Fabulous Miss S.

Interlude, excuses

I'm a wee bit stressed. I just don't like being sick and ohhhh boy was I sick.  I actually saw a doctor for my hella-cold to rule out bronchitis and ebola.  Noah is still getting over his cold.  He still has persistent snot smeared across his face and when people doubt how sick he is I leave the green crust on his nose, for effect. His first cold. I survived!  Woo Hoo! I think I'm supposed to write this down in one of my blue-felt covered baby books but this will have to suffice.

There have been a lot of stressful things lately that I'm hesitant to write about now.  I'm having a hard time. I've been sick. I haven't been working out and that makes me feel lazy and week and soft and exercise is my mental release and I am really missing that. 

Me sick. Noah sick. Marc having things going on. Friends with bad medical diagnosis. Writing deadlines. I haven't been sleeping. Prior to my sick week I was SORE.  I'm stressed. I'm alone and having a bad week. I'll be back.

Lost time

Well, hell. It's Thursday night and I've been sick for almost an entire week.  I can't believe an entire week has passed and I have accomplished so little.  I had many plans for play dates and MOM's club meetings and book club gatherings and much needed trips to the grocery store and I had hoped to swing by Costco for a new pair of Levis, in a smaller size...

None of it happened.  Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, but, not so sometime, it was midnight exactly when Noah awoke and I could hear *cry*cry*snort* *cry*cry*snort* coming through the monitor and I knew before I reached down and saw his snot-streaked face that he was sick.  Mah baby, he was a'sickened. 

I changed his diaper and held him close to me and told him I would stay with him and that he was going to be okay. I know, I know, just a head cold really, a runny stuffy nose, but it was MAH BABY, and it was his first cold, EVAH. 

Then I took him into bed with me and sat up against my pillows and nursed him until he fell asleep.  He was all snorty and sniffly and it was so sad.  I just couldn't understand how when I put him to bed at 8PM he was fine and then a mere four hours later his little body had been invaded with cold virus and he was now a needy, snotty mess. 

Suffice to say that I have not slept much in the past three nights and I'm still hacking up my lungs and having gag-inducing coughs at the *most* inopportune moment, like, oh, say, when the baby has just FINALLY fallen asleep. after thirty minutes of nursing. on sore nipples that nursed all day. Oy.

When he nurses he leaves behind shiny slug-trails of snot on my boobs.  But oh he is a trooper! Me? I'm just sick. I've asked for help and gotten none.  My mother was in court, Marc's mother said her work schedule was set. Bah. Before Noah got sick I had a list of house chores ten feet deep.  I still have a half painted kitchen.  I have two window screens to replace because the dog ripped them while trying to get outside to eat a squirrel.  I need to power-wash the green slippery stuff off of the deck.  In a dream world I'd also have time to make blackout curtains for my bedroom.  But I'll settle for accomplishing the painting, the screen replacement and the deck washing. 

But oh! None  of  this is happening while I have cough-your-lung-out-itis so really I'm in this bastardly holding pattern that is making me rather, depressed.  I had a goal of weight loss (fitness) and I have totally blown that because I haven't exercised in a week, because, oh, you cannot when you can't breathe and your head is splitting in two with the weight of exploding sinuses.  I feel mushy and gross and weak and not at all like the ROCKIN' BAD ASS I proclaimed to be last week when I was totally doing Jillian's Level 2 without fail, like, almost every day.   This is what has happened before: I get close to a goal and something happens and I say oh, well, I got close, good enough,guess I'll get fat again, glad I didn't ship the size 12s to Good Will just yet. But, in terms of poundage, I'm still okay. I have been too sick to really eat more than oatmeal in the morning and a little soup here and there.  The obliques that were cautiously emerging a week ago have snapped comfortably back into a dark and unknown place.  I mean, THANK GOD that evidence is gone! I wouldn't want to look, oh, healthy or anything.

I feel like I've lost all momentum, my belly is familiarly squishy and I'm a shittastic mess of self-pity and depression over my lost week.  My house is in shambles and there is snot everywhere.  I think I just lost my last reader with that snot comment but really, Noah just drops drool and snot all over and I don't even care enough to clean it up anymore.

I honestly can't wait to get my flu shot because I'm not doing this sick bullshit again any time soon.

In = Out

Noah turned nine months old today.   I know! I KNOW!  I cannot believe it and if I wasn't so sick I would probably shed a little tear for my baby who is so on the way to toddler-boyhood it isn't even funny.  He has been outside of me as long as he was inside of me.

I am so sick and I cannot write much but I'll add more to this post when I am able, suffice to say that Noah is nine months old today.  Where HAS the time gone?

THEN:

NOW:

A StarKist love affair

Since I've been doing THIS I have become much more aware of what I am eating.  I'm on a super-mission to really make this month count in my weight loss goals and longer term general new fitness/life.

To make the most of my exercise I try to eat a healthy balanced diet, even more so, on days when I don't exercise I try to eat even better because that is the only want to keep on track.  Here is what I have eaten today so far:

9AM Breakfast:  Instant Oatmeal (Plus a handful of dried blueberries, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a generous tablespoon of ground flax seed, a dash of cinnamon and a dash of vanilla extract.) And, coffee. Duh. (About 250 calories)

2PM Lunch: Tuna Sandwich. (One packet of Star Kist Tuna Creations Sweet & Spicy prepared with a tablespoon of mayonnaise on two slices of Arnold Double Fiber Bread with a sprinkle of Sweet & Spicy Mustard and a generous slice of Cheddar cheese on top.  I toast it open to make it warm.) (About 400 calories)

I know. I KNOW... this is not much food.  I usually have a string cheese late morning.  I drink almost a half gallon a day of crystal light Iced Tea, and thats on top of a few Diet Sodas. 

I haven't always eaten this way.  I used to nibble and nosh all the time, constantly, hourly.  Right after Noah was born I was on a mission to eat my weight in M&Ms.  I have stopped that sort of snacking, obviously.  It has taken me a about six months to get used to eating less.  I kept a food diary for a few days on and off and it helped me get a sense of my calories and what I was snacking on.  Mainly, for me, the food diary helped me see how fast calories add up. 

So far, before dinner, I've only eaten about 650 calories  and that is on the low side for a nursing mother who is also exercising.  I need to eat a good dinner so avoid a massive snack-urge later tonight. 

I have found through trial and error that what works for me is a high protein diet.  And I don't exactly LIKE protein.  I could easily be a vegetarian or at least I don't normally crave meat.  I went years without eating steak until I was pregnant last year and somehow it just reappeared in my life all charcoal grilled and delicious.  So, aside from chicken and fish and beef I had to really expand my eating horizons to find good sources of protein.  Here are a few:  beans (add some to a garden salad, mix into tuna or chicken salad), eggs (scrambled using Pam or EVOO - not butter, hard-boiled and added to a salad or enjoyed with some spicy mustard and a tomato and a piece of whole grain toast, cheese and yogurt and milk are also great sources of protein.  I also like Morningstar Farms meatless snacks and sausages. 

I want to emphasize, for me, it took time. I could have eaten a perfect diet the day after Noah was born but I was still craving other foods.  It takes a long time of forcing yourself to eat well for it to really FEEL good. 

Moral?  Start small.  Make a small change today.  Serve an extra vegetable at dinner tonight.  Eat an apple after dinner.  Have a glass of milk while you watch TV after instead of buttered popcorn.

Single Digit

I'm so damn tired and so sore from all this 30-Day Shred - Jillian Michael's workout crap!  But hot damn, ya'll!!!  This Sh!t is working! 

I haven't lost a damn pound in days but all my clothes are loose and tonight I put on a pair of size 8 jeans.  Size 8.  That's a single digit. I haven't seen a single digit in over a year and a half that time didn't really count because I only got skinny then as a direct result of stress and medication and some half-assed exercise.  But this time?  DUuuuDE! It is all me. I have actual muscles.  I feel strong.  I feel capable and I'm scared to the core that I will give up too soon and not get any further and I'll be the dumbest blogging-gal ever and I'll have to go around saying that oh, I was skinny and in good shape but then, oh, the baby cut a few teeth and it was just so stressful I gained fifteen pounds!

I know this sounds so Woe is Me and Dear God, if I could only have THOSE problems, but, seriously, I'm afraid of losing so much weight that NONE of my clothes fit.  What if I have to buy an entirely new wardrobe?  That's expensive.  Although, I *doubt* seriously that this will happen. 

See? This is usually the time that I give up or stop or don't follow-through because I got sort of close to my goal.  That is why I'm doing this.

I am asking the Internet to hold me responsible.  Really, the only reason I worked out tonight was because I didn't want to confess here, that I didn't. 

Also, all this exercise demands some rest and I'm getting less than six hours a night right now which is just not enough and it's hurting me, physically and mentally. 

I gotta sleep now - ciao!