Redefining "Full"

Song of the Day: Katy Perry - Wide Awake

This morning after eating my well proportioned breakfast of a health food "pastry" and cup of non-fat yogurt, I thought to myself, "Well, that was good but I'm not full."  Then I realized that I wasn't hungry either. 

Over the years I have changed the word "full" from meaning satisfied to stuffed, or overstuffed.  I had decided that if I wasn't feeling heavy and slightly sluggish by the time I was done eating, then I didn't eat enough, and therefore I wasn't "full."  I semi-recently read an article about how French parents teach their children about food.  One thing that really stuck out to me was that instead of asking their children if they "are full" they ask if they "are still hungry."  It's amazing how one little word can change the entire meaning of a concept.  Even though I was a little in awe of this revelation, it obviously didn't change my thinking because I still ate until I was past full for the next few months.  But this morning, as I was reflecting on my own level of fullness/not-hungry-ness, I remembered those words.

So yes, I may not be "full" but I'm not hungry either.  And that's a good thing.

...and again...

Song of the Day:  Ellie Goulding - Lights

Okay, I feel like I've become a broken record lately, BUT I'm going to get back on track.  I started today.  I counted all of my calories (came in at about 1337), had 4 servings of veggies, 2 servings of fruit, and drank 12 glasses of water.  I use a nalgene which holds 4 glasses of water, and I drink water all day anyway, so 12 is pretty average for me.  Along with eating healthy I did a 30 minute Pilates DVD while the kids were napping.  

...and with all that (which isn't a lot), I'm exhausted.  It's 6:15 and I'm ready for bed, but the kids are still awake, and will be for a while longer.  

I'm not sure why I picked today to start.  We have a wedding this weekend, and one next weekend, and will be out of town for the entire weekend for both.  But I guess I'll just have to make sure I don't over due it!  With vacations I gained back "all" of the weight I lost and then some.  I think the 'and then some' was water weight though because I lost it in 2 days of being home.  We had a great vacation though!  We flew in Buffalo, NY went to Niagara Falls, then Sleepy Hollow, a stop at West Point, a few days in New York (and all the touristy stuff), down to D.C., over to Virginia Beach, down to the outer banks of North Caroline (which I don't really recommend), then back to Virginia Beach for a day trip (we really didn't like the outer banks), then off to Raleigh to fly back home!  It was an awesome 9 days!  When we got home Kyle went back to work for 2 days, then we headed up north to Camp du Nord in Ely, MN with my family for a week.  It was so much fun!  I love it up there!  Elliot had a great time this year and was obsessed with going in the water and hiking!  This was the first year that my family wasn't involved in Burn Camp and it was great to actually be able to enjoy camp together.  Normally my parents have a ton of responsibilities and we have a lot of things to go to, but this year there was nothing that we had to do.  And it was GREAT!  It finally felt like a real vacation!

We've been back home now for about a week and a half.  I was worried that after three weeks from home the kids were going to take a while to get back on schedule, but they were no problem at all!  Thankfully!  Of course it's been extremely warm lately so we haven't done much outside, but we have been utilizing our screened in porch quite a bit!  That's one room in the house that I have grown to love!  We have someone coming out to give us an estimate for a fence on Tuesday.  Hopefully they'll be able to put it up quickly because then Elliot can play outside and I won't have to worry about leaving Caroline to (potentially) have to chase Elliot down the street (as he heads to the park)!

Well, I guess that's all for now, I'm really going to try to keep updated more often, especially with how the weight loss stuff is going.  I find that I'm much more accountable when I write about it!

Shake It Out

Song of the Day:  Glee (originally Florence + the Machine) - Shake It Out

It's been quite a while, and I feel like I have a lot to write, yet nothing to write.  

I had a summer class for three weeks starting May 29th.  I like the three week classes because they're really quick, but the last time I took one I only had one child to deal with.  I was beyond exhausted for the three weeks.  It didn't help that the first weekend was June Dairy Days.  I get almost no sleep that weekend.  I stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning, and while my friends are sleeping off the previous night, I have two children who are ready for action.  Thankfully my parents help out a lot with them, but I don't want to seem like we're taking advantage (even though we are) and I get up and at least feed Caroline.  I never got my sleep caught up and finally on the last day of class (Friday June 15th) I crashed and had a major migraine.  Thankfully Kyle was able to stay home so I could sleep the whole day.  I ended up with an A in the class, so that makes me feel like the work was worth it.  

June 16th (the day after my bed confining migraine) I did the 6k (3.7 miles) Glo Race in Chicago.  It starts at 9:15pm and everyone wears glow-in-the-dark attire and there's black lights and strobe lights as you run along the shore and through the park.  The last time I ran before this race was April 22.  And by running I mean a run-walk combo.  In my head I was remembering the first 5k I did after Elliot was born, but forgot to remember that I was about 20 lbs lighter and had actually trained for a month before the race.  Add into that a day spent walking around the city in 90+ degree weather and no water.  I was very dehydrated.  I chugged a ton of water before the race and had just started to not feel like I was going to throw up/pass out when we left for the race.  I went to the race with two friends and one friend of a friend.  My friends are in shape, and run semi-regularly.  The friend of a friend has been turning into a competitive runner, and she was off and away about 3 seconds into the race.  My friends, being nice, stayed at the slow pace with me.  We had decided that this was more of a shuffle than a race, so I didn't feel terrible about slowing them down.  Let me add that it was still 80+ degrees at this point, and humid.

Then came the water station.  In my head a water station should be about 1/2 way through a race, I was mistaken.  The water station came about 1/3 of the way through the race.  I shouldn't have stopped, but I was so thirsty, and thought I was half way through.  The stopping killed my momentum, and when we turned the corner we were running into the wind.  At about 1.5-1.75 miles I was done.  My body was on fire - heat wise, not pain wise.  My legs actually felt fine.  I felt like my face was burning.  I told my friends to just keep running, because I knew that they wanted to run, but they said the race was more for fun and we were all going to finish together.  I was happy to know that I have friends who were willing to stick with my out of shape butt, but at the same time I felt terrible about myself.  I was so out of shape that I was holding them back.  Embarrassed easily sums up how I felt for the rest of the race.  It started raining but not enough to cool me down.  

When we got done (time of 55:15) we had no idea where the water was.  All we could find was the sponsored tents which were handing out 5 hour energy and some protein drink that smelled like a multi vitamin and had the consistency of yogurt - YUCK.  Finally we found water, granola bars, and cookies.  Not what I want to eat after I run.  Sweets sounded terrible.  We sat for a while listening to the DJ, then the rain picked up and the lighting was coming, so we all got kicked out of the park.  We were debating taking a cab or just getting on the L.  We ended up choosing the L because there wasn't a cab in sight - I was fine with that because then I could spend more time in the rain.  After 2 miles of walking in the race and walking farther to the L in the rain, I still felt overheated and dehydrated.  I was pretty positive that if I opened my mouth I would throw up and/or pass out.  My silence helped me think back to the last time I felt this terrible.  I've been running in heat before and never had so many issues.  I was dehydrated, but to feel this terrible?  Then I remembered.  I'm back on medication that can cause nausea, loss of coordination, blurred vision, and a whole other mess of things, and dehydration ends up being way worse than "normal" dehydration*.

When we got to our stop the rain was pouring - this made me happy.  Even through our 6 block trek home, with rain soaking our clothes, I still didn't cool down.  We walked in the door and I went straight into the shower and turned it on cold.  I sat in there for 15-20 minutes before the water started to feel cold.  I started crying and I'm not sure why.  I think a big part of it was that I felt so terrible.  I hate feeling sick, and Kyle (or my mom) were hours away.  Another reason, was my bruised ego.  I was finally facing what I already knew: I am in terrible shape.  I already knew it, and knew I felt terrible about myself, but this was the first time other people had seen it first hand.  In my head I created a scenario that my friends were talking to the other girl, making excuses for me, 'well, she just had a baby,' 'well, she said she wasn't feeling good before.'  I don't know if/think this actually happened, but I couldn't help myself from imagining the worse.  I was confronting the realization that someone, who I didn't know, was now able to judge me for being overweight.  My friends have always known me, and are going to love me no matter what, but this girl (who seemed very nice, and I don't think was actually judging) now had ammunition to judge me and proof of my failure.  And so I continued to cry.  I felt fine sitting down but every time I stood I thought I would pass out.  I quickly got dressed then laid down and started sipping water and ate some left over pizza to get something in my stomach.  

I texted Kyle that the run was "the most terrible idea ever" and fell asleep trying not to start crying again.  The next morning I woke up, packed, and headed home.  It was Father's Day so I wanted to get there early, but I also felt like I couldn't face my friends.  I was too ashamed and it created this awkwardness in me.  

The last few nights I've had a dream that I have something growing over my eyes and my vision is blurred and I have to go to the doctor to get these drops and the doctor uses a big Q tip to clean my eyes (like Woody in Toy Story 2), swiping over each one twice.  When the layers of whatever it is come off, there's a little bit of diluted blood that also gets wiped up.  One of the friends from this weekend is sitting in the room with me.  I finally googled dream interpretation since I've had the dream twice now.  Here's the link and the bottom of the page is all about eye stuff.  I think it's right, and I think it all has to do with me loosing weight, but not actually doing it, and feelingl so terrible about myself.  I think this friend is also there because she's been a part of every terrible (and happy) time in my life.  Also, I was at her place when I really realized how shitty I feel, so there's probably that connection as well.  Once during my freshman year of college (aka the "downward spiral") I was drunk and called her and cried and told her how unhappy I was with everything I was doing and who I was.  She talked to me for a long time, then told me to call her back tomorrow when I was sober and we'd talk some more.  I never called.  Again, embarrassment.  We've never talked about it, but I still remember it (well, the event not all the details) and know I can always count on her if I need her, and she's not going to judge me.  And I know she knows the same goes for her if she ever needs me.       

*I always said if I needed to go back on medication, I would.  Being home with two kids has been trying for me.  I asked my doctor (family practice, so he doesn't really know a ton about mental health - not his fault) if I could get an anti-anxiety medication, or something that I could take as needed, but with my body reacting badly to medications I've been on in the past (read as: causing manic episodes), he felt more comfortable putting me back on the last bi-polar medication that worked.  I'm supposed to go see a psychiatrist so we can make sure that I'm taking the right/best medication for how I'm feeling, but it was already hard enough for me to find someone to watch the kids for the first appointment, yet alone trying to do it again... so I'll just stick with this stuff, even though it's not what I was looking for...

So, yeah, I guess I did have something to write about...  even after all of this realization, I still haven't worked out this week.  Taking the kids outside in the heat (specifically Caroline, she's still so little), isn't a good time, and when they're napping I've been so tired that I nap too.  When they go to bed at night, I make dinner, watch a little TV, then go to bed.  I'm too exhausted to work out.  I'm too exhausted to even shower some days.  If Kyle's not home, what's the point?  No one's going to see me anyway.  And I think that's the problem.  I'm comfortable(ish) with the way I look when I'm around people who love me, but as soon as I'm in public, I feel terrible.  I also think that the people who know me, know that even though I'm a pretty strong person, when it comes to hearing criticism (even if it's constructive) about my weight, I can easily crumble.  It's the one area in my life which I know I'm failing in.  I hate failing.   

I want to end this with some positive, "Okay, now I'm going to get in shape and change my life!" type message, but it just seems so fake.  I think the best I can do right now is say that I'm not going to eat anything fried or order take out when Kyle's not home.  We have a vacation coming up in a week and I don't want to make some crazy goal and completely ruin it because we're enjoying our time together.  The whole point of vacations (for us) is to try amazing food!  So, nothing fried, and no take out during the week.  That much I think I can do.  

No! Not Yeti's!

Political Ad of the Day:  Vote Arthur Kohl-Riggs  -- I'm not going to actually vote for him, and am not endorsing him, but I love this Ad.  I was watching Comedy Central when I first saw it, and honestly thought it was a joke.  The Dos Equis "most interesting man in the world" commercials are some of my favorite, and good for him for making his own version.

It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote anything and even longer since I wrote about weight issues.  I have missed the pass two weigh-in's and honestly had just forgotten about them.  My days all kind of blend together and Elliot got sick, and I've been sick, and next thing I know, two weeks have gone by.  

I've been exhausted constantly.  Kyle travels every week and about every 7-10 days for 3-4 days Caroline will get up in the middle of the night to eat.  This cuts down even more on my sleep.  Because I'm so tired I find myself mindlessly eating and snacking just for energy to stay awake.  Sometimes it's healthy like strawberries, sometimes it's semi-healthy like chips and homemade salsa or cheese and crackers, and sometimes it's leftover Pizza Hut that I ordered the night before because I was too tired to make dinner for myself.  And that includes being too tired to throw a Lean Cuisine in the microwave.  Unfortunately, no matter how tired I am, I can't seem to fall asleep before 10.  I think I'm just so excited to finally have some time alone that I can't fall asleep.

I know I should try to nap when the kids nap, but lately that's only been a 45 minute overlap when they're both sleeping.  That gives me enough time to eat lunch, go to the bathroom, and then I get to pick shower or nap.  If I pick nap I end up not being able to fall asleep right away, and when I do fall asleep I'm awaken minutes later by Caroline.  If I pick shower, I may still be tired, but at least I'm clean.

Working out has been completely thrown to the wayside.  We were going to move the treadmill inside this weekend, but didn't want to do it in the rain on Saturday and forgot on Sunday.  It's probably for the best right now since we're having Elliot's birthday party this weekend!  

I want to be super mom and make all of the food and the cake for the party, and somehow do it with both kids, and have everything decorated and ready by Saturday at 1:00.  Thankfully, I'm blessed with a wonderful husband who knows how to manage my overachieving into realistic goals and he said I could make either the cake or the food.  I chose to make the cake (and at this moment still have no idea what I'm going to make), and we were going to order pizza from Famous Yeti's, which as I think I've explained before, is the best pizza ever.  This is where the problem comes in.  In the wee morning hours of Monday there was a fire at Stoughton Spirits.  This is where we buy wine, so I was interested in the article and kept looking for updates.  In the afternoon I read this report, paying close attention to line 4 which states: "The fire also damaged a pizza parlor."  If this was a movie, this would be the part where I quickly sit up straight, my eyes wide with realization that the pizza parlor next to Stoughton Spirits is ... pause for dramatic effect ... Famous Yeti's!  NOOOOO!!!!

So when (if) they open today I have to give them a call and see if they will be open Saturday... and of course upon further inspection of their website I realized that they don't open until 3 on Saturday... so I may also have to ask if they would even be able to make pizzas to be ready by 1.  Among other things on my to-do list is to find another place to get food from or order a cake from...  and still buy decorations... and gifts...

I bet you think this blog is about you.

Song of the day: Carly Simon - You're So Vain

I couldn't tell you the last time I de-friended someone that I actually know on facebook.  I've tried "cleaning house" on my friends list to delete people that I have absolutely no clue who they are, but I typically get through the first page then I'm bored and just hope that they someday do the same thing and they can delete me.  

I am a facebook over-share-er.  I know this, and really I don't care.  If someone doesn't like it, they can de-friend me or remove me from their news feed if they still want to creep on my page.  Whatever, I'm not updating my status for them anyway.  I update my status for family and friends.  I share when I'm going to spend the day cleaning up Elliot's puke because I want those who care about me to know that I'm going to have a long day and I may not answer their phone calls/texts right away.  I also know that many of them will understand what I'm going through, or at least empathize and say a little prayer to help me through my day  

Today a girl that I have known for at least 10 years posted a status that read something along the lines of, "When I get out of bed I'm de-friending people who only talk about their kids on facebook..."  I put it in quotes just so it's easy to understand who said what, but I am strongly paraphrasing here.  This girl has also posted many times that she doesn't want children.  I totally support her in that decision.  If you don't want kids, don't have them.  Just because you get married doesn't mean that you should have children.  I actually congratulated her on being able to admit this and defended her decision to other people that I know who though she was being rude and dramatic.  Every other week or so she'll post some anti-child, "I thank God I don't have kids" rant, and whatever, that's her choice.  She'll post pictures of women postpartum that have stretch marks (women who took the pictures because they are proud of their stretch marks and what they mean, and want to be encouraging to other women) and talk about how disgusting they are and how she's glad she'll never look like that.  Again, whatever, she can say what she wants, and yeah, stretch marks are disgusting.  Would I trade my children for smooth skin?  Absolutely not.

Like most of her anti-kids rants, she got a few likes, some supportive comments, and lots of comments from people pissed about what she said.  Or in her words "easily offended."  She then ended the comments saying that she was only talking about 2 or so people who post 30 pictures a day of their kids and always talk about them pooping or puking.  At this point I realized (especially given that her morning status was about 30 minutes after I posted mine about Elliot being sick) that she is probably talking about me.  Okay, Kyle travels 4-5 days of the week, and all of our family and friends live at least 2.5 hours away (with the exception of about 10 people).  I post a ton of pictures so they can all see our kids, and I share everything about my day because 1) If they call, they already know what's going on, and 2) I'm a stay at home mom, and my kids are my job.  The most exciting part of my day is when Elliot says a new word or Caroline giggles.  As of an hour ago we were still facebook friends, and I'm assuming that she was out of bed by then, so maybe she wasn't talking about me after all.

Then I realized it didn't matter if she was talking about me or not.  I don't want to see her status updates (whether they are meant to be negative, or "just her opinion") or comments anymore.  It's not worth it.  We're not even friends.  At best we may be acquaintances.  And really, it's probably better for us both that we're no longer facebook friends because I'm going to keep posting about my kids, and she's going to keep posting how she is annoyed by it.  I'll call this a win-win-win situation. 

....and yes, the song reference could go for either her or me... which makes it a double awesome choice as the 'song of the day' :)

Fun Weekend

Song of the day:  Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars - Safe & Sound

Friday I did a 60 minute pilates video that I had.  This one is much better than the new one I bought.  When Kyle got home we ordered chinese.  Bad idea.  I ate way too much.  My plan was to save some for lunch on Saturday, but it was just so good!  I had Kung Po chicken, so the vegetables and chicken are actually healthy, and the sauce isn't heavy so that's good... but the pint of rice probably wasn't a good idea.  

Saturday I went on another 5 mile run.  This time I ran more and walked less and was able to shave 6 minutes off my time!  My first mile was done at an 11 minute pace!  Not the best I've ever ran, but it's definitely getting better - and there's even a hill in my first mile :)  My parents came down for the afternoon so they could watch the kids and we could get some more work done without Elliot's "help."  We had Subway for lunch, and went with 6" subs instead of foot longs.  We got a ton of work done - and hopefully will be able to finish unpacking today.  For dinner we order Pizza from Famous Yeti's Pizza.  It's easily the best pizza I've every had.  So amazing!  I didn't track my calories for the day though, but I don't think I was out of control like I was Friday.

This morning started off with a healthy breakfast of whole wheat toast, blue cheese (from Laughing Cow), spinach, over easy egg, topped with sweat peppers and tomato, a side of bacon, and coffee.  This is what I had yesterday morning as well, and is pretty close to what I have every morning, but is so so good!  Kyle commented on how my presentation of the food had gotten better from yesterday's first try, so I thought a picture was due. 

Today we're returning some stuff to Target and Home Depot, taking some stuff to Goodwill, and doing some shopping.  I would also like to go tanning today, and grocery shopping for the week is also on the "to-do" list.  I'm hoping to be able to get in another run today, but I may miss my workout today :/  Hopefully not... I'm just glad that I moved my weigh-in day from Monday to Thursday!

Week 1 Weigh In

Song of the Day:  Wiz Khalifa - When I'm Gone

Starting Weight: 230.4

Week 1: 224.2

Total: 6.2 lbs

Woo-Hoo!!  I have to say that I am surprised!  I thought I would only lose maybe .5 lbs between Monday and today.  If you haven't noticed I am also tracking my weight loss on the right hand side of the screen.  I know it's not good to lose almost 3 lbs in 4 days, but I really think that my Monday weigh-in was thrown off by a little dehydration.  So yay!  I'm excited and more motivated to eat healthy and get my workout in today!

Last night Kyle and I had spaghetti.  Normally I would load up my plate with tons of noodles, pour enough sauce to drown them, and add about 4 slices of garlic bread - to start.  See, I LOVE garlic bread.  I buy a loaf of french bread, slice it, butter both sides, and put garlic powder and garlic salt on the up side, then brown in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  AMAZING.  And absolutely terrible for you.  Well, not absolutely terrible, but the terrible part is that Kyle and I will eat the whole loaf.  That meal probably packs enough calories for at least 2 days.  So, partially to help my self-control, and partially me not thinking about picking up bread at the grocery store, we skipped the garlic bread.  I had 1 cup of noodles and 1/2 cup of sauce... afterwards I realized that a serving of cooked noodles is actually 1.5 cups, but I was actually full.  I even had enough calories to have a glass of red wine with dinner :)  Not too bad for being on a "diet."

Elliot is now able to open the fridge.  The handle of the fridge at our apartment was too high for him to reach and have leverage to open the door.  The fridge in the house has a handle that stretches the length of the door.  Thankfully he goes for really healthy stuff - and there's not really anything unhealthy in our fridge, just stuff he should eat, like jalapenos.  This morning Kyle was finishing getting ready and I was brushing my teeth, Elliot was sick of waiting for us, and headed down the stairs.  He was downstairs maybe a minute before us and when we got there he had the strawberries out and was eating them (including the green part -ewwww).  Now that he can open the fridge he wants to pick out his own food.  Hello independence!  Yesterday for lunch he wanted string cheese and apple slices.  This morning for breakfast it's strawberries, cold penne noodles, and half a bagel.  Whatever I guess.  As long as he's eating, and it's healthy choices, I'm okay with it.     

I can hear Caroline's heavy deep sleep breathing on the baby monitor and it's making me so sleepy... time for coffee!!