. The problem is: I have no idea what will make me happy.

I know coming home to a disaster of a home every night after work doesn’t make me happy. I know spending my evenings and/or my weekends making that home clean just so 24 hours later it will be destroyed doesn’t make me happy. I know having to squeeze in my grocery shopping at 9 or 10 o’clock at night or amid the madness of every other human being on the planet that does their grocery shopping at 10am on Saturday or Sunday morning doesn’t make me happy. I know staying up until midnight (or later) every night just to get some goddamn peace and quiet and then still getting up at 7 in the morning for work and/or my children doesn’t make me happy. I know cooking… makes me happy… but cooking the same 3 or 4 meals every week because the idea of trying to find an hour or two to actually plan out a menu and shop for that menu and then assume that my children would give me 45 minutes of peace after getting home in evenings in order to prepare the meals on that menu, none of which would ever happen – DOES. NOT. MAKE. ME. HAPPY.

Things that make me “happy” right now (I put these in quotes simply because they don’t make me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork…I’m not sure if that really constitutes happiness):

-drinking lots of wine

-drinking lots of beer

-drinking lots of wine and beer

-sitting on my porch smoking cigarettes (so healthy)

-going out and being social, pretending as if I have no real responsibilities in life

-shopping (not for groceries)

These “happy” things are sad, sad happy things. Pitiful, sad happy things.

Part of me knows that if I would make a real effort to clean up my eating and do something physical daily, it would help to control these feelings of being overwhelmed and depressed - but when you're in the middle of all of that it seems a little hopeless. And to describe the intensity of the lack of motivation is nearly impossible. The lack of motivation is staggering.

Mike asked me the other night to really think on what would make me happy. That he would do anything he needed to do to allow me to do what makes me happy. But I don't know what that is. And I think about it, and it feels like all of the things I come up with are just really shallow and selfish things - and I think, those things won't really make me happy. It just seems like that would make me happy now because it's the opposite of everything I'm currently living.

So in feeling all of this, I called to schedule an appointment with my counselor... well, she apparently is not currently practicing. She's on an indefinite hiatus.

God must be testing me. This must be a trial to see how/if I can keep it together and not just lose my mind completely.

So on top of all of this crap, I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck... the idea of facing the world was not an option. I worked from home, I hit from the world in my bed.. and I thought to myself, "This. This makes me happy." But that is definitely a lie. Being a big blob of do-nothing is not happiness. It's just having some time to myself... which I don't get much of out of either my own doings and because I live with 3 other people. So you know what I'm going to go do right now? I'm going to go take a shower. Because I can. Because right now there is no one else here that needs me to do something for them, or "watch this", or answer a billion questions.