So...I run now

It's been over two years since I wrote my last blog post. I probably don't have any blog followers left, but I felt compelled to write today.

Two years ago I was struggling. With everything. Since then, I have done so much to heal myself and strengthen my family. I have lost 65 pounds! That is my proudest personal achievement outside of my marriage and my children.

I love to run and think I will be writing more about my adventures in running and fitness. Stay tuned (if there is anyone still out there, lol)!

Yes, that's actually me on the right! Ran The Color Run in Ypsilanti, MI earlier this month! Super fun!

Ready to Give Up

I am so ready to give up on my goals.  I am so exhausted every single day.  My son works my every nerve because he does not listen to me.  I finally get Kaitlyn to sleep and Nolan is loud and obnoxious.  I seriously have to use every ounce of patience with him and it leaves no patience left over for anyone or anything else.  By the time my husband gets home from work, I'm spent.  I have nothing left to give to myself.  I have 3 awesome workout DVDs just sitting here waiting for me to put them in the player and give them a try but I'm just too tired to care. 

Forgot to mention before but I am also trying to potty train Nolan right now, so that's fun.  He will go pee on the potty, but no poops.  He will go pee on the potty if I put him there, but not on his own.  I have to ask him 12 gazillion times a day if he has to pee and the answer is always "no".  Strange, because when I put him on the potty he goes pee every time!  Then my husband gets home and never asks Nolan if he has to go pee, unless I tell him to.  It just feels to me that I am completely responsible for the potty training but if Nolan pees or poops in a diaper/pull-up then my husband gets upset with him.  Well, how about putting him on the potty a million times a day like I do instead of just when it's convenient for you?!  Ugh.

They're Here

Received my DVDs in the mail today!  Will have to start them tomorrow though as today was pretty rough, emotionally.  I'll let you know how it goes!

There IS Hope!

YAY!  I lost weight this week!  I weighed in at 201.6 lbs this morning and I'm so happy about it!  I was hoping to be under 200 lbs by this time but I guess I will have to be happy about this loss.  I am going to keep at it and hope my DVDs arrive this week so I can start incorporating those into my daily routine as well.  It will be difficult because my baby girl doesn't nap, but that's why I wanted short routines.  I can hopefully put her next to me on her play mat while I do the workouts and I will try to do them while my son is napping, since he still does take a nap for me (thankfully!). 

Have a lot to do this week!  Hoping to plan a play date this week at a friend's house so my son can get some play time in that involves kids his age...it is looking like it's going to rain this morning, so maybe I will try for tomorrow.  Need to get a new battery for my heart rate monitor watch too so I can go to spin class on Sunday, hopefully.  I just cannot go to that class without a heart rate monitor because I don't feel like I know what zone I am in and then I don't feel like I get a great workout because I'm not pushing myself to stay in the different zones...it's tough.  Lastly, I have to get all of the information for my daughter's baptism figured out.  We are hoping to do it next month, which means a lot of planning to do for me...and quick!  My mom is going to be gone most of September, so I just wanted to try to have Kaitlyn baptized in August.  She is getting a cute dress, too.  I just have to find it!  My son was so big when he was baptized that he barely fit into the 9 month outfit I bought him...he was only 5 months old!

Anyone have fun plans for the week?

Always wanted to be on The Biggest Loser, so...

I bought three workout videos just now on Amazon!!! 

1. Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred
2. The Biggest Loser: The Workout - Weight Loss Yoga
3. The Biggest Loser: The Workout - Boot Camp

I love Bob and Jillian, but mostly Bob, and am so excited to try all of these!  I love yoga but haven't had a chance to get back to the yoga class at my gym because of baby girl.  I will let you know how these videos fit into my hectic life and my results.  Can't wait!

P.S. Thanks Aresha!  :)  We will be on this journey together!  So glad we have reconnected! I am thankful to have such a wonderful, supportive voice in my life right now.  I truly appreciate you!

One "Step" in the Right Direction

Well, I didn't get any suggestions on home workout DVDs so I'll keep searching the internet and asking all of my mommy friends.  But, I did get to the gym this morning!  YAY!  I went to Step Aerobics class for the first time since last September and it is still so fun to me!  I love that class because I forget that I'm working out and then it's done.  I am not the most coordinated person in the world (serious understatement there) but somehow I can usually get the step routines after a few tries.  There was one today that I wasn't 100% great on, but I think part of it was because my body was like, "What are you doing to me? Why aren't we sitting on the couch?".  So, I'm a bit tired right now, but I feel so good.  Hopefully I can go every Saturday morning.  My son still loves the child care center, so I took him with me and my husband stayed home with the baby.  This is not the ideal situation because now my husband will have to go to the gym later and it will take away from family time, but it is only temporary.  Once Kaitlyn is older, I will feel comfortable taking her to the child care center and we can all go together and knock it out at once so we have more time together later on in the day.  I'm hoping to go to the gym tomorrow as well, but not sure what I'll do.  There is a spin class in the morning, but not sure I'm up for that yet.  We'll see and I'll keep you posted!

Need Your Help

Okay, so the whole getting to the gym during the week is not "working out" so well, pun intended.  I am turning to you all to help me out a little bit.  Could you suggest any great workout DVDs I could purchase so I can workout during the week at home?  My ideal DVDs would have shorter workouts so I can get them in even on days when the kids don't nap very long or well.  I would also like a DVD that is fun and I won't get bored very easily, because if you read my prior post, I do get easily distracted.  Even if I had to do one workout in the morning and one in the evening, that would be fine too.  As I noted yesterday, I enjoy step aerobics, yoga and have done some pilates a while ago.  I don't have a stationary bike, so spin class at home is out.  Boo.  I would totally love that!  I am not super coordinated, but catch on fairly fast.

I just am not comfortable taking Kaitlyn to my gym's child care center until she is at least 3-4 months old and even then, I am not 100% sure I will be okay with it.  I don't know what type of training these people have and though they can easily get a hold of me if something were to happen, I just have an uneasy feeling about leaving her.  My son loves it there and so he is no problem so for the next few months, at least, I would like to do some sort of DVD at home during the week and on the weekends when my husband is home, I can get to the gym for a group class or two.

Thanks ahead of time for the suggestions!  I really want to lose weight and need to figure out how to make working out a part of my daily life, even when I feel like I can't do it.

The Gym is not my Enemy

I have to keep repeating to myself that I used to enjoy going to the gym and working out.  I went for the first time in almost a year on Monday.  The treadmill is the worst invention, ever.  It is a torture device.  I walked/jogged/ran for 30 minutes on Monday and I hated it.  I even listened to Dave Matthews Band the entire time...that was the only thing that kept me going.  I am just not a treadmill kind of girl.  I love doing step aerobics, yoga and spin classes but the treadmill sucks.  I just cannot stay focused running in place.  I get so bored.  Unfortunately, my gym has changed up all of their classes/schedules since I was there last and I don't know how to get back into a good routine.  Before I became pregnant I was going to 2 spin classes during the week, Step Aerobics on Saturday mornings and Yoga on Sundays.  I was able to drop my son off at the child care, workout, shower and go pick him up with no issues and we were in such a great routine.  Now I feel overwhelmed and don't know how to get back into a workout routine.  It's obvious to me that I need to attend group workout classes if I'm going to make this work because if I leave it up to pushing myself, it will take me forever to lose the weight I want to lose.  If I only had someone to watch Kaitlyn for 2 to 2 1/2 hours twice during the week, I would be so much happier!  That would allow me to get to the spin classes, which I love, and take Nolan to the child care, which he loves, during the week and then have my husband watch her on the weekends.  How do you manage to fit in workouts, have your husband fit in workouts and still get family time everyday?  It is boggling my mind right now and I'm hoping a solution will just appear to me like a divine vision or something.  For sure though, the treadmill is not going to cut it.

Here We Go - I Can't Believe I'm Posting This

It will be two months this evening since my dad has passed away and I feel like a large part of me has "passed" away as well.  I am not really interested in much, not that I have a lot of free time with an almost two month old baby and a 2 and 1/2 year old toddler.  But I used to care about things, used to plan play dates and dinners with friends.  I just don't have the energy or the drive to do these things anymore and I'm sick of feeling this way.  It is not PPD, I think I had a moderate case of that with my son, but this is different.  It has nothing to do with me feeling like I'm a bad mother or being overwhelmed or anything...that is what I felt like with my son.  I know it has to do with my dad's death but I just don't know how to go about feeling like my old self again. 

So, I would like to use my blog, which is relatively new and had no real point to it anyway, to document my journey.  I would call it a weight loss blog, except this is about so much more than my weight.  I need to change a lot of things in my life, though weight is a big one to me.  I have always struggled with my weight and having 2 children has just made it more difficult to manage.  I am somewhere between 5' 6'' and 5' 7'' tall and before I got pregnant with my son in 2007 I weighed about 160 lbs and wore a size 10.  I was working out and eating relatively healthy.  I felt great.  I was happy.  I have never been "skinny" and probably never will.  I liked my curves and had no problem with being a size 10. 

My husband and I in Punta Cana, September 2008, a few months before I became pregnant with my son.

After I had my son and decided I needed to lose weight, I weighed 194 and got down to 174 and a size 14, a size 12 in some types of clothing, before I got pregnant with my daughter last year.  The trainer at our gym, whom I had asked for help, evaluated my fitness level before I started losing weight and said my ideal weight for my age/height was 138 lbs.  Ha!  I've no recollection of ever weighing that, but okay.  I had been working out 4 times a week and eating better.  It took me about 7 months to lose those 20 lbs once I dedicated myself to doing so.  It was difficult for me to lose weight with a child and nobody nearby to watch him so I could go to the gym, but my son loved the gym daycare, so it was getting a bit easier...we had a daily routine.  I was going out with friends, taking my son on lots of play dates and my marriage was happy and healthy. 

December 2008 - around when I started dedicating myself to losing the baby weight from my 1st pregnancy 

Dave Matthews Band concert with my best friend - July 2009 - down 20 lbs - I became pregnant with my daughter a few days after this photo was taken

Then, I became pregnant again.  I vowed to do everything different so that I didn't have to go through all the weight loss again, but I became very sick with her and could only keep down bread basically.  I gained more weight than I wanted to with this pregnancy and am now right back where I started...only worse.  I weighed myself this morning and I weigh 206.8 lbs!  That is horrible and I feel horrible.  I can't believe I'm letting anyone, and everyone, know how much I weigh but hopefully it will make me stick to my goals.  I know that ultimately I only have to answer to myself, but maybe if I feel guilty about letting down my readers I will do even better!  I feel crappy. I have no energy and hate picking out clothes every day.  I miss myself.

Father's Day - June 2010 - Kaitlyn and I celebrating at home

I laid out big picture goals in Saturday's post but I also think I should have mini goals.  Heaven knows I cannot accomplish everything I would like to in a matter of days, or months.  I am not naive; I know I am not on "The Biggest Loser" or "Oprah".  I do not have unlimited funds to hire a personal trainer, nanny or chef.  I cannot lose 90 lbs, eat 100% healthy all the time, make love to my husband daily, be a perfect mother all day every day or suddenly just be done grieving my dad's death overnight.  I am not expecting perfection.  I am hoping to re-discover the joys in my life I once had.  I will never be pefect...how boring is that?  I just want to be happy...maybe 90% of the time?  :) 

Here is what I'm thinking...I am going to eliminate soda pop and fast food from my diet.  I am going to drink more water and eat more fruit and veggies.  I am going to re-instate my gym membership and make sure I am active every day for at least 30 minutes, preferably with my family.  I am going to set aside at least one night a week to hang out with my husband once the kids are both in bed...I usually just go to bed because I am so exhausted.  Lastly, I am going to make sure I post here on my blog at least 3 times a week about how I am feeling in general but also specifically my feelings regarding my dad's death.  I don't know if I'm ready to see a professional to discuss my issues regarding this but maybe if I write about my feelings it will be like I'm "talking" to a psychiatrist.  If it doesn't work, I can definitely explore that option; I'm not ruling it out.

These are just my short-term goals and I plan to set more specific goals after 2 weeks, once I see how I am doing.  Some things will probably have to be modified, added, subtracted, whatever.  This is my best attempt at becoming a better me.  Thanks for your support...here goes nothing, I mean, here goes something...

My dad and I on my wedding day - September 24, 2005