Check in

This is just a quick check in to let you know that I am still here.  We will be leaving up into the mountains again tomorrow so I won't have internet access until next Tuesday.  First of all as I'm sure you are wondering, I'm not pregnant again.  Turns out I had a mild stomach bug which became evident when Lily was complaining of her stomach hurting last Saturday and then Chloe complaining on Monday and Tuesday.  I am super glad that it was mild and it really didn't impede on our plans.  However, before my miscarriage I was one of those people who could pretty much pick a month I wanted to get pregnant in and then I would be pregnant that month.  Not being pregnant two months in a row has me a little concerned.  What if something happened to my body during that mess after my miscarriage?  What if something happened during the D&C that we don't know about.  What if I can't ever have any more kids?  I did have a friend who said it took her 9 months of trying after her first miscarriage to get pregnant again, and now she has 8 kids, so maybe my body is just still recovering.  After all it was pretty traumatic. 

I pulled weeds yesterday and had an allergic reaction, that was unexpected. 

I guess it's long sleeves for me from now on.  I was pretty miserable the rest of the day as I had already taken my allergy medicine and the only thing I had left was Benadryl, which I took around 7pm and I promptly fell asleep at 9pm (staying awake for 2 hours after taking Benadryl is pretty good).  I was itching like crazy from the weeds.  The rash is almost gone today, which is good. 

I signed up the kids for swim lessons, Lily is getting too big for her puddle jumper and I would like them to be able to go down the water slides in the kid area of the water park without worrying about them (right now they just don't go down the water slides).  The kids absolutely love their swim lessons

And this is probably the best pose ever.  She cracks me up!

Changing up the exercise plan

So the weekend was pretty rough, It took me three days to recover from my bought with dairy.  Lesson learned: don't eat it even if you accidentally order it, it's better to waste it than suffer for three days.  I ate way too much food on Monday.  We went to BJs and then I ate too many cookies and we had popcorn in the evening.  Although I wouldn't call it a binge, just overeating.  A binge is more of an emotional out of control eating and when I would binge in the past I wouldn't pay any attention to how my stomach felt, I just kept trying to shove more in.  On Monday, I quit eating when my stomach was full.  Probably a little fuller than was comfortable, but not so full that I made myself sick.  I didn't track my food on Monday which wasn't the best choice, but I'm okay with it.  The goal is progress not perfection. 

On Monday I weighed in at 177.6, which is .8 pounds down from last week, but .4 pounds up from my lowest weight last week.  According to my trackers I had a deficit of 6,370 calories which means I should have lost a little over a pound and a half.  A huge part of the discrepancy was my dairy fiasco.  It basically caused me to retain fluid and gas and stopped my digestive system.  So when I weighed in on Monday, I was really backed up.  I think that as long as I do a good job the rest of the week, all things will even out in the long term, and besides, I'm still going down.  It's hard when I'm are just starting out and I don't really have a lot of data to fall back on.  But I started at over 180 and I am not going to let the daily fluctuations bother me this time around.  It's a lot of worrying and stress that results in making life more miserable. 

So yesterday I noticed that the top of my left shin had started hurting when I was walking and especially when going up stairs.  At first I thought I had bruised it by smacking it against something but as the day wore on and the pain got worse I recognized it for what it truly was: shin splints.  Double crapola.  I have always been prone to getting shin splints whenever I start an exercise routine, and I guess I am really starting over from scratch because they have come back.  I thought I had vanquished that foe for good, but I suppose 6 months of doing nothing and gaining 30 pounds will bring them back.  Three years ago I suffered through the shin splints and kept working out even though it was really painful, until I injured myself so badly that I had to take several weeks off and they healed and went away.  That's probably not the best course of action.  I feel like the powers that be are against me right now.  Every few days some new problem arises.  But maybe that is just life.  So my foot is still healing from when I tweaked it, although it doesn't bother me too much, it might be good to rest it for a bit, and now I have shin splints that need resting and healing.  So I'm going to bite the bullet and start strength training.  Not my favorite activity, but it will probably be good to get some more muscle in my body to help me with my cardio workouts anyway.  It will hopefully help prevent me from injuring myself further.  I just did the first workout from my Chalean Extreme DVD, and I am going to be sore tomorrow!  Last time I did this, I was so sore the first two weeks I could hardly walk or move.  Not looking forward to that again.  So since lifting weights doesn't really give you the satisfaction of seeing the numbers on the scale go down I decided I better keep track of my other numbers as well, which will be more revealing in the coming months.  My body fat percentage is 37.9%  and I have 57.4 pounds of muscle.  Therefore if my weight stays the same, but my muscle goes up, I will know that I have actually lost fat and gained muscle.  Which will help with the psychological aspect of everything. 

I want to get back into mountain biking and having stronger legs is really going to help with that.  So, here we go again.

Source

Tambourin- Flute

So I did some searching around on Google, and apparently Blogger doesn't allow you to upload audio files to blog posts.  So the way to get around this is to make your audio into a video.  I wanted to make a video that was one picture long and just have my song play to the one picture, but I have windows 10 and Windows Movie Maker has not yet been released for Windows 10, so I got some other free program with very basic functions.  Basically you add audio, and you add pictures.  I can't adjust the picture length so I had to select enough pictures to last the length of the audio, and the pictures go by fairly quickly.  Most of the pictures are nature pictures since I didn't really want to create a slide show.  The first picture is the one that was supposed to be up the whole time.  But I believe that this will suffice for what I want! 

About a month ago I created a recording of a song I had played in High School called Tambourin.  I'd been working on it with my flute teacher for a while because one of my main goals in taking lessons was so that I could  play this particular song.  Since this recording I've cleaned up the ending a little bit, but I'm still pleased with this recording and proud of myself for the progress I've made.  I'm hoping to try out for the local volunteer orchestra next year.  I would love to this year, but Matt has to finish all his internships.  His schedule is just to crazy right now.  Anyway, by next year I should be in a pretty good place to feel comfortable enough to try out.  So I hope you enjoy, a lot of hours went into practicing this piece.  This is Tamboruin by Francois Joseph Gossec

Nutrition, high and low

You know what's going to be nice is when my workout clothes fit again.  I have a few items that I can still wear, but most of my clothes no longer fit.  It makes working out 5 days a week either hard because of laundry, or gross because I don't do laundry.  But whatever, it's only one hour a day and then I can shower and be less gross. 

Anyway, on with the topic for today.  I snuck a peak at the scale this morning and was down to 177.2.  Most excellent.  I hope I can at least maintain that weight for my official weigh in on Monday. 

I thought I would give a peak at my food logs for this week.  I figured I would give my highest calorie day and my lowest calorie day so here it is. 

Lowest: Tuesday with 1,754 calories

Breakfast
Homemade hashbrowns 4 oz 300 cal
two poached eggs                   147 cal

Lunch
Avocado half                           125 cal
Boars Head Turkey 1.5 oz      45 cal
Rudi's Sourdough bread 2 slices   180 cal
Basil Pesto     1 tbsp.                  82 cal
Onions 2 tbsp.                           8 cal
Fire roasted tomatoes in olive oil  60 cal
 (lunch was a sandwich in case you couldn't tell)

Dinner
Brussels sprouts- 1 cup               38 cal
Coconut oil   3/4 tbsp.               90 cal
Grapes  1 cup                            62 cal
Rib Eye Steak 6 oz                   300 cal

Snacks
One Peach                                  66 cal
1 cup goldfish                           140 cal

Desserts
1/2 cookie White chocolate       110


So it wasn't the absolutely healthiest day but it is a vast improvement upon what I was eating in the past. 


Highest Calorie day: Friday, total calories: 2,511

Breakfast
3 eggs scrambled                 180 cal
Almondmilk 1 cup              30 cal
Avocado oil   1 tsp              43 cal
onions 2 tbsp.                      8
red bell pepper  2 tbsp.       6
Macadamia nuts 1/2 oz     100
(I had an egg scramble with some nuts on the side)

Lunch
Onions                                  8
Sourdough bread 2 slices      180
Basil Pesto                            82
Roast Beef    3 oz                 105
Apple 1 medium                   80
3/4 peach                              44
Vinegar and sea salt chips    140

Dinner
Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi      570
Olive Garden 2 breadsticks          280
Olive Garden Chicken and Gnocchi soup 1/2 bowl   125

Dessert
Home made white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies 4 cookies  528 calories


So today was the highest day in calories, but I'm not worried about it very much I didn't go way overboard on anything, I chose a reasonable dinner at a restaurant that has many meals that are around 1,500 calories a meal.  The only thing I regret is the soup because I had forgotten that that particular soup was white, meaning it was probably cooked with milk, (or half and half or heavy cream, it's all wreaks the same havoc in my digestive system) meaning I now have a stomach ache.  I started feeling sick as soon as we left the restaurant.  I should have not eaten a single bite when I saw it and realized that it was made with dairy, but I am still me and I love that soup and didn't want it to go to waste so I thought I could eat half of it and get away with it.  Well, we will see what tonight brings, but right now I'm managing.  If it doesn't get worse then I can deal, however the pain has a bad habit of hitting around 11pm when I've just fallen asleep or I'm trying to fall asleep.  Probably because I'm no longer moving. 

Well, anyway, that is all for today.  The plan for Saturday and Sunday is to keep it a little lighter and stay out of the cookies I made tonight.  I went all day Wednesday and Thursday without any dessert so lets see if I can go Saturday and Sunday and make that four days this week with no dessert.  That seems pretty reasonable to me

Exercise- then and now

Yesterday was a harder day.  I was exhausted for most of the day.  Starting a new exercise regime combined with very little sleep will do that to you.  I was craving chocolate for about six hours yesterday.  But I knew that it would profit me nothing to sit down and eat a cup of chocolate chips.  I knew that I would feel sick afterwards, I knew that I would be upset with myself afterwards, and I also knew that eating plain chocolate chips was not really what I wanted.  I wanted that chocolate cake from the restaurant Monday night.  So I was able to talk myself out of it.  I'm proud of myself for not giving in.  I think finding a balance with sweets is going to be key if I am going to have success moderating my diet in the long term.  I don't want to do anything crazy like cutting it out completely.  I've tried it, to disastrous effects (can you say binging).  But I also know I don't really need to be spending 400 calories a day on desserts.  Yesterday I ate half an oatmeal raisin cookie, because the craving for sugar was so strong.  But it wasn't chocolate and it didn't satisfy so I didn't finish it, and I didn't try to satisfy my craving by eating the remainder of the oatmeal raisin cookies we had left.  So yes, I am proud of myself.  Even though I ate sugar, I still made a good choice, and I was still able to be strong, and my half a cookie was about 100 calories.  Much better than losing control and ending up eating 1,000-3000 calories depending on how out of control I became.  I could have made cake.  I could have made chocolate cookies.  But I didn't.  So yes, I am happy that I was able to avoid one of my biggest binge triggers- being very tired and not being able to sleep (since I can't sleep unless my kids are sleeping otherwise little toddlers are unsupervised and that's bad). 

Anyway, I have exercised for three days in a row this week.  My goal is five days a week.  I think that is a really good number for me.  I've been trying to think about what really worked the first year when I lost most of my weight.  I have been thinking about what I want to maintain and what feels good for me.  And I think that exercising five days a week, for about an hour a day is a really good place for me.  That's what feels good, and it doesn't feel like it's too much and I feel like I've accomplished something.  Doing 30 minutes a day felt too short and going over an hour feels too long and leaves me exhausted the rest of the day.  I've also been thinking about the quality of my workouts.  When I was in the thick of things, mainly after the first year, I was so obsessed with trying to lose weight and so frustrated that I couldn't that I developed this mentality that my workouts needed to be at max effort and max capacity all the time.  I didn't want to warm up or cool down, I wanted to get the highest calorie burn possible, and I nearly drove myself insane trying to do it.  In reality, the warm up and the cool down are super important.  They prepare your body for working harder and help you recover and transition into your next activity. 

I've also realized that not every day is going to be awesome and that is OK.  I'm going to have off days just like I'm going to have awesome days.  Some days I'm really tired and I have to do an easier workout and some days I feel great and I can really kill at my workout.  There is an ebb and flow, and it's not going to be high intensity all the time.  And that is ok because the important thing is that I am moving.  I am working my body, and I'm doing something I love.  I've been playing Zumba Core on my Wii

Source

To be successful at maintaining a workout, I need to be doing something I love.  And I love Zumba, and I love these games.  When I get tired of the core workouts, I'm going to switch over to the Zumba Dance app on my ipad.  I should figure out how to hook it up to the TV.  Then I will go over to Zumba World Party.  I don't have a whole lot of future plans because I don't know what the future is going to look like next month.  I'm taking it one step at a time.

crunching numbers, weekly recap

I made it one whole week.  Can you believe it?  I started out one week ago at 181 and today I weighed in at 178.4.  That's down 2.6 pounds and a pretty good start.  I'm feeling pretty good.  I don't feel like I'm overextending myself or that I'm restricting in a way that will cause me to spiral out of control.  My foot is feeling much better and I was able to continue my workouts as usual today.  Today was the best day I've had as far as exercise goes so far.  Last week was really hard.  I was just so exhausted every day, but today I felt slightly better.  A little bit more energy. 

Lily still has a fever, we are pretty sure it is Colorado Tick Fever.  The good news is that it's not all that severe, and certainly not fatal.  Unlike limes disease it will be completely expunged from her body within six months and after the initial two weeks she should be back to normal.  I guess we will just have to lay low for a few weeks.  But now that dance recitals are over, we don't have much on the schedule.  It was pretty remarkable that she was able to feel well enough to go perform.  God does hear and answer prayers. 

Today is my Anniversary.  We have been married for 8 years!  We went to a Brazilian place called Tucanos.  It was awesome.  I feel like I didn't stuff myself stupid which is always good.  (It's an all you can eat meat and salad buffet.  It's pretty much awesome).  And we split a dessert.  I ate light all day long since I knew we were going to have a heavy dinner and MFP doesn't have much in the way of calorie counts for Tucanos, and since an all you can eat buffet is rather difficult to count I just put in 1,000 calories for dinner, plus 300 for the cake. 

Here are some interesting numbers for this past week as far as calories in vs calories out goes:

Day                 Calories consumed  (1900 goal)            Calories burned (calculated by my fitbit blaze)
Today                2,284                                                      2,937 (as of 8:30pm)    
Yesterday          1,937                                                      2,346
Saturday            2,316                                                      3,473
Friday                2,199                                                      3,507
Thursday           1,767                                                      2,763
Wednesday        1,825                                                      2,988
Tuesday             1,736                                                      3,013

So even on days where my calorie count was higher than my goal, my calories burned was way above what I ate.  So when you run the numbers, to lose 2.5 pounds you would technically have to have a calorie deficit of 8,500 calories.  My calorie deficit for each day last week looks like this:

Day                  Deficit
Today              653
Yesterday        409
Saturday          1,157
Friday              1,308
Thursday          996
Wednesday       1,163
Tuesday            1,277
Total Deficit    6,963

Notice how the numbers don't match up.  That's because our bodies and our weight are composed of much more than just calories in vs calories out.  Some of the weight loss is excess food weight.  Whenever I start eating less food, there is less inside me and so naturally I weigh less.  There is also water to take into account and any number of other things.  But now that I have a method of actually tracking how many calories I burn and how many calories I eat, I think it will be very interesting to see how the numbers match up.  Will I lose a pound with a 3,500 calorie deficit?  The second week will be more revealing since I won't be dealing so much with the whole starting out gap. 

Still Going

Do you ever feel like the Universe is against you?  Day two of exercising I landed on my right foot wrong, in exactly the same way I hurt my left foot two years ago.  The difference was I wasn't coming down from a jump so fortunately I didn't hurt myself too bad.  Last time I landed on my foot like that it took three months to heal.  I hurt the rest of Wednesday, but used Deep Blue from Doterra and Ibuprofen to manage the pain.  On Thursday I rested from exercising and as long as I didn't move my foot from side to side I was ok.  Today I was able to exercise again, but I kept it very low intensity.  I woke up exhausted today.  Chloe fell out of bed at 5am and then Lily woke up sick at 5:30.  Lily was sick last night with a fever.  I'm dreading that it is Colorado Tick Fever.  She was bit by a tick on Monday when we were staying in the Mountains near Gunnison.  It takes six months for the virus to completely leave your body and about half of infected people experience multiple breakouts during that time (usually two, the initial fever and then another one later).  It could be something else, my brother is also sick with a fever and sore throat and Lily has been staying up late for the past several nights so who knows.  I gave her some medicine today and she has been acting a lot better, so at least medicine is helping her feel better. 

I was pretty tired during my workout today, but since I couldn't have done anything high intensity if I was feeling up for it, I guess it all worked out.  I still burned over 500 calories. 

I'm trying not to worry about where I was.  Pining for the past is not going to help anything, it's not going to change anything.  I can only work with where I am now and make progress from my current situation.  I've been doing good with my food.  Tuesday I ate 1,736 calories, Wednesday was 1,825 and Thursday was 1,767.  I feel really good about that.  I think I'm on the right track. 

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Awakening

Over the weekend we went to the Ranch, which is a plot of land up in the mountains that my In-Laws own.  Matt grew up going there and it is special to him.  It has no internet and no cell phone service, but it is the outdoor enthusiasts paradise.  Plenty of hiking, biking, trail running, ATV riding, and even places to go kayaking (not that we do that one), but pretty much it's like glorified camping on account of we don't have to pitch a tent, they have a cabin.  I haven't been since last summer since we don't go over the winter as it gets snowed in.  Last summer I was training for a triathlon, last summer I was in shape.  This weekend I am thirty pounds heavier than last summer, and this weekend was a slap in the face.  It was the kick in the butt I needed, combined with my cycle starting.  In the past I could pretty much pick a month and be pregnant.  So I figured that would happen again, apparently not.  I have to now accept the fact that I haven't the slightest clue what the past six months have done to my reproductive system and it might just be that my body is not yet ready.  So while I am waiting I might as well make the most of my time and then I can at least continue being active and eating healthy when the time comes that I do get pregnant. 

Anyway, this weekend was tough.  Physically tough.  I went out hiking with the kids and we flew kites, and drove around on the ATVs that my In-Laws have, and I hit 10,000 steps by 1:00 and I passed out.  Meaning that I fell asleep and took a nap with Chloe.  I was totally and utterly spent by 1:00.  Then I was tired and exhausted for the rest of the trip.  I did everything I could, continuing to go on hikes, and helping Lily learn to ride without training wheels, but I was just so tired.  I was really cranky by the third day.  I was so tired and so physically drained, but my kids and my husband kept going and I trailed along like a cranky zombie.  I felt like I was going to crash at any moment, I just wanted to lie down and sleep.  It was the longest morning of my life, of course the kids getting up at 5:45am didn't help matters.  I was so relieved when it was time to go and I could just sit in the car for the 4 hr drive home. 

It was a tough reality break.  I could have had a much more enjoyable time if I hadn't let myself get so out of control.  But it was the wake up call I needed.  I don't want to repeat that experience the next time we go.  I want to be a little bit healthier, and a little bit more fit.  I'm sure we will be going in June so there is only so much I can do before we go again, but every little bit helps.  So here I am, not quite back at the beginning.  I gained back half of what I lost, now sitting at 180, a little bit wiser, a little bit older.  But I want my body back, the body that I maintained at 150 for two years.  I never made it to my goal and when I was at 150 the first time all I could think about was losing more weight.  Now it seems like it would be nice to be back there, at least when I was there I could keep up with my family. 

So I need to make permanent changes that I really can maintain.  I feel like I got caught up in all the fads and swept away by what was popular at the moment and I was so zeroed in and focused on losing weight I let myself become consumed with the need to do anything to lose weight instead of focusing on what would benefit me and what my body needed.  I'm starting out simple.  I've set my calories at 1,900 calories per day.  According to my fitbit I burn about 2,500 calories per day.  As I lose weight I will need to lower my calorie intake.  It's similar to what I did on Weight Watchers.  They don't just start you out at 25 points per day.  Depending on your weight and circumstances you get to eat more when you start out.  The last time I started I was at 53 points per day (granted I was nursing and you get 14 points for that).  The point is, I'm not going to starve myself, I don't need a quick fix.  Patience.  Something I've never been too good at.  It's time to develop some patience, and do what is right.