Holding On

Thank you to everyone who posted a comment on my last post!  It was great to hear from you and made me feel happy inside.  A bright spot in a couple of rather difficult days.  

The past two days have been difficult again.  Lily is still sick and that has been wearing on my nerves, and we have been cooped up for over a week with tired and sick kids.  I took Lily to the doctor on Tuesday and she was put on some antibiotics but they don't know specifically what it is.  The test for strep came back negative.  Today Lily's fever is down to around 99.8.  She is doing better, but she still isn't quite there.

Yesterday was particularly difficult.  I was just so stressed by the afternoon and I was trying my hardest not to eat anything.  I really wanted to keep my calories lower for Wed, Thurs, and Friday because I know I've eaten more than usual earlier in the week.  Yesterday I managed to eat around 1600 calories, which was still 200 over what my goal was, but for how difficult it was I'm not going to complain.  The afternoon just seemed to drag on and on and all I wanted to do was eat.  I felt like I was starving even though I had eaten well.  We didn't go anywhere Wednesday so I did Zumba on the Wii.  I was able to make it through just fine but around 3:00 I just crashed.  I was so tired and felt so hungry.  I snacked on some carrot sticks after I had eaten my official snack.  To help get me through I texted a few of my friends and that helped take my mind off of things for a while.  I ended up eating dinner at 4:45 and then put Sleeping Beauty on for the kids and fell asleep on the couch.  I've been so exhausted lately, having sick kids has really been wearing me down.

Today was better, but I was just moody today.  Lily was feeling better so I made it to the gym and I was going to swim and bike to finish off my training for the week but as I was walking towards the pool, every step seemed to get heavier and heavier.  When I realized that there was an aquatics class going on in the lap pool and the one remaining lane was already occupied I practically sighed with relief.  I had already showered in advance so I was already wet and decided to spend some time in the hot tub.  I ended up skipping the swim and just decided to cycle for 20 minutes (which was on my training schedule)  I could swim tomorrow.  As I changed and headed up to the cardio area my energy picked up a bit.   I think I really just didn't want to swim, even though there was only 800 yards on the schedule.  This week is week 4 which is a taper week meaning that you go easy this week to allow your body to recover so you can hit it harder and increase your distance/intensity the next week.  I started out great on the bike but by the time 20 minutes rolled around I was dying and ready to get off.  I felt silly just working out for 20 minutes and I still had a ton of time to kill before I had to pick up my kids so I walked on the treadmill for about 25 minutes.  I was thinking of trying the bodyflow class which is a gentle yoga but I just didn't have the energy.  I finished up, picked up the kids, fed them and then we all went to bed.  I was so tired I just collapsed.  I slept for about an hour and a half and then got up.  The kids slept for another hour which was nice as I was able to solidify plans to go see Mad Max on Saturday with Matt and my sister.

My mom made a surprise visit which was nice, and she said "are you losing some more weight?"  Which was awesome because it means that there have been visible changes in my body over the past four weeks.  Today I also thought that my legs looked slightly smaller than they have been looking over the past 7 months or so.

It's now 8:00 and I'm already exhausted again.  I hope the kids will go to bed easily tonight although my hopes are not too high since they both took a two and a half hour nap.  Besides Matt isn't home yet and I didn't cook enough spaghetti noodles for him so I will have to fix him up something to eat.

Here's to holding on by a thread, and hoping that tomorrow dawns bright and sunny.