Feeling Capable

This weekend has been really good.  Really good.  Emotionally, things with my family were so nice.  I love it when Jordan comes home, and we don't have to worry about him going to work.  And because we had 8am church, we basically had all day Sunday to spend together.  *heaven*

Of course, whenever I'm getting my emotional needs met, I tend to eat better.  It's definitely easier to stay within my points when I'm getting my emotional fill.

Can I take a moment and talk about how much I love weight watchers?  I love the principles taught by this program.  This weekend, I branched out and I made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on Saturday, and a delicious sweet and sour chicken on Sunday.  These meals are NOT low points, by any means.  But because I was able to not binge and I planned ahead, I ate these foods and still saw results.  I really can eat anything I want as long as I leave points for them. I just can't eat them in the quantities I want (haha...).

I love feeling like this is something I can do.  So often I start a diet, and I know from the beginning I was just going to mess it all up.  But this weekend, I made delicious food, and I didn't binge.  What a great feeling.

Breastfeeding and Losing Weight

So, a brief update: after two days of being PERFECT with my points, the scale finally went down!  Yay!  Not by a ton, but hey, it's moving in the right direction.  I'm feeling like this is something I really can do.

I wanted to write about one of the hurdles I'm facing: Breastfeeding.  I have a beautiful 3 month old baby I am currently exclusively breastfed:

Cute, right?

Now, there's lots of things people say about breastfeeding and losing weight.  The most common thing is that it's GREAT because it burns calories, so you can eat more and still lose weight!  Yay!  (Interesting side note: it actually takes more calories to make breastmilk than it does to be pregnant.  You need 300 extra calories for pregnancy, 500 for breastfeeding).

Here's the big downside: the hunger.  So, so hungry.  When I'm pregnant, I have no appetite.  When I'm nursing, I could eat an entire batch of cookies plus some ice cream to wash it down with.  The other problem is that some women don't lose weight while nursing, but rather their bodies hold on to as much fat as possible, because nursing is so demanding.  I have wondered if I'm in this latter group, but I've never got much past the hunger part to find out (meaning I can't stop eating long enough to actually try to lose weight.  Ha).

The other problem I struggled with when Lucy was younger was that if you cut out too many calories, your milk supply will drop.  This has made me extremely paranoid, even though I suspect that it's not as big of an issue now that my milk supply is well established.

The point is, breastfeeding doesn't make losing weight as cut and dry as some people say.  The increased appetite and the concern about milk supply are two things that can sabotage my efforts.

Feeling discouraged

Yesterday, I did great!  I followed my points, I didn't eat after 7pm, and most importantly there were no brownies!  Yay!  But I didn't notice a difference at all on the scale today.  I'm really trying not to let it get me down, but when you've been trying the last week, and the scale keeps going UP, it's hard not to feel really let down.  There are a lot of reasons the scale could be going up, including:

1. It takes my body a while to figure out what's going on.  Sometimes it takes three weeks of good habits before I see any changes.  It's really annoying, and totally not fair, but that's the reality and I need to face it.

2. I've been doing 30 Day Shred the last 4 days, which includes a lot of strength training, which builds muscle.  I know I"ve been getting stronger, so maybe instead of losing fat, I've been gaining muscle.  Perhaps the fat loss is coming, and for now I need to accept that in the process I'm still building my fitness.

side note to #2: I have often wondered in the past when I'm working out and it's not making a difference if it's because I focused on cardio, and not strength training, and thus my metabolism wasn't getting better.  If I keep up with the 30 day shred, as I gain stregnth, my metablism SHOULD increase, and I should start losing weight.

3. I"m weighing myself too often.  Actually, I'm sure this is a problem.  But here's the deal, when I don't weight myself so often, I get lazy.  Having to answer to the scale everyday is a movtivator for me, at least at this point.  When my healthy choices start becoming more of a habit, I'll start checking my weight weekly and not daily, and those daily fluctuations hopefully won't be such a big deal.

I know I can't expect magic results after one day of being perfect.  This takes consistency and dedication.

Some Successes

Last night was another rough one, and I found myself with the brownies again.  But as I lay in bed totally regretting that last hour of the day, I decided if this really is a REAL thing, a thing to change my life, I need to acknowledge some of things I have been doing well.  I'm trying to change my habits not only so I can lose weight, but so that I can be healthy and have a healthy family.  So, here are some of my successes from the last few days:

1. Just finished Day 4 of the 30 Day Shred!  It's a tough work out, but I like feeling like I"m using my body and I can already tell that I"m getting stronger.  Here's to 26 more...

2. Another difficult time of day for me (besides the evenings) is the afternoon when the kids are napping.  I have been going on three days strait of no high fat/high sugar snacks during that time.

3. Even with the brownies, I have tracked every.single.piece.of.food.  This is a big deal.  I'm tend to not write things down that I regret, and sorta explain it to myself.  I have been great the last few days, and I hope to keep it up.

4. I sent the rest of the brownies to work with Jordan.  SO THERE.

Anyway, finding success.  Yay.

Food addiction?

So that post from yesterday, talking about how I crave sweets at night after the kids go to bed?  Oh yeah, that happened.  I did great all day.  I hate healthy food, I stayed in my points, and I ate fruit and veggies when I was hungry.  And then Jordan had to work late, and Lucy was up 5 gazillion times to eat because (I think) she had a sore throat, and you better believe the thoughts "But I totally deserve this" went through my head.  And I caved.  And here's the other thing: as I was putting Clara to bed, the thought of NOT having a brownie made me... shaky?  I felt like how I imagine a drug addict who is detoxing would feel. I just NEEDED to get my sweet fix.  I am seriously emotionally addicted to sweets!  It really almost like I can't relax without it.

Now, what to do about it?  My first inclination is to say, "No food after 7pm."  I think this is a great rule, and I've used it successfully in the past.  The only draw back is that because I'm breastfeeding, it makes me absolutely FAMISHED in the morning.  I'm talking hunger-is-waking-me-up-from-a-deep-sleep kind of hungry.  But I'd rather be starving in the morning because I"m more likely to make good choices then, so I think that's a risk I'm willing to take.

But I need to replace that with something, and something active where I'm using my hands.  So watching my favorite show or reading are out (my two favorite activities) because I like to munch while doing them.  I need to do a craft, or clean, or maybe walk on our new treadmill.  I think tonight I"ll try watching some 30 rock on my phone while walking on my treadmill.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Back to this

Since I last wrote (and let's be honest, I never really got going with this blog, period) I lost 20 pounds, got pregnant, had a baby, and now I"m somewhere between my highest weight and that twenty pounds I lost, hanging around 239.  I'm about 14 weeks post-partum, and I'm ready to start exercising again.  I've been doing weight watchers kinda casually, but now with the new year, I'm ready to hit the ground running and be serious about, meaning counting every single point I eat (not easy!).

But really, I want to write to get down what I'm experiencing emotionally as I go through this process.  Back when I worked with a nutritionist and lost the 20 pounds, she said this to me, "When people deal with stress, many turn to alcohol, cocaine, cutting and stuff like that.  You turn to food, which, frankly, is the least destructive of all the habits, so be kind to yourself."  That has really stuck with me, because it's true.  I use food to self-medicate.  But I shouldn't be too hard on myself, because we ALL do things to self-medicate, to deal with the stress.  This statement also shows what needs to be done: I need to find away to refocus my stress into something else, something more productive.

I read this great blog this morning that highlights it for me: http://thestir.cafemom.com/healthy_living/148844/treating_parenting_stress_with_junk

So my emotional goal is to find something else that can help me unwind like a delicious cookie at the end of the day can.

Maybe playing the piano for a bit?  Love my new piano!
Maybe doing some chores?  I love the feeling of a clean house!
Maybe some digital scrapbooking?  I love finishing a page and knowing it looks good.

I'll have to keep thinking of ideas.  Maybe the best way, for now, is to replace the sugary food with some fruit.

My Amazing Alaskan Adventure!

So, in the last two weeks, two of my friends (hi Krystal and Amy!) have found this blog by accident. I've kinda abandoned it in my guilt of basically not doing anything about my weight, and feeling sheepish about being so open about it. But two encouraging comments, and I feel like maybe this might be a worthy topic.

So, the big news for me is that when I went to Alaska for a month, I lost 10 pounds. Without doing ANYTHING. I did not conciously change a single aspect of my life. But I think it says so much about my struggles. So, here are the 3 things I think made the biggest difference:

1. In Alaska, I was constantly surrounded by people. In Phoenix, I spend most of my day alone.

I can not emphasize this problem enough, and I'm still feeling too shy to fix it. Being around people, for me, is energizing and frankly, not boring. When I'm around people, I don't feel the need to snack. When I'm around them, the conversation becomes my "treat," and I feel less of a pull to eat a thousand cupcakes. I'm just too busy to eat. Which is extremely effective, let me tell you.

2. Not to hot to function outside.

I went to Alaska from July-August, the hottest two months in Phoenix. Since I got back to Arizona, for about 2 weeks strait, there was an "Excessive Heat Warning" in effect, because temperatures were above 110 degrees. LAME. Alaska had the perfect weather... even with the rain, I didn't care. I went outside and just DID stuff outside. Yesterday, since things seemed to be cooling down I went for a 3 mile walk with Clara from 8am-9am, and I"m fairly certain I was on the road to heat stroke when I finally made it home. Even when it's not super hot here, it's still really hot.

Now, there's some good news to this: In Alaska, you have 3 or 4 really temperate months, and then 7 months of not so awesome weather. In Arizona, you have 4 pretty miserable months, but then 8 months of awesome weather. Really, I just came at a bad time, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to spend most of the winter outside doing something.

3. Built-in Babysitters

Ahhhh.... the joys of just leaving to go to the gym while Clara naps. I'd just say to a Grandma, "Clara's napping, she should be out for about 2 hours. Do you mind if I go to a Zumba class for an hour?" Yeah, they always said yes. Serious luxury, people... serious luxury....

Anyway, so, I think the moral of this story is I seriously need to make an effort to make some friends. If I felt like I had someone to talk to and do something with, I think even the heat would cease to matter. What's holding me back? Really (and no one believes me when I say this), I'm naturally pretty shy. It just takes me a while to warm up to people, I guess. Or to feel confident enough to invite them to something. But you know what? This week I'm going to make a goal to invite this nice young family at church over for dinner and games. Wish me luck!