I'm Trying to Like My Veggies...

Haven't joined Weight Watchers yet. But I have been exercising.
The scale said 175.8 today. That's the least it has said since I got home from the hospital- so progress is being made, though slowly! I have officially lost 5 pounds. Woohoo!
I am now trying to learn to like vegetables. I know I need to make them the main part of what I eat. Besides the fact that they'll help me maintain a healthy weight, chowing down on the veggies will also help prevent disease.
The older I get and the more people I see struggle with health issues, the more it motivates me to embrace a more healthy lifestyle. Of course there are many things out of our control, but I'd really like to not have a lot of regret in this department. I'd like to say that I took the best care of my temple that I could. That healthy lifestyle probably doesn't include mass quantities of chocolate and ice cream.
If I loved vegetables, I could eat them all the time and I wouldn't have to worry about how much. I was reading about people who eat like 9 servings of vegetables a day. They're super healthy! I can't even imagine eating 9 servings of vegetables a day. I'm not sure I can even think of 9 vegetables that I'm willing to eat.
So, I'll try to get the schedule worked out this week to join Weight Watchers like I planned and maybe they can teach me to like vegetables. Or at least I can get some recipes to help me disguise the flavor.

Still fasting...

My sugar fast is going pretty well. Last night I was kinda feeling the pain as we went to a wedding reception with mostly just desserts. Really good ones too like cheesecake and something that looked very rich and chocolatey. But then we went to Fatburger for dinner. :)
So, the sugar fast thing isn't really making me eat fewer calories necessarily. But sometimes I think it does. Mostly because I tend to eat sweet things even when I'm full. I can't really do that with nonsweet things or I just feel gross. And I'm not eating Fatburger everyday.
I was proud of myself for not eating the Mother's Day cookies today either. That would have been an easy one to justify. I gave them to my husband. I find it easier to stick with someting like this when it's for a short amount of time.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do once I end this fast. It has helped me realize that I don't need a treat every single day and that's good. It also has helped me be more mindful about the nutritional value of what I eat. I've been trying to make sure that the things I'm eating have some. I will probably be joining Weight Watchers with my sister this week. I think it might help me to have another way to report my progress and get support. We'll see...

You Cannot Go Back...

I had a striking realization today. As I walked along the Riverwalk trail pushing a stroller and thinking about how I used to walk along this trail eight years ago. Then, I was pushing my now nine-year-old son when I was trying to lose that baby weight. As I walked along today, it hit me: I am not the same woman that I was then.
I'm also not the same woman I was when I trained for a sprint triathlon after having baby #2 in an attempt to lose that baby weight.
And I'm really not the diet and exercise obsessed woman that got down to 137lbs. after I had my third child.
First of all, in all three of those cases, I didn't really begin to work off the baby weight until the baby was about a year old.
Second, I had a lot fewer kids and responsibilities.
Third, I knew a lot less about food, nutrition, but mostly about how to be in balance in my life.
With each other child I suffered from moderate (to occasionally severe) post-partum depression.
This time is different.
I am different.
I can't go back to who I was then. Nor would I want to.
It's time to reinvent my relationship to food and exercise. I have to do it in a more balanced way.
Actually, I think I was the closest to getting it right when I only had one child. I tried to eat a balanced diet and I walked outside every day. But mostly, I tried to follow the Spirit in helping me overcome my weakness with food.
But, as I said, I am still a different person than I was then and not everything I did then will work now.
I have decided to make this a more spiritual journey. I can't do it on my own. And weakness is given to us so that we will seek for help from God.
So, I started a sugar fast yesterday for a week. Since I'm nursing and can't do a regular fast. So I'm not eating sugar this week to help me get refocused. And I'm trying to use more vegetables in my diet.
I want to live a balanced life and eat a balanced diet. I want to feel good and feel healthy. I want to eat foods that give me strength.
I want to treat my body like the temple it is and live in integrity with what I know is right in this particular area of my life so that I can be at peace with myself.
I want my body to support me in all the things I want to do in my life.
I want to move forward and become the healthiest me ever!

Walk for Your Lives

I walked today. That is my victory. It was only 30 minutes and it wasn't very fast. But I did it. I'm starting to get more sleep, but I'm still working on that too.
On a more fun note, let me just suggest the movie "Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day". It's a very charming movie with some great substance. I watched it on the treadmill a few weeks ago.
Right now I'm watching "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for the tenth time. I gotta send back the Netflix movies and get some more!
My throat is starting to feel sore. It better be allergies!

Climbing Back On...

I admit that it was overly ambitious of me to start a fitness program with such a young baby. Setbacks are inevitable even without that variable. And sleep deprivation is a difficult foe.
At the moment I am completely unmotivated to eat right. But, having said that, I know that I'm not going to feel that way forever.
I feel more motivation to exercise than I did a week ago, which is a good sign. Exercise always makes me feel better, whether or not I'm losing weight.
The other issue is that I'm not feeling especially motivated by visions of a slimmer me. Except when I go clothes shopping (which I've done a few times in the last month). When nothing looks good on me, that stinks. But exhaustion trumps all these feelings with a general "I'm too tired to care" mentality. Which also explains my choices in wardrobe of late. As much as I know I should care more about what I'm wearing, I just don't.
So, the focus right now is on getting more sleep. Once I feel like I'm back in a good routine on that front, then on to the exercise. From there, it's back to food journaling and making better food choices. Which is always the most difficult for me. But, it's best not to dwell on the difficult things in life, we just have to suck it up, right? Just do it! (As the Nike ads and President Kimball used to say.) And as my mom always says- Onward and Upward!

Stealing Candy from a Baby (well, children really)

Easter candy is stupid! Well, no, it's not the Easter candy's fault. But it's so tempting! I completely derailed yesterday. It just kept taunting me. "We're delicous! You know you want to eat us! The baby didn't cry when you ate chocolate yesterday! We're chocolate and you must have us!"
And those Peeps! Staring at me with their beady little eyes!!!!
"No!" I screamed "You belong to my children! I won't eat you!!" But I did.
Well, not the Peeps, cause I don't really like them that much, but the chocolates. I did eat some (several) of those. Then it was on to the chocolate chips because I felt bad about stealing candy from children. (Even though, technically I paid for it. See how easy it is to justify?)
At some point I became strong enough to realize I had no self-control so I threw out the chocolate chips so they wouldn't tempt me anymore.
And today I went and bought some low-cal treats because behavior modification is nearly impossible for me. (Must. Have. Treats.)
So I did better today.
And I've continued to exercise despite my food screw-ups.
I will prevail!

Intervals with Pierce Brosnan

Well, I only got 4 workouts in last week. Plus we had a birthday (read cake) and Easter (read chocolate). So needless to say, my expectations for the scale were pretty low (or high if you're talking about how much weight I expected to gain). But, lo and behold! It said 177.4!
So instead of tempting fate and checking it again, I decided to go with it and let it motivate me for this week!
This week's goals are:
1) 5 workouts - 37 min or more each
2) 2000 calories- recorded each day
3) Take vitamins every day (doctor's orders so I should probably do it)
I wonder if the weight loss is partly because of the training method I tried this week. A friend recommended it and I've heard before that it's a great method.
Basically all you do is speed up and slow down in short intervals. Supposedly getting your body going to make the short bursts of speed makes your body work extra hard. Even more so than just getting to a faster pace and staying at it.
The other cool thing is that if you're only doing it for a short time, you can usually go faster than you would otherwise. Like today, I went up to 5.0 miles an hour (= 12 min. mile pace). I used to go at that speed a lot when I was in better shape. But since I'm just starting out I was afraid to try it. It wasn't bad at all for two minutes.
Oh- one thing I forgot to mention. If you want to try this training method, it's important that you be really well warmed up first or you might pull something. I fast walked for 20 minutes first. On a warmer day it probably wouldn't have taken so long (also, the more in shape I get, the less warm up time I need for interval training).
I also finished watching Mamma Mia on the treadmill this morning. Nothing like a musical with fast-paced songs to get you going! Just don't forget your earplugs for the Pierce Brosnan singing parts. Ouch! It sorta seems like he's trying to put a cowboy twang in his singing. Maybe he thinks it sounds more soulful. Either that or he's just streining so hard to hit the notes he's not paying any attention to how he's pronouncing things. You'd think that someone British wouldn't have to work on pronounciation at all in singing though. Weird. And painful. But he's still fairly attractive for an old guy.