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couch-to-5 wha?

2010-03-12T11:43:54-08:00

In my (seemingly never-ending) quest to get myself back in shape, I started the couch-to-5K this week. Only this time, I got a nifty little C25K app for my iPhone to help me along. (Thanks, Danielle!) So on Tuesday, I got up at 5 a.m., threw on some workout clothes, and headed to the gym.

Now, theoretically, since I’m just walking/running, I could do that outside, but I prefer the gym. Something about it makes me feel like I’m “officially” exercising instead of just going for a stroll around the neighborhood. Don’t ask me why my brain makes a distinction, I know it makes no sense. And I suppose that I don’t have to work out before the sun comes up, but I work during the day, and evenings always feel crazy to me (juggling cooking dinner, cleaning up, and then Catie’s bedtime routine, which seems to take longer every night because good LORD that child can stall). So, early mornings it is.

Also? I’m working out in Vibram FiveFingers. If you’re wondering why on earth anyone would want to wear such hideous things on their feet, this article from Wired gives the best explanation I’ve read of why “barefoot” running is better for you. For me, I have always had trouble with my knees, and if this can help me run without knee pain? Then hey, bring on the ugliest gorilla-feet shoes you got.

(Man, I’m just full of links today, aren’t I?)

So, yeah, I did it. And I thought I was going to die because it’s been about 6 months since the last time I worked out. But I didn’t die! Yay! I was all sweaty and red-faced and scary-looking by the time I finished, but I was also really damn proud of myself.

But here’s the catch: running without super-cushioned sneakers means that your other muscles – likes the ones in your calves, ankles, and feet – have to work harder. So after I finished out my workout, my knees didn’t hurt, which was awesome (yay for no knee pain!), but my calves? Oh lord, my calves, y’all. I’ve now done this workout twice (on Tuesday and again on Thursday), and I’m pretty sure my calves are trying to kill me. The stairs in our house have become my worst enemy. And as I’m sure Dave can attest, when I’m in pain, I whine. A LOT.

But you know what? I’m gonna do it again tomorrow. Because I’m still trying to pull myself out of that rut. (Hey look, another link!)

Oh, and I have an appointment on Monday to get some bloodwork done and find out what’s going on with the rest of me. I have a suspicion that my thyroid is way off (I’ve been on medication for low thyroid since I was 9 years old, and after 25 years, I can generally tell when something’s wrong with it), so we’ll see.

couch-to-5 wha? is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-03-10T07:24:31-08:00

Because I really needed to see this smile today.

Wordless Wednesday is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

getting in the game

2010-03-08T02:30:38-08:00

I’ve noticed a shift in the past few weeks since Catie has started full-time daycare. I mean, of course there’s an obvious shift in her. She comes home every day spouting some new random thing. A couple of weeks ago she was telling me about Obama and George Madison (I guess they were studying U.S. Presidents for President’s Day; she apparently confused George Washington & James Madison, but I like the mash-up of their names), and then this past week she pointed at her stuffed cow (which is supposed to look like the one from Mr. Brown Can Moo) and said, “That’s from Dr. Seuss. It’s his birfday. He’s 1-oh-2 old.” So I looked it up, and sure enough, that day was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. He would’ve been 106, not 102, but she was still damn close.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Oh right, changes in behavior.

No, some of the biggest changes are in me. I think I was probably like a lot of stay-at-home moms for a while, and I was guilty of often phoning it in with regards to childcare. During the day, the TV was usually tuned into a cartoon channel (regardless of whether or not she was watching it), I spent too much time goofing off on my computer, and we just didn’t do very much together for fun. The functional stuff, sure. Mealtimes, bedtimes, grocery shopping, whatever. But playing games and that type of thing? Those things tended to fall by the wayside. Often.

But now that she’s gone so much during the week, my time with her feels more precious. So this past weekend, we (FINALLY!) had some really gorgeous, sunny, semi-warm weather, and we took advantage of it by spending a lot of time outside.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I am that mom who you see on her iPhone at the playground, usually playing Words with Friends or goofing around on Twitter while my kid runs around playing. But this weekend, I made the conscious effort to not do that. I checked my iPhone once, when she sat down to drink some juice, but the rest of the time, I played with her, instead of being a bystander.

And it’s probably no big surprise, but we’ve had a truly fantastic weekend. We went to three different playgrounds in two days, we played with some neighborhood kids, our lunches were backyard picnics, we drew pictures in the driveway with sidewalk chalk, we blew bubbles, and we had long talks about birds and airplanes and fire hydrants and a million other things that you see every day but never really notice. It’s been a blast.

Normally when Catie goes to sleep, I’m so exhausted that all I can feel is a wave of relief that she’s finally asleep, because it means that I can finally go to bed myself. This weekend, though? I felt sort of sad because I missed my sidekick.

It’s strange how something like a fun weekend goofing off with my kid can validate my gut instinct that going back to work full-time was absolutely the right thing for me to do. It was the kick to the head that I needed to make me realize exactly how fleeting these childhood years are, and just how much I don’t want to miss any of it.

getting in the game is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

just as she is

2010-03-03T10:36:17-08:00

So, to follow up on that last post, I started the South Beach diet on Monday. (With a few tips from the “Fat Flush Diet” thrown in, because I actually liked a couple of her techniques when I tried them last year.) Just your basic low-carb, low-calorie diet, and I’m trying to use The Daily Plate to help me track my calorie intake. Which is difficult, because it’s tedious and I tend to be lazy about documenting things like the handful of granola I grabbed as I walked past the pantry. (How do you even document that? How big a serving is a handful?) But I think it’s a good exercise because it’s making me a lot more thoughtful every time I shove something in my mouth (heh… that’s what she said).

And so far, it’s honestly been fine. I haven’t felt deprived at all. I’m staying well within my recommended daily calorie allowance, and I’m not starving. So it’s good. I figure that if I can stick with that ideal “lose 1 or 2 pounds a week” target, I should be down to my goal weight in about 4 to 6 months. It sounds daunting, but not nearly as daunting as it did when I was 265 pounds. Four to six months is nothing compared to that. It’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.

I’d really like to start working out too, but I can’t right now with my sinuses still all gunked up with this cold. Hopefully by the time my Vibram Five Fingers arrive in the mail, I’ll be over the majority of this cold and will be able to get started on my couch-to-5K again.

One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is how much of my mom’s body image issues I adopted as my own as I grew up. When I was little, I remember my mom always complaining about how fat she was, and she was maybe a size 8 or 10 at the time (so NOT fat in the slightest). I worry about passing those sorts of hang-ups on to my own daughter.

My plan is that if/when she asks me about my new eating habits (and I’m sure that she will, because the kid notices absolutely everything), to emphasize to her that this diet is so Mommy will be strong and healthy, and I will absolutely not say anything negative about my body in front of her (even though I might be thinking it). I just don’t want to put those types of ideas in her head. I don’t want her to internalize any of my own negativity or hang-ups.

I never want her to think that she isn’t beautiful, just as she is.

just as she is is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

weighted down

2010-02-27T12:55:17-08:00

[Warning: This is a little heavy for a Saturday. I don't normally write like this, but I need to get it out of my system. Proceed with caution.]

There’s something wrong with me. Maybe it’s hormonal, maybe it’s my thyroid, maybe something has snapped in my head. I don’t know. All I know is that something has to change soon, because I can’t stay like this much longer.

I went to the doctor on Friday for both this latest sinus infection, as well as the pulled muscle in my ribs that made it basically impossible to raise my left arm. She gave me antibiotics for the cold and muscle relaxers for my rib, so that’s fine. But what isn’t fine is the number on the scale. It knocked the wind out of me.

I’ve written before about my gastric bypass surgery, which I had nearly 8 years ago. At the time, I weighed 265 pounds. (I’m only 5′5″.) I lost a little over 100 pounds after the surgery. My lowest weight was around 155 – 160 pounds, at which point I wore a size 10 and felt pretty damn hot. Eventually my weight settled around the 165-170 point, but that was fine. I wore a size 12, and I said that as long as I could shop in the regular clothing stores and not the big-girl stores, I was happy. And I was.

Since I had Catie, something has changed. I was so sick during my pregnancy, by the time she was born, my net weight gain for the whole pregnancy was 1 pound. So within a couple of weeks, I was not only back in my pre-pregnancy jeans, I was in my size 10 skinny jeans again. Which was, well, weird. Of course, all that weight I lost during pregnancy was muscle, not fat, so I expected to gain some of it back as I regained my strength. But I think I’ve gone a little overboard.

Essentially, in the past 2 1/2 years or so, I’ve gained 30 pounds. That seems excessive, no? And I get it. I’m not as active as I was. I eat too much crap. I have this mental block about throwing food away or being “wasteful” (no doubt instilled in me by my mother). But if Catie eats three bites of her peanut butter & jelly sandwich and then announces that she’s done, what am I supposed to do? Throw it out? Hell no, I scarf that bad boy down. Same goes for her leftover mac & cheese, and her leftover chicken nuggets, and, and, and…

There’s other issues here too. Like how my weight is connected to my self-esteem, and how that’s connected to my libido (i.e., if you feel fat and ugly, you don’t really want to get naked in front of anyone, even if it’s the person who’s vowed to love you forever). These things are all intertwined, you know?

And I hate it. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be one of the “gastric bypass failure” stories. I always swore that would never be me. After all, that only happened to people who were messed up in the head. And now, look, here I am, steadily on my way to that exact fate.

But, hey, this is not my pity party. I am not the type to sit around and moan about how miserable I am, and I have very little tolerance for people who do that. The point here is to get off my (rapidly expanding) ass and do something about it. Yes, ok, in the last two years I have started more than a few diets, and I have failed at all of them. So maybe it’s time for me to try a different approach.

First, I’ve decided that I need to see a therapist. Sure, the blog is nice for unloading some stuff, but there are also some things that I can’t really talk about here because a lot of people in my family read this site, and I don’t want to alienate any of those relationships. I’m also considering going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, because I’ve looked at their checklist of symptoms of compulsive overeating, and there are a few too many that ring true to me. (Of course, I do realize that by announcing my intent to go, I’ve pretty much shot the whole “anonymous” element to hell). I also need to make appointments to talk about some of this stuff with my OB/GYN, and maybe an endocrinologist, because I do feel like there is something “off” with my body as far as my overall lack of energy.

Second, I am going to start on another diet. But here’s the problem: with a three year-old in the house, it’s basically impossible to not have some junk food around all the time. That’s fine. But it makes it nearly impossible to do an intensely low-carb/all-organic diet. So I’m going to start working just on calorie restriction alone. Obviously I will try to make healthier choices during the day, but I also don’t want to beat myself up about it if I indulge in an 80-calorie cookie, either. I’m also going to start trying not to eat at night (after, say, 8 p.m. or so). That’s going to be the hardest for me. I’m a nighttime eater. I probably get a good 30% of my day’s calories after Catie goes to bed. But I’m going to work on cutting that out.

I also have to get exercising again, because I know that I will never feel “right” until I do. I started the couch-to-5K program last summer, and I really liked it a lot. But then we went to Mississippi for my aunt’s funeral, and then we moved to the new house, and then, and then, and then… You know, excuses excuses. I fell off the exercise wagon and landed back on the junk food wagon. So I’ll try it again. I ordered a pair of these crazy shoes and I’m gonna give it another shot.

And if I screw up, well then, I’ll just try again. And again. However many times it takes until I get it right.

I will NOT be one of those sad failure stories. I refuse.

weighted down is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Random stuff because I haven’t blogged in a week

2010-02-25T14:34:44-08:00

1. Working full-time is kicking my ass. Hence the lack of posting. It’s good, I like the job a lot, and the people I work with are all great. It’s just that transitions are hard. I’ll get into a groove with it one of these days.

2. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to blog about my job and explain what it is I’m doing now. I wouldn’t mention the company by name, and I have nothing bad to say about any of the people I work with, so it’s probably fine, I just tend to be a little paranoid about those types of things.

3. I’m still sick. I caught Catie’s last cold, and while she managed to recover completely in about three days, I’m going on two weeks and still feel like crud. It’s not cool. I mean, the excuse to take copious amounts of NyQuil is nice, but that’s really the only perk.

4. My ribs, which I hurt falling down the stairs nearly three weeks ago? Yeah, they still hurt. Combined with the cold, I’m kind of a big whiny mess.

5. It’s Thursday and I still haven’t watched Tuesday night’s LOST, because I’ve just been that busy. This is practically unheard of.

6. Dave needs a haircut because he’s starting to look like Hugh Jackman in Wolverine. I mean, not with the metal talons or psychotic gaze or anything. Just the ridiculous volume of hair. I’m hoping that by mentioning it on my blog, I’ll shame him into going to get a damn haircut already. (Hi, honey!)

7. New Catie tricks (which we can entirely attribute to daycare because lord knows I didn’t teach her this): she’s trying to wipe her own butt and she’s flushing the potty herself. I know this is like the most boring child development update ever (unless you’re my mom), but it’s a pretty big deal around here.

8. Here’s a picture of a cute happy toddler until I can figure out what else to write about that won’t bore y’all to tears.

Happy almost-weekend!

Random stuff because I haven’t blogged in a week is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

blog goes kerblooey

2010-02-25T11:04:43-08:00

Ok, I tried to install a plug-in last week that would allow for threaded comments (you know, where you can reply to a specific comment rather than just tacking it on to the end), because I thought that sounded cool. It didn’t work, and now nobody can leave comments on my site at all. I’m talking to my web host tech support people to see if they can help me. Hopefully I’ll be back up & running soon!

blog goes kerblooey is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.