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Showing posts from March, 2014

What it's really like to be a parent: Advice to new parents

I was talking to a friend who recently had a baby and we were talking about what you aren’t told about having a baby. The hard stuff.   Most of the time we’re led to believe that you will have a perfect delivery and you will come home with your baby 2 days later and things will be perfect. That’s just not true. What we don’t talk about as Mom’s (and Dad’s too!) is how hard it is, how much you cry the first few months, how exhausting it is. Shame on us for not preparing our fellow Mom’s better and warning them about the whirlwind that their life is going to be, so I’m dedicating this post to all of the new parents and hope that I can help at least one new Mom feel better.   Your delivery may not be as perfect as you envisioned it and things do happen. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a c-section, which was not my original plan at all. In my head I said to myself “I’m going to go in and have this baby in a few hours and all will be great!” Yeah, didn’t work out so

Reminding myself.

So, I don't think it's any big secret but I've been having a really hard time adjusting to getting back to how I was before with working out and eating right. It's such a balance being a  working Mom, you want to spend all your "free" time with your kid because you miss them and by the time they go to sleep you don't want to do anything else. I've really been in my own head lately and telling myself that I've been trying, but in reality I haven't been trying all that hard. I haven't been religiously sticking to logging my calories (I'll log in but not the way I used to) and I haven't been working out. At all. I use the baby as an excuse for it but to be honest I'm actually just being honest. I'm giving myself way to many outs and I'm writing about how I'm "going" to do all of this stuff and it just never actually happens. I made a commitment to a friend to run this weekend and I'm excited to do it, thou

Starting from the bottom

I realized this weekend exactly how out of shape I am and it made me pretty sad. I went for a “run” on Saturday for an hour (let’s face it, it was a fast walk with a bit of “jogging” in between) and I’ve been sore since.   I mean, I know that at least I got out there and did something but it’s really discouraging how far I’ve fallen. I have all of these running goals that I want to accomplish but I just feel like I’m so far away from them. I really want to run the B.A.A half in October (I think), but then I think “how could I even think about running 13.1 miles if I can’t even run one right now.” Then I think that maybe I’m setting the bar to high and overestimating how strong I am. I know, this was one run and I’m not giving up, I just need to vent about it every now and then. I know that I started from the bottom before and was doing really great, I know all of this.   I just need to somehow restore my faith in myself and stop using excuses. Yes, I’m busy but so isn’t everyone e

Scheduling food and a vent.

During the day is my worst time for eating. I eat when I’m stressed, I eat when I’m bored, I eat when I’m happy..basically I am always eating. I’m definitely one of those “emotional” eaters that you hear about, but on the other side of it I just love food.   As crazy as this sounds, most of my day is thinking about when/what I’m going to eat again. I really can’t help it; it’s just how I’ve always been. Random fun fact: I was almost a chef, I even went to cooking school for a semester (then I realized that 7 hour classes and burning myself every day just wasn’t for me). I just have a serious passion for food..and my scale certainly shows it.   One way I’ve learned to cope with my food addiction (because let’s face it, it really is an addiction) is to set alarms for when I should be snacking. This sounds crazy, I know, but it helps to take my mind off of when I should be eating and I actually eat less when I do this. So, I set reminders on my calendar for every 3 hours or so, break

Skinnytaste

Cooking healthy is really difficult when you are a working Mom, I’m finding out. I don’t really have the time to prepare these great healthy meals that I’d like to, I’ll be honest we usually end up having whatever is fastest/easiest for dinner. My newest goal is to actually start preparing a menu weekly and maybe even try to get a few meals ready for the week on Sundays; this is so much easier said than done.   My favorite website to use for recipes is Skinnytaste.com, Gina provides WW points for all of her recipes and also separates them into different categories and portion sizes. I used this site a lot when I was losing weight previously and I’m looking forward to getting back into the habit of it.   She even has brownies and cookie recipes! Ahh. I have heard good things about her brownies with black beans in them and I really want to try them. So, starting the end of this week I’m going to plan for next week (print the recipes out, write down which nights we’ll have what and s

5 pounds down...long way to go.

I weighed in yesterday for the first time in a few weeks and I was surprised to see that I was down 5 pounds since the last time I had weighed in. I felt really good that I had actually lost some weight, but I also realized that I really do have a long way to go. I've been avoiding taking pictures of myself for my "before" pictures because I just don't want to face it, but eventually, I just have to do it. I really regretted not taking any official before pictures when I had lost weight prior to getting pregnant. It's a lot harder this time, I feel like my body has totally changed so it's going to be really difficult for me this time around. I've been consistently over in my calories the past week that I've started logging again, but I'm giving myself some time to ease back into it. I feel like if I all of the sudden change everything in my diet, it'll backfire and I'll be back to square one. If I learned anything about what actually works

New Month.

So, I really wasn’t expecting such an overwhelming response to my last blog entry. What I found was a lot of women (new Mom’s specifically) are having the same issues that I’m having and feel the same way that I do. We got this, ladies. I think the hardest part about losing weight is finding the actual confidence to do it and finding what works for you. I know what you are probably thinking “I’m losing weight to gain confidence, not losing weight BECAUSE I have confidence” but I don’t think that works (at least not for me). In order for me to lose weight, I have to have confidence in myself that I can A. Stick to it and B. see the changes. If I go into it without having any confidence at all, it doesn’t last and I’m back where I started a week later. If I try to have that confidence in myself I look at it not “if I can lose the weight” but “when I lose weight”. It’s such a mind game, but it works. In my opinion, the easiest way to look at losing weight is to simplify it. I m