M.I.A.

The past two days have not been good days. I've binged both days, and my weight is up. :(

I need to do something to get my eating under control. I'm thinking about starting Weight Watchers. I looked at their website and found a site close to me. I just need to go now. 

On Saturday, I did very little activity. After the girl child's soccer game, we went to a deli close by. I got a Tuna Sandwich, but it was huge and on ciabatta bread (probably one of the higher calorie breads). Then we went to WalMart to get a few items. That was it. 

Sunday, I did get up and run. I ran two miles with an average pace of 11:57/mi, which is an improvement over my previous paces. It seems that the interval training is really working. 

I'm going to try and have a later breakfast, and workout later in the afternoon to see if that helps my eating. Fingers crossed!

Not So Rest Day

I woke up this morning motivated to clean. That lasted all of ONE hour. 

After doing a load of dishes, washing a load of laundry, and folding (and putting away!) two loads of laundry, my motivation soon faded. So, I made myself a cup of tea and sat down to watch the morning shows. At the first commercial break, I decided to do a little more cleaning, instead of watching the commercials. I promised myself I'd do this for the rest of the day...whenever a commercial came on, I'd get up and do a little more cleaning. 

I also came up with a plan for when I felt a binge come on. I decided to take the baby for a walk. Well, that was the plan. I didn't really feel binge-y though...well, not until I picked the girl child up from school. Her school is next to a McDonald's and I found myself pulling out of her school and straight into the McDonald's, where I order both of us an ice cream cone. It was a completely mindless act. I didn't even think twice about it until I was finished eating it. I counted the calories, but I hate that I was out of control. And the worst part was that I didn't realize I was out of control until it was too late. :(

It means that I'll have very little calories for dinner, and none for my night time wine. Booo. 

I was doing so well eating for awhile, and I'm trying to figure out what happened to stop my healthy eating. The only thing I can think of is that I added sugar substitutes back into my diet. I've been having Splenda in my oatmeal and coffee, and Coke Zeros when I'm out and about. I think I need to cut sugar (and substitutes) out again. 

Up 2

Well, today's weigh in went as expected. I was up 2 lbs. 

At the gym today I started with cross training. I did a circuit of abs, arms, and the slide board (I really enjoy the slide!). After the circuit work, I jumped on the treadmill. I started with a 5 minute walk at 3 mph, and then a 5 minute run at 5.0 mph for a warm up. Then I did 2 minute intervals at 5.5 mph and 3 mph for about 2 miles. At one point, I increased the run from 5.5 to 6.0 for 2 minutes!  It was a good hard run. My legs are still feeling it. 

After the gym, I kept to my plan of staying out of the house for most of the day to prevent a binge. We went to the library and I noticed about 5 toddlers walking in (with their mom) at the same time. They were all going to the same place, so I followed them. We discovered story time at the library. The boy seemed to enjoy it for almost a half an hour before he started "talking" up a storm. So we left the room and I went in search of a book or movie to check out. They had Zero Dark Thirty on bluray, so I got that, and then I found a book called Citizen Girl that is by the same authors as The Nanny Diary. I hope it's just as good!

I also finally went to the grocery store and spent a fortune. I got sushi while I was there and the soy sauce has me up 5 lbs from this morning!  I'll have to drink a ton of water to wash the sodium through. Other than the sodium, I did really well with my eating. I need to come up with a plan for tomorrow, so I don't binge on all the new food in the house!  As fats as exercise, my plan has tomorrow as a rest day. I think I'll try to get in a 2 mile walk, since I technically rested on Wednesday. Then I'll have to figure something else to do with the day. 

 

Fever

I didn't get very much sleep last night. Before bedtime we noticed that the baby was very hot. I took his temperature and it was 100.9. Fevers scare me since my brother had a high one when we were kids and it triggered a seizure. He became epileptic and had seizures until he grew out of them as an adult. That experience has made me very fearful of seizures, so I gave the baby Tylenol and then monitored his fever about ever hour throughout the night.  At one point it went down to 100.3, but by morning it was 101. I gave him another dose of Tylenol and decided to take him to the doctor's when they opened. 

In the meantime, we took the girl child to school and then went back home to wait until the doctor's opened at 9. Around 8:30, the baby fell asleep and he felt a lot cooler. I decided to wait until he woke up and reassess then. He slept for 2 hours!  When he woke up, I took his temperature and it was down to 99 degrees. I decided not to take him to the doctor since he had no other symptoms and just chalked the fever up to teething. 

Since the baby hasn't been feeling well, I decided not to take him out, so I didn't go to the gym or grocery store. We stayed home all day, and I found myself eating out of boredom. And since the cupboards were basically bare, I found myself eating items that didn't satisfy the cravings I had. So I'd eat something else...and then something else...and again...and again. Until I had eaten almost a full other day's worth of calories!  It was a pretty bad binge. I was supposed to weigh in today, but I'm scared to step in the scale!

I've got to make a plan to stay out of the house tomorrow and get back on track. :-(  I'm going to go straight to the gym after dropping the girl off at school and run on the treadmill. I need to lift weights too, since I missed today's workout. I'm going to take my clothes with me and shower there, so that I don't have to go home to shower and change. I hope that will keep me out of the refrigerator. 

After the gym I'm going to grocery shop. Or maybe go the the library first. If I grocery shop first, I have to come home to out away groceries and I will probably just sit down in front of the TV. :(

Then I'll pick up the girl from school. I want to go for a run with her, since we didn't run on Tuesday. And I want to take her outside to play. I need to stay busy. I need to stay out of the fridge and pantry. 

A New Day

Last night before I went to bed, I decided that I HAD to run this morning for my sanity...I also had to have a nap.  After dropping the girl off at school, I went straight to the gym. I decided to only run and not do anything else, so that the boy wouldn't be at child care long enough to nap. I also asked the girls to keep him awake. There's one lady there that absolutely adore him, and she said it wouldn't be a problem, she would just play with him and keep him up. 

I'm still trying to improve my speed, so I decided to put the treadmill on a 1% incline (to mimic running outside) and to run at 5.5 mph.  That's approximately an 11:54/mi. I ran for 5 minutes. I had to push that last minute. I do this thing in my head where I count down from 10. Once I get to 0, I reassess if I can keep running. I did that 3 times from 4:30 to 5:00. I then walked for 2 minutes. I then ran for another 4 minutes and walked for 2. At this point, my heart rate would get up to 157 during my running time, and drop back down to 123 by the end of my walks. I ran another minute, then walked for 3. At this point, I was tired and it was taking longer to recover back into the 120's bpm. The last run, I pushed myself to run 2, and then walk the last tenth of a mile.  Here's my summary:

I then did something I rarely do...stretched!  I'm horrible about stretching when I workout, but since I've been recovering from heel pain, I decided I needed to. 

When I was leaving the gym, I saw an email from one of the other lunchroom monitors asking for someone to fill in for them today. I thought about it, so I can get my 25 required hours in, but then I remembered how I snapped at the kids yesterday and told them to "Shut up". I decided I needed to focus on getting more sleep in the bank, so I have more control over my words. 

I ended up getting a pretty long nap because the baby slept more than usual. I thought this would help my eating, but I ended up going 200 calories over. We're very low on food in the house, and I couldn't figure out what I wanted, so I just ate junk. I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow. 

Shut Up

Today was a shitty day. The baby was up every hour and a half to nurse last night, and then woke up for good at 5:30am. 

After I dropped the girl off at school, I went to the gym and lifted weights. When I went to put my headphones on to drown out the gym music, I couldn't hear my music on one side. I took the earbud out of my ear to inspect it, and saw that the rubber piece was missing. 

The boy slept at the gym child care, so there were no naps for me when we got home. I didn't have time to nap anyway, I needed to shower before going to my daughter's school to be the lunchroom monitor. On the way to school, the boy fell asleep again and slept through lunch. I was cranky and tired and the kids were more rambunctious than usual. I ended up yelling at them to shut up as they were lining up after recess. They gasped in surprise and I felt like shit. I've felt bad about it for the rest of the day. 

When we got home, I made lunch and then played with the boy a bit. By this time I was exhausted out if my mind. I tried to nurse the boy and put him down for another nap, but he wouldn't suck and then proceeded to cry for 2 hours!

I took him downstairs to play some more since he wouldn't sleep, and decided to try pumping. No wonder he wouldn't nurse, I was barely producing anything!  I think the lack of water, mixed with running, and the Sudafed I took yesterday for my allergies has dried my milk up some. I pumped for 20 minutes to stimulate production and drank a lot of water. 

I finally got the baby to nap, and had just fallen asleep when the girl child came home. Then it was time to make dinner. 

I made rack of lamb with a mint sauce, mushroom risotto, and sautéed vegetables. 

It was so good!  The family seemed like they liked it, but didn't seem grateful enough for the amount of time and effort I put into it. :-(  I think I've just been feeling very under appreciated lately. I need a vacation. Badly. Or...to go back to work. Sometimes I think I'm a better mom when I work. 

I ended up going over my calories by 800 calories today. 800!  I was tired, and when I couldn't get the baby to sleep, I was very stressed and tired and binged. I ate my stress. :-(  I feel like shit. I feel like shit for yelling at kids, I feel like shit because I over ate, and I feel like shit because I don't think my family is very appreciative. Overall, it was a bad, bad day. 

A Good Good Day

This morning I woke up still tired. I laid in bed for a few minutes reading and then decided to just put my running clothes on. I figured I was more likely to go for a run if I was dressed. I then went downstairs and put my running shoes on. I still wasn't awake yet, so I made the hubs and myself a cup of coffee. That worked!  I was now motivated to run. Before I left the house, I ran back upstairs and laid my daughter's running clothes out, and then stopped by her play room and told her that I'd be back in 26 minutes (what I estimated I could run 2 miles in) and that I wanted her to be dressed and ready to run when I got back. 

My 2 mile run was all over the place. I decided to run for 5 minutes at a sub 11:00/mi pace, and then walk for a minute...run another 5 minutes and then walk. I wanted to go by time instead of distance because I found myself walking too much when I was using 1/4 mile splits. On the second run, I found my pace had dropped to a 12:00/mi and I was losing steam. I told myself that if I pushed myself, I could walk at the 4 minute marker, instead of the 5. This worked, and I was able to increase my pace to a 9:54/mi. As I reached my 3rd sprint, I hit the part of the trail that has a small hill. Last Saturday, this hill killed my pace. I decided to exert a little more effort, but was sure I had dropped down to a 12:00/mi. When I looked down at my GPS, I was surprised to see I was running around a 9:20/mi!  I was able to hold that for about another minute before I had to walk again. The last mile was uneventful. My lungs were on fire, and my legs were tired. I decided to just run it at a comfortable pace, but I pushed myself to run just a little further every time I wanted to walk. 

When I got back to the house, I ditched the fleece I wore; I had to take it off and tie it around my waist halfway into the run because it was too warm for it once I started running; and picked up my daughter (who was dressed, but hadn't managed to get her shoes on during my 26 minute run, due to her watching Jesse). 

I reset the GPS, started the stop watch, and we were off!  I told her that her last longest run time was 1:25 and that she didn't have to beat it on the first lap...to maybe shoot for a 1:10 for a warm up. She has other plans though, and ran the first bit in 1:38!  We walked a minute between runs, and the next run she went even longer. We continued each run with a minute break in between. Her longest being 1:49.9. She was so tickled with herself!  The whole route was 0.83 miles and she ran for about 13 1/2 minutes. She's definitely improving, and is still loving it!  As her conditioning gets better, her form is getting better too. She no longer runs head down, leaning forward. We've been practicing running with our head up and shoulders back. She now looks strong when she runs!

We got back in time to shower and make it to church. Though, the run did wear her out because she fell asleep in church for about 5 minutes before I woke her up. 

Since I hadn't been doing very well with my diet the past few days, I wanted to eat healthier. I made a salad with some left over steak we had from dinner the night before. It was just spinach, mushrooms, feta and steak, with balsamic glaze for the dressing. It was soooo good!

I measured out 2 ounces of farfalle (bow tie) pasta and defrosted some homemade marinara sauce from the freezer. It was such an easy, yet decadent lunch. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent outside with the kids. I'm holding to my commitment to my daughter to let her play outside everyday. Around 4pm, the baby was getting restless and needed a nap. I was hoping that if I put him in his stroller and walked him, that he would fall asleep. As I was getting the stroller ready, I saw that the neighbor Jen and her little girl had just come outside. So I invited them to take a walk to the park with us. The kids rode their bikes, and we walked behind them. It was nice getting to know the neighbor a little better. She seems very nice. She's a little more reserved than I am, but her parenting style is very similar (read cautious) as mine, so I very much appreciate it. 

After about 20 minutes at the park, the kids were bored and wore out, so we went back home. By this time, I was tired, the baby was STILL tired (he never fell asleep!), and I was getting the beginnings of an allergy headache so I put myself and the baby down for a nap, and set the girl child up with some crayons and paper. 

Overall, it was a good good day full of activity and fun!