Werkin’ it

Since I started exercising and logging calories 12 days ago, I’ve lost 8 pounds.  I’m pretty sure most of that is water weight, because the first five bounced off after two days.  The other three have taken a little longer to come off.  I have only eaten out once in that entire time, when I treated myself to sushi lunch the Friday before last.  I’ve also exercised just about every day, I think I’ve only taken three days off.  I’ve either walked or gone swimming each day.  When I started swimming, I did five laps in 28 minutes.  On Friday, I did nine complete laps in 32 minutes, so I’m getting faster and my endurance is rapidly increasing.  When I started walking, I could walk a winded twenty minute mile.  Now I can walk a sixteen minute mile and feel great still.

Last time I did a weight loss journey, I didn’t exercise hardly at all.  All in all, I prefer the swimming, because it goes by a lot quicker and is a lot less stressful on my heavy body than walking is.  Plus, I like swimming at Big Stacy pool; it’s all older folks who have less-than-perfect bodies that swim there, so I don’t feel so hideously ugly and out of place, like I do when I’m walking the trails with all the fit stay-at-home supermoms with their jogging strollers and dogs on a leash.  Everyone at Big Stacy is super friendly, and I feel totally at home there.

It feels good to be exercising and getting myself back into shape.  I’m glad I’m using my time of unemployment towards that, and I wonder how I’m going to maintain it once I get a job again.  I’ve decided to start looking for work from home jobs, because I think I want to stay home to enable myself to get in shape, and then raise the next baby at home whenever s/he decides to make an appearance.  I’ve also looked at becoming a doula, though figuring out where to stash my baby for the 10-24hrs I’m with a woman in labor is presenting an issue, so that may be out.  I’m going to read some books and see what I think.  I also need to see if I can pick up some freelancing jobs to bring in a little extra dough.  Surely I can do some transcription work or something.

But, on the whole, life is really good.  I wish I had a little more money, but we’re paying the bills and keeping food on the table, and that’s the important bit.  Some day I’ll have a little left over to do something fun, like get my hair done, or buy something fun and stupid.  For now, I’m just trying to concentrate on not eating out and keeping us within a budget.  It’s harder than it looks!  We’ll get there, though; I know I can turn this ship around with a little more effort.  Hopefully it doesn’t come down to taking Riko out of daycare, but if we have to do that, we have to do that, and he and I will have a good time together.  It is $620 I could be saving each month, which would help us out a lot.  I keep him in there though so he can get the socialization he needs and educational benefits of being in a more structured environment.  I just don’t know that I’m a very good teacher.  Bob agreed to give me a month to turn things around with a budget and cutting out eating out and Starbucks…I’ve got a little over two weeks left to make that a reality.

Yesterday I began taking prenatal vitamins at the recommendation of my new OBGYN.  She recommended taking them for three months before trying to get pregnant, so here I am, vitamin-ing it up.  The closer I get to actually taking out the IUD and trying for another baby though, the more hesitant I get.  Like, “do I really want to do this?”  I believe I do.  I believe Riko should have a sibling.  I miss having a baby.  But, I’m also starting to get some sense of autonomy again, some freedom back to do the things I want, and having a baby will definitely monkey with that.  It won’t forever, it’s just a year where I’m sucked away completely, then I start getting my life back.  And then I’m done!  Then I have two awesome kids who are hilarious and beautiful.  And between the two of them, someone will take care of me when I’m old, as long as I don’t piss them off too bad.  Right?

All I have to do right now is focus on today, though.  Focus on my exercising, on taking care of myself, on maybe bringing in a little extra income, on cooking dinner and keeping my family happy.  It’s a pretty good life to have, right now, aside from occasionally stressing about money.  And today is a beautiful day!  It’s in the low 70s here in Austin and it’s just gorgeous outside.  I’ve opened up the house, turned off the A/C, and am thawing a beautiful steak to cook on the grill tonight.  I think I have some free floating anxiety going on though because both Bob and Riko aren’t feeling good; Bob’s been asleep since 10am (he did get up with Riko for me this morning, yay!), and Riko has a fever of 101.5*, plus he’s been asleep for the last two hours, too.  Poor dudes.  Bob also gets all crabby when he doesn’t feel well, which can cause us to be on edge around each other.

Perhaps I’m on edge because I’m kind of bored.  I did walk this morning but it wasn’t as intensive as I would have liked, so I’m not feeling the usual rush of endorphins I’m used to.  Next week I’m going to step it up – I’m hoping to walk the 3 mile trail at the lake, and get up to 12 complete laps at the pool.  It’s annoying that I’m going to have to work harder and harder to get that carrot, that little rush of endorphins that I crave, that exhaustion that tells me I’m doing something good.  A one mile walk won’t cut it anymore.  But it’s good, it’s good that I’m stepping it up, it’s good that I’m pushing myself and getting in shape again.

Well, Riko has finally awoken from his nap, and is demanding cuddles, so I’m going to oblige him, for he is cute.

“Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?”

[note, I started this a few days ago, but then my internet went down, so I wasn’t able to post it until tonight.]

“Didn’t I get it right the first time?”

Brownie points to anyone who knows what song that’s from.  Hint, the band is old, and the song appeared in a late sixties movie made by the band.  A very, very strange movie, in which the band at one point appears as dandruff.  It was also directed by Jack Nicholson.  Stranger than fiction, y’all.

The song is stuck in my head, because I’m finding myself nearly at square one with my weight loss goals.  I weighed myself this morning for the first time since May, and I’ve regained over 30 lbs, putting myself back near where I started.  Damnit.  I’d done so well, too.  Something about getting knocked on my ass with pneumonia made me give up; at least before when I was trying but failing, I was maintaining the weight I was at.  Since giving up, it just piled back on at a terrifying pace.

So here I am.  Ready to start again.  My goal is fairly simple – lose 15lbs by the end of the year.  Of course it will continue after that, but that’s goal number one.  I fell off the wagon yesterday by eating pizza for lunch.  However, I did good by going for a walk this morning and not drinking soda with that pizza lunch, though Bob bought me a soda after work and I had it with dinner.  I also didn’t get Starbucks, instead I made coffee at home and even drank it with almond milk instead of whole milk. But then I binge ate after dinner, which put everything in the other direction for that day.

The good news is that I logged everything from my binge, and it was really a wake up call.  My goal is to be more hardcore about logging everything possible, more so than actual calorie restriction.  If I’m too focused on calorie restriction, then, when the binges do happen, I’m too embarrassed to log it so it’s not there to hold me accountable.  I need that accountability.

One cool thing is I’m starting to feel inspired to cook again.  I’m actually a really good cook, I just haven’t done it in MONTHS.  Today I made a meal plan for the next 10 days, and it’s looking good!  I’m very excited about this, and I know my husband will be terribly appreciative of my cooking efforts.

It’s important for me to start eating healthy and getting in shape, especially if I want to have another baby soon.  I went to my new OBGYN clinic today for my annual exam, and I was very happy with my experience.  I really think I’m going to like the collaborative doctor/midwife experience this clinic has to offer, and it’s even got me thinking I might try to go for a natural birth after the awful unnatural c-section experience I had.  Not that I’m opposed to c-sections; they’re a necessary part of life sometimes, and it certainly was for Riko and I!  But this go-around, I really want to focus on eating right, staying as active as possible, and really truly preparing myself for giving birth.  Last time, I just assumed that because I had wide hips, I’d squirt the kid out, no problem.  I ate and ate and ate and sat on my butt the entire time.  I did not take good care of myself, and I really believe that’s why I didn’t have the strength to push him out.  I was exhausted by the time I was ready to push.  I’d been in labor for three days, drugged up and in the hospital for two of those days.  I think if I can delay the drugs and embrace my natural laboring process, I can have the next one vaginally.  It just wasn’t meant to be last time.  All that matters in the end is a healthy baby and mama though, no matter how it gets here.

Tonight, I went to the memoir writing class that I’ve been taking the last few weeks with a local writer.  I read a paragraph from the from the first memoir chapter, a tale of my birth story, and the last blog post, because I wanted to read something and follow up on having to hide the last blog that I’d talked about last week.  I made people laugh, which felt good.  I also got some good feedback.  People really seemed to like the paragraph from the birth story, so I’m going to be working on that over the next week, as well as start on a piece about my long ongoing relationship with The Who, a subject that the group leader expressed interest in hearing more about.  It felt really good to share my pieces, I was really glad that I finally had something to share with the group.  Hopefully I’ll have a more fleshed out memoir-y chapter to share next week.

[I’m going to leave the entry here since this is a few days old and I have more to write about for my next post.]