It's been two years, and quite a crazy journey during that time. But I'm finally ready to come back to my blog. I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I think the time is finally right. Or at least, I can no longer sit back and do nothing because I'm feeling lethargic, and tired all the time. I get exhausted easily and find myself making excuses not to do things. Every thing seems like a chore, and I find I don't want to do anything anymore because it just seems like too much work. Every day tasks like making dinner and doing the laundry are daunting, and don't even think about getting outside for a walk or doing an indoor exercise routine. Just changing into my exercise clothes is exhausting. Now, I certainly take accountability for my follies but part of what is going on is the new addition to our family!
Little Peanut here was born just about a year ago, and unlike my other children he has pretty much refused to let me lose weight while nursing. Every time I have tried, I have failed either because I was just too hungry, or because when I dropped my calories enough to lose weight, my milk supply plummeted. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it is because I'm older. Maybe it's because he's a boy and he is nursing more. Who knows, but at 1 year old now I have to turn my attention towards my own health. I'm still going to nurse him, and I plan on taking what is left of my more milk plus supplement when I start but he is old enough to start drinking whole milk and he is just going to have to deal if my milk drops because my health is suffering. I honestly think he will be ok as he will still get some milk from me, and both my girls stopped nursing at 1 year and they seem just fine haha!
Pregnancy seems to always dump me off at the same weight. About 215 pounds. Regardless of where I start, I'm always 215 pounds after giving birth. The one thing I tried while nursing that was successful was the Optavia Nursing Moms program. I successfully went from 217 pounds to 199 pounds. But I just couldn't sustain it for three reasons. 1. The program is outrageously expensive. At over $400 a month I couldn't afford it. Theoretically you are supposed to be able to cut back on your food bill to cover the costs of the food you are purchasing from them, but with a family of four other people to feed, the food bill didn't decrease at all. 2. The Nursing moms program required me to eat 3 servings of dairy a day and I'm lactose intolerant. This was causing IBS, bloating, and a whole host of other issues. Plus there is milk in almost every "fueling" they sell. This was causing me so much distress I ended up giving up milk altogether and therefore couldn't eat their food anymore. 3. Every time I would adhere to the program and successfully lose weight, my milk would drop and I would fight to get it back up. It was such a pain, it wasn't worth it. I need something I can just stick to and not have to tweak and mess around with too much. The simpler the better because I've discovered something about myself:
I'm an all or nothing personality type. As much as I wish I weren't, as much as I wish I could do things in moderation, that's just not me. If I'm going to eat sweets, I'm not going to just eat one cookie or one piece of candy. I'm going to eat cookies until my stomach is sick, or I'm going to eat the whole entire bag of candy. You know how people always say to slowly change your eating habits, picking one thing to work on at a time and then over time all those changes will add up... Yeah that doesn't work for me. I can't do just one thing because in my mind, it's not worth it. Why work so hard to change something if it isn't going to yield the results I want? Hence the all or nothing approach. I'm either going to be eating in a way that yields weight loss and exercising to support that, or I'm not going to be exercising. I'm either going to be drinking water as a part of a healthy eating regime or I'm not going to be drinking water. That's the way it is with me, and anytime I try change it, I fail. So I'm going to embrace who I am, and do something that I'm pretty sure will work for me.
One thing I've really become interested in lately is the idea of Juicing. I wish I could go on a juice fast but that's just not going to happen. Even if I wasn't nursing, it would be excruciatingly difficult for me to do a juice fast since I am responsible for feeding four people besides myself. Being around that much food every day would probably break me pretty quickly. But I like the idea of getting lots of nutrients from fruits and vegetables via juicing. Not just for me but for my kids as well.
As you can see I have one vegetable lover and one who loves pretty much anything but vegetables
So here is my plan:
Breakfast: Juicing from Juicer
Snack: Rx bar, Protein balls, or Protein shake
Lunch: salad
Snack: Juicing from Juicer
Dinner: paleo meal
I figure that gives me enough freedom to choose but also enough structure to know that the plan will yield results. Also doing it this way means I don't have to count calories. I absolutely refuse to count calories at the moment. I've tried it a billion times within the last several years since my miscarriage and I just can't do it. There just seems to be a road block in my brain.
As this post is getting long I'm going to be posting my pictures next time, talking about getting started, my goals, my reasons, and what I hope to get out of picking up blogging again.
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