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Friday, January 27, 2012

Its All About the Weight

Inspired by friends, family and famous people all on Weight Watchers, I joined their online program. Today is my second day. I'm starving. But in a good way. Let's backtrack though.

I'm down to my pre-pregnancy weight of 140. But thats not enough. I have not been able to work out at all, so thats a 'soft' 140, not a lean mean built 140. And while places that got thin from my horribly sick 1st trimester - like my legs and face - look pretty good, my stomach is still bigger than pre-pregnancy. And since thats the largest part on me anyway, even though I'm back to my 'normal' weight, I dont fit in all my old clothes.

Whats more is that since high school, I have been slowly creeping up in weight to where I am now. The lowest I ever remember being was 104, when I was a freshman in high school and was wrestling. Of course this was, for the most part, before real puberty. I was about 117 when I graduated high school. I was extremely fit, as I was active in sports all year round. From there, while in college I maxed out at about 147 during the worst of my pizza at 2am + no exercise days. I got active again after that and dropped back down to about 133, which is where I was when Ryan and I got married. Since getting married and having kids, I've settled back down to the 140 I am at right now.

Well that is not ok with me. I dont want to continue gaining a pound (or more) a year, and end up obese by the time I'm middle aged. I want to still be fit, healthy and sexy when I am (gasp) middle aged, only 10 years from now! I want to still be active with Ryan, be able to do the kind of backpacking and hiking we did when we first met, and still feel sexy enough for a romp on the trail (as opposed to feeling like a beached whale struggling to flop up the mountain).

While I can't really do too much about the exercise right now - that is whole other story - I CAN do something about my intake and therefore my weight.

I also have another reason to care about the food I eat: It is also the food I prepare for my family. Ryan is a lost cause (he grew up on cereal for 2 out of 3 meals a day, and his mother tricked his dad into eating soy beans by calling them 'baby lima beans'. As far as he is concerned, vegetables are a waste of valuable stomach space that you could be filling with carbs), but I CAN teach my girls about what real (vs processed) food is, and how to prepare and eat it. And more importantly, how it fuels the body and gives it all the nutrients it needs to be strong and vibrant.

I'm proud to say that Rory cooks dinner with me every night now, and probably can name more fruits and vegetables by sight in their raw, natural state than many adults across the nation today.

But....
I know the portions I eat are too much. I know that I eat things that even as I am eating them I think dont taste good enough to be worth eating - and I still eat them anyway. I know that I eat past the point of being full many times just because it is on the plate. I know that I go back for second, third or forth servings of something really deliciously bad at a weekend event even though I KNOW it will cause me to gain back every pound I fought so hard to loose during the work week. I know I still cook with a little too much butter... too much cream... too much cheese... too much of the yummy bad stuff. My weight proves there is improvement to be made in these ways. So when I looked into weight watchers and found out that I could do it online for only $20 a month, and Ryan was supportive when I talked to him about it, I jumped on it.

Why do I think this will work better than a journal or any other diet? Its all about an allotment and tracking. See its impossible if I make a pasta dish for me to calculate out how many calories are in my one serving. And by the time dinner rolls around, all I have is my stomach to tell me if I have already had a lot to eat that day and need to go easy on dinner (not so reliable when it sees that Ryan makes double batches of brownies for breakfast on his day off). So Weight Watchers is perfect, because they have this really great "recipe builder" tool on their site to calculate that all out for you. Granted its not the easiest thing in the world but its good enough for an internet savy person to find what they need and figure out the point values of what you are eating given some time. And nearing the end of my second day, it's awesome because I now have a hard LIMIT to follow for how much to eat. I can do that!

Crazy Abby

My crazy youngest daughter has in the last 2 weeks (in her 6th month):

  1. Gone from sitting propped up to being able to sit up herself from laying down.
  2. Started pulling herself up to standing.
  3. Cut her first teeth - bottom two - and has been MISERABLE through it.
  4. Started eating real food, and savors every bite. She really wants to eat what we are and fingerfood, but gets so hungry she 'settles' for baby food and gobbles it down.
  5. Outgrown her size 1-2 diapers and is now in full 2's.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

6 Months? Already?

Wow. On the 10th - less than a week from now - my baby girl will be 6 months old. Ill give that a second to sink in. 6 months. Ive been spending so much time trying to get through what I imagine to be the toughest year of my parenting life, half of that year has snuck up from behind me and bopped me on the head. I mean, really? Abby was just born. 6 months ago. Ok, ok, moving on.

I do feel as if we are getting things down and at least half of the time I have things borderline under control. We have settled into a routine with Abby, and know what her triggers are, and try to avoid them at any cost. (The wrath of Abby is not something to mess with or joke about. Its serious. Its shrill. Its loud. It makes your skin crawl and your stomach churn.)There are two things that always make her happy, no matter what. 1. The carrier. My Ergo has become our best friend, as well as anyone who is helping with her. 2. My breasts. This girl LOVES to nurse.

I want to talk about it a little bit, because its become probably the most important part of my life at this time. Abby loving to nurse is special to me. Rory didnt. In fact, after I went back to work she weaned herself and stopped breastfeeding at all, except for the early morning feeding when she was really relaxed and sleepy. My production slowly decreased and 5 long months of pumping after returning to work, my production was not worth my time pumping and I stopped. Abby is a different story. In fact, recently she has gone on a bottle strike. She has refused to drink anything from the bottle for Ryan for an entire day, for Cheryl for 4 hours, and now even Diane, for 2 days now. She just waits until I get back to her, then wants to nurse every few hours. It keeps me up at night, and Im tired, but if Im being honest with myself, I have to admit that I LOVE it. Abby is my baby. And she loves me. She loves me more than anything else. (Well, she loves my boobs, but they are a part of me.) Sometimes when I am away from her my boobs actually ache and itch for her to be in my arms, sucking away. And when she is in my arms, it just feels right. Everything is as it should be in that moment.

I have decreased my pumping. Being back at work now for three months, and my production only slowing as I have wanted it to, I feel secure. So I only pump twice a day at work, and then not at all when I am with her (unless it gets out of control and I have to pump some off just to release some pressure). I have given away half of my storage (all from August and some from September) and I am thinking that I might not ever need any of it.

She is also about this close to crawling. She is full on army crawling, and if you put her down on the ground and turn around, she will be clear across the other side of the room. If you prop her up she can sit up for a few seconds without falling and if you stand her up against something she will stand there for several seconds before she looses her balance and falls down. This girl is determined to be on the go.

Aurora is still no closer to being potty trained. We have given up, and just try to ask her as often as we can if she wants to use the potty. I guess it will happen when it happens. I know I could train her bootcamp style - if I had an undivided weekend with my full attention to spend. But I dont, so screw it. Its the same with weaning her from her paci.

Abby turning 6 months old also means we are one step closer to our next vehicle, which is going to be a Jeep. Probably in a year from now. The accident with the Mazda was probably the best thing in the world for us - noting that Ryan was totally unharmed from it. For one thing, we realized that we didnt need a second vehicle. The second thing we realized was that the Mazda was a great people/town vehicle, and a good option for a "family" vehicle, but it wasnt the ideal one for us. And finally, with it being totaled we were able to reassess our situation and really look at what we needed and wanted in one. We had already known that a large part of the family that we want to raise our girls in is a traveling, outdoorsy family. We want to camp and hike. All the time. We want to take lots of road trips. We want to visit the great outdoors. And we dont want to do it in a touristy, crowded, paved kind of way. We want to do it in an off road way - take the road less traveled. So with hours hunched over crazy Ryan spreadsheets, and after countless talks before bedtime, and after work car talks in our too-small-for-a-family-of-4-Corolla researching every other vehicle on the market that could possibly meet our needs (and wants, hopes and dreams for our active family lifestyle) we have decided that a Jeep is where it is at. We are excited to for once have something to religiously save for (instead of just doing it to be judicious with our money - which is what we normally do), and very much looking forward to this next stage in our lives. It symbolizes freedom to us. Because it means that we finally have our own family to do what we want - instead of being a part of someone elses and doing what they want.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Rory Stories

I have lots of updates but for now, a quick fun update on Rory. She is talking so much and being so fun with it!

This morning I told her she was a "smart cookie". She said, "me not cookie, me gurl!"

Yesterday at Blake and Keira's party she was wearing some stick on earrings. I told her to show Daddy her earrings, which she did. He replied in a mad voice, "WHOOOO has earrings?!?!?!"
"Keira!"
"Who else?"
"Mommy!"
"Well then what are those in YOUR ears???"
"Stickers."

Love it. Not even 3 and already spinning the story. lol!