Monthly Archives: July 2012

Not enough!

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Today I ate toast with almond butter and an apple for breakfast.  Another piece of toast with almond butter for lunch.  And an apple with two cheese sticks for dinner!

NOT ENOUGH!!!

I caught up with an old friend from high school and ate breakfast on my way to her house.  I meant to only stay a couple of hours but we got to talking and before I knew it, it was 2pm!  She graciously gave Preston lunch while she fed her own kids but I knew I needed to do my own food, and I wasn’t all that hungry.  When we got home I lacked any motivation to put together a proper meal, so toast it was.  Then I had to work 6 to 9 tonight and was trying to get ready and head out the door and just forgot about dinner!  So I grabbed the fastest and easiest thing I could – another apple and two cheese sticks.  I knew if I didn’t eat before I went that I would be STARVING when I got home and would then be more likely to eat something I shouldn’t.  I probably didn’t even drink enough water for today so all around a weird day.  I will probably be ravenous when I wake up in the morning, but I’m ok with that.  I promise not to let tomorrow slip by without eating enough.

I’m hoping that I can get a bike ride in tomorrow if the weather is decent.  I haven’t been on my bike in a month!!  I really want to do another 10 miler or see if I could even push it a little further.  I’d love to do a ride to the zoo and back – round trip its about 14 miles I think.  We’ll see.  I’ll update more tomorrow!!  Hope you all ate enough today!!

Avoidance with a capital A!

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Ok I have been majorly avoiding my commitment to blogging regularly.  I’m sorry.  The past few weeks or even month have been challenging to say the least.  From birthday parties to traveling and personal drama I am ready for things to feel a little more consistent and calmer.  I think I am finally getting back to that :)

So where to begin??  This past week was bad on my diet.  I’m up 3lbs – its mostly water retention etc but I was definitely lazy last week (only 1 workout!) and ate poorly.  I wouldn’t say that I was binging but I was making the unhealthier choices instead of the healthier ones.  I’m ashamed to have put some weight back on but I’m back on the horse and back at it.  My hope is that this week I”ll be back to where I was two weeks ago and then I can keep losing.  It feels so good to look in the mirror and feel thinner.  It also feels good to shrink out of my clothes and I have some great winter clothes that if I stay focused will fit quite nicely this fall/winter.

Some of my reasons for not being strict with myself were just that I started to have cravings for bad stuff.  I think that the major reason the cravings began were because I’ve been having some personal drama with Preston’s dad.  I’m not going to get into details here because I don’t think that’s appropriate but it has had been really overwhelmed and stressed out for the past month or so.  I want so badly to not allow my eating/diet to be effected by stress but its what I know.  I eat to fill the empty/alone feeling when stuff is stressing me out!  No wonder I gained so much weight during grad school!!  Anyway, I am trying very hard to get myself back on track.  In the past messing up for a week would mean I would begin to believe that I wasn’t capable of losing weight and that I was failing.  I have tried to reorient my thinking so that I recognize the setback but don’t let it mean anything more than that.  Yesterday was the first “good” day start to finish.  I ate really well and did an hour of cardio which felt good and tiring.  I also got a full nights sleep that helped tremendously.  I noticed that when I’m making bad choices my water intake goes down a ton, so I have made a point to increase my water consumption again – it helps soooo much with cravings.

Aside from the diet/food issues and the drama with the baby daddy life has been alright.  Preston and I spent the weekend with my aunt two weekends ago and enjoyed pool time, eating out, a visit to Navy Pier and a fun production of Beauty and the Beast.  Preston was fascinated by the costumes and music of the show.  Preston is truly a dramatic and theatrical person at heart and so its really fun to take him to shows.  I like to watch him, watching the show, even though he doesn’t have the words to explain the pleasure he gets from it you can see it on his face and it just makes me so happy.  Last weekend we headed down to central Illinois where my best friend Katie lives.  Her daughter Lorelei (who happens to be my god-daughter) is 6 months younger than Preston and they have such a great time playing together while Katie and I enjoy spending grown up time together.  It was a nice quick trip.

Our summer has really been pretty fun.  Preston loves his ballet class.  We try to hit up the library regularly and the pool.  He doesn’t nap anymore – hasn’t in over a year – so we make the most of our day having fun and playing and then he’s asleep around 6:30pm.  That’s the best part of no naps, early bedtime and time to relax or go to work :)

I have been feeling this desire to reconnect or connect with people to expand my social network.  I have lots of friends, but they are mostly spread out and not easily accessible in person.  I also think that as you get older your circle of friends just keeps shrinking.  But in an effort to combat my loneliness I have decided I’d like more friends in the area.  So even though I haven’t really taken any major strides to meet a bunch of new people its something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Ok this post is getting totally random.  I am sorry for my absence and avoidance for so long.  I’m ready to get back to blogging regularly and sharing my success as well as my slower less productive weeks.

Month 2 Review

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In the past two weeks, since my last weigh in, I lost 3.4lbs!!!!  Holy moly I did not think that would happen!  I was hoping to come out even after all the cake/ice cream, and food on the road, and party/vacation food.  When we got home from my grandparents I made sure to get right back on the healthy eating track.  I exercised every day and probably underrate a little bit: it was SO HOT all I wanted to eat was salad, smoothies, and fruit.  So maybe that helped.  My total loss in two months is 24.2lbs!  I was hoping to be at 30lbs in two months but I am not complaining about 24.2 at all.  Especially because the past two weeks were rough on the diet front.

Last month I wrote down a few goals for this month.  Looks like I sort of accomplished two and missed the other two.  The goals I consider accomplished were to start running: I went running once.  So that’s a start right??  ;)  The other was to ride 10 miles on my bike.  This one I accomplished on Saturday which technically was one day after the month ended but I’m counting it anyway.  The two I missed were to have 5 workouts a week – birthday party prep and vacation prep/vacation really made it tough to accomplish this goal.  I’m finding that 4 workouts a week is a little more realistic with 5 being a bonus.  We’ll see how this month goes.  The one I definitely didn’t hit was to lose 15lbs this month.  I only lost 10 this month.  But really I shouldn’t say “only” I am really proud of the 10lbs I did lose.  So reflecting on this past month I am completely satisfied with how it all went down.

So now lets talk about goals for this month.  I’m still hoping for 15lbs this month so I will make that a goal.  I continue to have a desire to run so my goal is to run 3 times this month – I know that isn’t a lot but its a start and with the weather being so hot and the fact that I refuse to run indoors its the most I’m committing to.  I hope to continue riding my bike and instead of my goal being for one ride I will keep track and do a monthly miles goal of 25 miles.  I am really only able to get on my bike when Preston is with his dad and because I don’t know how much that will be this month I don’t want to over commit myself.  My last goal for this month is to get more sleep!!  My goal is to get 8+ hours at least 5 nights a week.  So in bullet form:

  • Lose 15lbs this month
  • Run 3 times this month
  • Ride 25 miles cumulative this month
  • 8+ hours of sleep at least 5 nights/week

 

I’m melting!

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This heat is so draining!  My last two workouts left me drenched in sweat and I was inside at the gym!!  I think that even when the air is on my body is responding to the temperature outside.  I don’t mind sweating when I’m working out though, so its ok.  I’m trying really hard to keep up with enough water though!  At least I like drinking water and I don’t tend to get sick of it even when I’m drinking a lot, so that is really helpful.

Yesterday I joined my friend Marissa at the gym for our regularly scheduled hour on the ellipticals.  She typically gets there before me, because I’m waiting on the child center to reopen from their afternoon siesta so that Preston can go play.  Yesterday she finished her workout about 13 minutes before I was done and so she went home.  She had told me about a trainer who had sought her out last week and asked if she was interested in a trainer.  She isn’t but he offered a free session and she took it.  So we have been on the lookout for this guy all week.  Well, sure enough about 5 minutes after she left he hopped on the elliptical next to me and started asking me about my workout goals.  I hope he didn’t see me role my eyes the second he joined me.  I told him about my success this far and also that I’ve lost weight before so I know what I’m doing – he still really wanted to give me a free training session.  I decided to go for it.  I mean whats the harm in having a free half hour with a personal trainer?  I am 100% aware that his goal is to get me to sign up for a trainer that I meet with on a weekly basis and also join the Lose Big Win Big challenge, so I’ll just go into it with “no thank you” on the tip of my tongue :)

I trained with a few different trainers when I was living in Atlanta but my experience with them was that they were very disengaged from my process.  Maybe its because I like to connect with people, but I’m not interested in being trained by someone who just fits me into some predetermined program and then works me out without feeling like there is some investment in me.  Is that selfish?  I guess I just expect from others what I would give. With my clients I invest in them.  I celebrate their victories and sit with them when they’re down – granted being a therapist is different than a trainer, but I think when people are trying to improve any area of their life its nice to feel like the person helping you is really cheering for you, not just going through the motions.  So aside from the overpriced cost of a trainer, I’m just not totally into inviting a trainer to give me workouts as unengaged as a workout video would.  I have thought that when I get closer to my goal weight and I want to tone or shape my body in ways that I am unsure of that I might hire a trainer to do some of that work with me.  But losing this weight is personal and I just haven’t found a trainer at a big gym like mine that feels really genuine.

So anyway, tomorrow I’m going to meet this guy and let him show me around (at least it forces me to go to the gym tomorrow) and maybe it will result in me using the weights more.  I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes.

I’m aching to take my bike out for a ride, but it is just so hot that I don’t think I could ride until 10PM or later!  I try really hard to get on my bike whenever Pres is with his dad, and the time in between is usually just long enough that I really miss it and am super excited when I get to ride.  I might try and go tonight around 8PM and see how long I survive.  I would also like to go tomorrow, but I’m just not sure if I’ll try to fit it in bright and early before it gets crazy hot, or wait until evening.  Either way, my bike is calling my name and the worst that can happen is I take my bike to my normal riding spot, ride for half a mile and realize that I’m insane and turn around and go home.  In the process I’ll probably sweat a lot and that will only help my weight for my weigh in on Sunday – since its been two weeks (and one of those eating somewhat poorly) I am anxious to hop back on the scale!!

Stay cool!! and hydrated!!

Two weeks that felt like two months!!

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So its been forever since I’ve constructed an actual post.  At first I kept forgetting because I was so busy and then I just decided I needed to focus on the business and come back to it after my trip.  So here I am.  I’m back!!!  Lots to update on :)

A week and a half ago was Preston’s 4th birthday party.  I spent a good portion of that week cleaning the house, baking layers of Preston’s rainbow cake and helping my aunt get ready for her move.  That week was bananas!!  The party went really well.  I even squeezed in a 7.5 mile bike ride before the party :)  I weighed myself the morning of the party and had lost 0.6lbs that week so my total now is 20.8lbs.  I can’t even remember if I posted that already.  I was happy that it was a loss and coming off of two larger weeks I was totally ok with it.

Before the party I had made a decision that from the day of the party until today I would let myself off the hook with the diet.  I knew I would be really busy so working out would be challenging to fit in- I got one in last week.  I also wanted to be able to relax with Preston’s party, going out for my friend Heidi’s birthday, then Preston’s actual birthday, my birthday, and a road trip to North Carolina to visit my grandparents all in a week and a half (although it feels like a month!).  I knew that this past week would be tough to have as much control and part of me wanted a little break from being strict.  Today I got back on track – went to the gym and started to sweat just walking out to my car because it is sooo crazy hot!  I also ate food that is diet approved.  I also tried really hard to drink a considerable amount of water because I kind of fell of the wagon with that as well.

Now for details: Preston’s party was a blast.  I worked really hard on the cake and it turned out awesome.  Everyone had a lot of good things to say (even though it was just box cake) and I was happy the rainbow-ness turned out!!

I also incorporated rainbow in the rest of the table setting.  I got colored goldfish crackers (because what kid doesn’t love goldfish??), I filled bowls with skittles and m&m’s.  I did a veggie tray and cheese & cracker tray and the part I was most proud of was the rainbow fruit kabobs!

I bought the fruit the morning of the party so it was all really fresh and it worked out really well.  I also added the Rolo’s at the end to represent the gold at the end of the rainbow :)  The fruit was a big hit!  Preston was really well behaved and had a ton of fun opening all of his presents.  My favorite picture of him is when we were all singing “Happy Birthday” to him.

I can not believe he’s 4 now!!!  Lots to reflect on!

I remember this day like it was yesterday!!

The week after the party was actual birthday week.  His birthday was on Tuesday and we celebrated by spending his birthday $$ at ToysRUs in the morning and catching Brave in 3D.  We had a great time and just enjoyed the day.  I had intended to do a whole birthday post about him – it will hopefully come later this week.  Preston is so special to me (of course because he’s my son), but having navigated 4 years (or 3 years and 10 months) of being a single mom has been no easy feat and I’m amazed at how far we have come.

My birthday was Thursday and was pretty uneventful.  I am now 29.  One year away from 30.  I have to be honest I am looking forward to my 30s, I think good things will happen in my 30s.  I will not be re-celebrating my 29th birthday for the rest of my life.  I plan to embrace the understanding, perspective, and wisdom that come with being in your 30s (and maybe hopefully a man!)  The only fun thing to happen on my birthday was that I decided to give myself bangs :)  I had the side bangs going for about a year but my hair was just begging to be normal bangs so I made the switch.  I like them for now.

The day after my birthday we left for North Carolina.  My older sister, Meredith and I had been planning for a couple of months to take a trip to North Carolina to visit my dad’s parents.  We call them Mimi and Papa.  I hadn’t taken Preston to their house since he was an infant.  I wanted to wait until he was old enough that I didn’t have to be on top of him at every moment making sure he didn’t get into trouble.  He did great!

Preston and I left Chicago around 7AM on Friday morning.  My sister had been visiting a friend in West Virginia so we were meeting her later in the day in KY.  I had Preston’s DVD player hooked up and enough movies to watch back to back to NC and back.  We loaded up with books, coloring books, Barbies, and other toys.  The trip there was pretty easy and we arrived about 12 hours later.  Papa had a list of activities planned for us that were Preston friendly.  Pres helped walk the dogs, took rides on the golf cart, we took him swimming, hiking, and to visit the goats at the Carl Sandberg Home.

throwing rocks into the stream

Papa and Meredith took Preston to a children’s museum while I hung out with my friend Johanita who drove up for the day on Saturday: she was my best friend when I lived in Atlanta, GA which is only about 3 hours from my grandparents house and we hadn’t seen each other in just over two years!!  Meredith took a few pictures of Preston at the children’s museum.

We really had a great time with my grandparents.  They are amazing people and its always nice to get out of town and spend quality time with family members you don’t get to see very often.

We got home around 6pm yesterday.  I was EXHAUSTED!  My diet was least clean on our trip but it was nice to be a little bit relaxed.  And food on the road can be tricky.  I am planning to weigh myself this Sunday as usual and if I’ve maintained or even gained a little I am 100% ok with that.  This is the part of the journey that I need practice with and so allowing times where I am not calorie counting or even eating decently are part of life and part of my journey.  I plan to take time off from the diet every couple of months just for practice and to be realistic.  I know a lot of people talk about not calling it a diet and just maintaining a healthy lifestyle change but I do look at the losing period of time as a diet – it works for me – and thats why I talk about it this way.  So overall I had a great couple of weeks.  I am ready for some normal life time though :)  Hope you all had a happy and safe 4th!

MIA

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I have been MIA for way too long! Sorry about that!! I have the best intentions just not the best follow through. I am out of town in NC right now visiting my grandparents. The last two weeks have been so busy!!! I promise to get back on the blog train when I return home on Wednesday and update you on the previous couple of weeks! Hope everyone’s enjoys their 4th and STAY COOL!!!