Weeks 6 & 7 Recap {& Week 8 Goals}

Last night my family made me dinner.

I was “on-call” last week – Uriah was gone on a chartered fishing trip for a few days and then he came back and had to work a ton of hours as they had a busy weekend at the resort.  So that left me holding down the fort all week with no end-of-the-day-tag-team-out, which I really do look forward to after having been home all day.  And even though Uriah was at work before 7 yesterday – on the heels of two 12+ hour days in a row, he didn’t complain when I said I just needed some “me time.”  He even took my grocery list and Finneaus this morning and went to the store for me.

I should have gone to the gym last night; I scheduled myself to go to the gym while the humans made dinner because I hadn’t been since Friday.  I didn't go, even though a new month has started and I’ve got to get my time in if I want to get the kick-back our insurance company gives us for going to the gym a certain number of times each month.  It is a lot harder than you would think – this getting to the gym 12 times a month - and honestly, I just have to schedule my gym time or it is too easy to push it off until tomorrow and the next day and the next day.  And clearly, even sometimes when I schedule my gym time I push it off.

So, since I didn't go yesterday, I did go this morning - made myself go this morning; forced myself to go this morning.  I went before my mom's group met in the sunshine around my kitchen table to plan the last of our meetings for the year.  I went even though my kitchen was a mess, even though there were dirty dishes in the sink and the dishwasher needed to be emptied, even though the recycling needed to be taken out and a few breakfast crumbs needed to be swept. I went even though I knew I would come back sweaty and in need of a shower before placing myself in close proximity to women who really don't want to smell my gym smell.

And now here we are.  Three weeks of weight updates, a few frustrations to vent, and some goals.  Week 6 was a wash – I didn't gain or lose anything, but I started focusing more on my running at the gym.  I timed myself to see how long it takes me to run/walk a 5k (3.1 miles) and I've gotten some good running tips from my sister to help me add more running time and less walking time. The last two weeks (Weeks 7 & 8) have been gains even though I feel better about myself and even my pants feel better; I don't think the scale adequately reflects what I'm feeling, so I'm trying to ignore it for now until I have Uriah take my measurements again (it's been a month since I measured last).  I'm just going to keep on keeping on and see where the road takes me.  If I continue to have the same results in the next few weeks, it will probably require a conversation with my doctor, but I'm not going to jump to that yet.

In the scale's defense, I was very lax with my tracking and gym time last week while Uriah was gone…one too many episodes on The Netflix and two evenings of popcorn do not a happy scale make; however, I am watching my calories and so far have not gone over my "allowance," so it is frustrating, to say the least.  I’m not beating myself up about it, this is life and some weeks are easier than others.  Last week just happened to be one of those hard weeks.

So that leaves me my goals for this week, Week #8 and they are as follows:

• No caffeine.  This is partly to do with Lent, which starts on Wednesday and my fasting from caffeine for the next 40 days, which will hopefully keep me on track going forward, and it also has to do with my incredible desire to snack when I have caffeine past noon (read: Diet Pepsi while I make dinner.  I know it makes me want to have cheese and crackers, so why do I continue to drink it?  I don't know...time to just kick the habit, I think!).  So, let's experiment and see what happens when I just cut it out completely.  Decaf tea…we’re about to become fast friends in the morning!
• 4 scheduled gym times this week - I'm working on my running goals.  I had a really good conversation with my athletically-inclined sister and she gave me some good tips to get me motivated.
• Get back on the water wagon.  Tea in the morning, water for the rest of the day.  Ultimately, I’d like to get ½ my body weight in fluid ounces.  I might be spending the majority of next week in the little girls room with that much liquid!

I will say, it was glorious to have all three of my favorite humans bustling in the kitchen last night, cupboard doors opening and closing, laughter, Italian sausage smells coming up to the living room for the meat sauce and Uriah even made pasta earlier in the afternoon after he got home from work for the cheese raviolis; he rounded my pasta-centered meal with a fat green salad. Finn made me close my eyes while he brought me my "surprise dinner," and I didn't have to clean up the kitchen or do bed time. Instead I read the new magazine that came in the mail last week that I hadn't even glanced at. It was very relaxing; I really just needed that zone-out time to energize me for the week ahead.

Week 4 Recap {& Week 5 Goals}

01/26/14 - baseline weight taken

02/03/14 - <1.3 lbs>

02/10/14 - <3.6 lbs>

Okay, so I didn't post last week, even though I had lots to say, but it turned into one of those weeks where it started out okay, but then turned into lots of hard things.  The benefit is that instead of making a triple layer chocolate cake (which I really wanted to - with peanut butter frosting) I found myself at the gym, running until my hair was sweaty and curly and my muscles ached.  Which probably contributed to my 3 lb loss this week, instead of the 3 lb gain I would have had with the chocolate cake method of dealing with my anxiety.

So...lets back-track to what I wanted to post about last week but lost time and energy for. On Superbowl Sunday, Uriah, Abby & I had what we refer to in this house as a Come to Jesus talk.  Basically we lay everything out and we don't sugar-coat anything.  The initial conversation revolved mostly around around Abby and her eating habits and lack of movement and how that can contribute to a multitude of ailments, not the least of which includes diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure/cholesterol - which can lead to heart attacks and strokes, shorted life expectancy. You know...the ugly stuff of being over-weight that I think even I need to remind myself of sometimes when going to the gym is a daunting task.

I think that I have been more worried about Abby lately than Uriah has, although that is not to say he hasn't been worried about her, too. When you're talking health and weight and good food/exercise choices to a 14 year old girl, the words need to be chosen with care and the steps need to be tread lightly because we don't want her to swing into the extreme (anorexia, bulemia) but we do want her to know that the choices that she's making are not healthy choices.  We need to arm her with the tools to be able to make those healthy choices.

Now, that being said, she's 14 and she has an excuse for everything: why she can't work out, why she eats the things she does, why she doesn't eat that bad (implying that it's bad, just not as bad as it could be). So we really are stuck in a place where all we can do is give suggestions, make as many positive options available as possible, portion control to the best of our ability, and honestly, the rest really is going to be up to her to make changes that she wants to see in her own life. I will be so, so sad if she ends up with diabetes, or consumed with a life-time of yo-yo dieting or living with an inactive, unhealthy body. But, I can only work within the confines of what I have available to me and I hope that the healthy example that Uriah and I are attempting to set are going to be enough.

Week 4 changes included getting Uriah to start taking a men's health multi-vitamin - hooray! This was a hard sell for some reason, but he finally relented after our health discussion with Abby. Finn, Abby, and I continue to take ours daily and I think it's contributing to the lack of illness this winter.  I'm also knocking hard on wood right now because we have been so healthy and I don't want to jinx us! I also continued to menu-plan and I challenged myself to get to the gym 3 times last week, which I accomplished only because I scheduled it in.  I worked around Uriah's work schedule and it wasn't a consistent time, a couple of afternoons and an evening, but I got there.  Uriah and Abby have started tracking their food using a small notebook and I continue to track using My Fitness Pal on my phone.  I pre-track as much as possible.

The biggest step I took last week was to have Uriah take my measurements - we did chest, waist, hips, bicep and thigh measurements. I know that the scale is only a small measure of health and I also know that muscle takes up less space than fat, so I wanted to have another health measurable.  I probably won't track measurements as often as the scale (weekly on the scale, monthly-ish for measurements) but I think it will help over-all.

This week, Week 5, I don't have too much planned - again a goal of 3 times at the gym (maybe even 4 since we are probably going out for a romantic Valentine's dinner on Sunday night - the curse of having a chef for a husband on any holiday is that we celebrate after the big day, which I guess is okay.  Restaurants will probably be pretty quiet on Sunday night...).  I am also going to try to stick only with eating the allotted calories and not dip into the calories burned category (which can be difficult, because I do seem to be pretty hungry on gym days), do some menu-planning for the next couple of weeks using some new recipes and start researching a program for the computer that will allow me to put in my own recipes and get nutrition facts.  I have a feeling that will require budgeting for a new computer, though, as ours is a dinosaur.

Week 3: The BIG one + Weeks 1 & 2 Recap

I started writing about my goals for being healthy over here, but I decided this morning that I really want a space dedicated to this Year of Living Healthy, so I dusted off this old blog that I started and neglected last spring.

Okay, to recap, my goal to be Healthy in 2014 involves mind and body health. I was very vague and a little complacent when I originally wrote about my word for 2014 and what that's going to mean for me.  I am not putting a weight number on it, but after thinking about it, I realize that I work very well with measurable goals, so I have revised my original intent and I do have some very loose weight goals in mind.  I am confident that if I'm vigilant, I will make it.  I know that it will take starting over every single day, not getting complacent, and pushing through the tough stuff (so much tough stuff).  It will also take small changes every week - nothing drastic,  like never eating pasta or cake again, because I am also smart enough to know that I can't live my life like that.  

Here are the small changes that have been rolled out over the past two weeks:

Week 1:

Baby steps to the elevator, right?  I started by adding 3 small changes to our days.  First, track all calories/exercise using the My Fitness Pal app.  I can get over confident in my counting abilities and if I don't immediately track, or better - pretrack my meals for the day - I end up significantly over my calorie allotment for the day.  Second, I resurrected the Fruit Bowl from last summer.  Easy snacks or addition to dinner.  Relatively low calories.  No brainer.  Third, I implemented After Lunch Rest Time. One half hour of quiet reading on the couch, sleeping optional but not frowned upon!  I have found this to be the most amazing 30 minutes of our day. Finn has his books at one end of the couch and I have mine at the other end. We don't talk to each other, sometimes I put on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical station and we re-juice our batteries for the afternoon. Even Uriah rests with us on his days off during the week.  Additionally, a good rest is a prerequisite for Finn watching a show on Netflix later in the afternoon.  He has to earn his tv time by being a good listener, finishing his chores, and above all - having a good rest!

Week 2:
This week we started getting our water bottles out daily.  Finn has a small pumpkin shaped water bottle with a straw that he likes to have a couple of ice cubes in.  It follows him around from room to room and sometimes gets lost amid the flotsam that surrounds 3 year old play time, but usually he knows right where it is and he happily fills it up himself (such a big boy).  I try to drink at least half of my body weight in fluid ounces a day.  It helps to keep me full and my snack cravings in the afternoon at bay.  Some days I get all of my ounces. Someday's, not that close.  But the point is that, from the time I get up until the time I go to bed, I have water at the ready and so I don't even really have to give it a second thought - I just sip on it all day. And I've almost completely cut out diet pop and iced tea.  This week also brought on the daily multi-vitamin for everyone.  Finn asks for his every morning, Abby has some sort of tracking list so she remembers to take hers in at breakfast and I take mine before bed.  Uriah is a hard sell on the multi-vitamin, but I'm confident that I'll be able to get him on board soon enough.

And so that brings us to Week 3, which technically starts today.  I weighed myself yesterday because I knew that I needed a base-line, although based on how well my fat-pants are fitting, I think I knew where this was going.  It's just a number and a starting point and that's all the more thought I'm giving to it.

The big thing that this week is bringing will be replacing a meal with a shake, for me that's going to be breakfast most days because I live with a body-conscious 14 year old girl and so I have to be careful how food is portrayed and talked about and how weight is addressed.  At this point, I know that Abby could use some help in the weight category.  She is abysmally inactive and although I send her to school with a lunch (usually leftovers from the night before in a smaller scale) and we all eat the same dinner (I'd say we're pretty healthy on that front in that we don't prepackaged meals/fast food/eating out, we're just maybe not balanced or portioned appropriately).  Anyway, I have no control over her snacking during school and after school.  I know she does it, I'm guessing a lot, I'm just not sure how to address it.  I guess that's another issue for another time. I'm still mulling it over.

So...the shakes.  I spent about half an hour yesterday portioning them into freezer bags.  Now all I have to do is pull a bag out in the morning and throw it in the blender with some milk.  I wrote the calories on the bag and what's in them, so I'll be able to re-use the zip-lock bags again.  Green bags for my green smoothies.  There were a lot of different smoothie options out there, but I knew that I didn't want to do a pre-packaged shake, nor did I want to do something like Slim-fast.  I wanted these breakfast shakes to be healthy and calorie conscious.  And above all, they need to take me from breakfast (which ranges anywhere from 7am to 9am depending on our morning) until lunch (we at noon on the nose - Finn let's me know when he hears the noon church bells ring!).  We do not snack in the morning, but we are busy and so I need to not be watching the clock, counting down to lunch time.  I did a little of my own research on these smoothies.

I like to work in measurables, so that's why I count calories.  I have found that shakes can blow calorie counting way out of the water if you're not careful.  One shake I looked at, when you put in the numbers, was 810 calories!  I about fell off my unicorn, because that's more than half of my daily allotment of calories...for breakfast...which I'm drinking!  I did some careful balancing of what I wanted in my smoothies, and this is what I put in my freezer bags:

• 1 tablespoon nuts (I had pecans, so that's what I put in; other nuts would change the calorie count) = 52 calories
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds = 60 calories
• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal = 75 calories
• 1 cup fruit, any combo
• 1/2 cup strawberries = 39 caloreis
• 1/2 cup blueberries = 40 calories
• 1/2 medium peach = 20 calories
• 1/2 cup raspberries = 30 calories
• 1/2 medium banana = 54 calories
• 1/2 cup pineapple = 40 calories
• 1 cup cantalope = 25 calories
• Orange (medium) = 60 calories
• Add to the bag at the end one cup of greens (about a handful)
• spinach = 20 calories
• kale = 34 calories

I stuck all of those in the freezer.  Dump in a blender in the morning and add 1 cup of milk (mine are caloried out with 2% milk, which is what we drink in this house.  I don't drink enough milk to justify buying 2% for the kids and skim for myself.  It would go bad very, very quickly!).  

You could probably add more milk (more calories) but if it's too thick, I think mine out with a little bit of water.  I don't like crushed ice in mine, so I don't add ice to my smoothies, but you could probably do that, too, if that's your thing.  I have also considered adding vanilla whey protein powder to my smoothies, but until I feel like I need an extra boost of energy to get me through my morning, I'm holding off on adding that to my smoothies.  

All of my fruits are frozen.  When raspberries went on sale last summer (when they were in season) I bought a bunch and froze them in gallons sized bags.  Same with strawberries - when we picked strawberries, I had enough left over to fill 5 gallon sized freezer bags - and that was after making 3 batches of strawberry jam, a strawberry pie and strawberry ice cream.  We picked a lot of strawberries.  I am not complaining!  My blueberries are from Sam's Club, and I'll have to wait until peaches come in season again before I have those stock-piled in my freezer.  The point is - if you plan ahead a little bit, it's easy (and cheap) to have fresh fruit for whatever - in cereal, as a snack, in smoothies.

Additionally, this week's menu has been planned out - breakfast, lunch, and dinner and even scheduling my gym time.  I know that I can do some exercises at home - I have some free weights and a large ball.  I hate doing exercise videos, they do not motivate me in the least.  I went onto Pinterest and found some exercises that I think i can accomplish and printed them out, with reps, on one sheet of paper (front and back).  It will go to the gym with me and I will modify if I need to, but I've got something for every muscle group so I'm giving it a month.

3 weeks of making positive steps toward being healthy.  And they aren't crazy huge and really, at some point I won't be making any more changes, just plodding along every week doing all these things like they're second nature - exercise, vitamins, water consumption.

I can't wait for that day.