Changes

On February 18th, 2013, my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack. I had seen him just the day before as we celebrated the February birthdays in my family – his and Reagan’s included. On February 22nd, he would have been 69 years old. Instead we held a funeral.

It’s so weird to write that. Even though it’s said and done and I’ve cried, been pissed, and also relieved that he’s no longer struggling for air on oxygen tanks. It sucks.

Reagan turned one on February 21st. I can’t describe in words how achingly thankful I am that she was able to celebrate her first birthday with her grandfather. But Jesus I miss my Dad.

So, I don’t know. Weight wise I’m good. I ate crap that people brought to my parents’ house the week he died, but I’m standing on the other side of the whole thing having lost a few pounds. I did binge on food once the day after we got back in to town. Which was very odd…I’ve never been a “binge-er” to speak of. It was a very strange sensation, being out of control of what I was eating and eating to basically make myself feel pain. I’ve been back to work out a few times since…but both times have been extremely difficult as far as my body cooperating…out of breath, feeling like I weigh a ton.

But, I am trying to creep back into reality. The “changes” title of this post is still unknown even to me…I’ve been thinking about switching up the blog, maybe moving it to a new URL. I dunno…I have too many blogs that focus on different aspects of my life…I started a “mommy blog” a little over a year ago but I’m not really feeling it…it’s too fake and it’s goal was to make money…not to display the real me. I’m just not that type of blogger…when it becomes work then what is the point? I’m thinking of combining that blog and this blog and maybe making something new and authentic…

I don’t know, it’s hard to think of silly things like blogs these days. But I know that if I don’t have somewhere to go and gripe on life then I’ll probably burst as well.

So that’s about it, I just wanted to poke my head into the digital stratosphere and let it know that I’m here.

Well Now I HAVE To…

I registered today for my first 5k since like…2007?

The Color Run!

Yay! My friend Christi told me about the race and suggested that we plan to go a couple of weeks ago. I told her that I’d have to wait until today (pay day) to register…which gave me a bit over a week to decide. I’ve been a bit on the fence, because running is not really my strong suit…from breaking my foot to not being able to really breathe, etc…plus I’m still over 240 freaking pounds. But, I as I read recently on Katie’s blog (LOVE her blog, I’ve been reading the whole thing from the beginning!), signing up for a race is a good way to stay motivated to actually run. Don’t you love our team name? We’re the Meandering Monochromes! 😉

The race is 10 weeks away, and the Couch to 5k plan takes 9 weeks to complete. So, starting Monday, I’m in training. I’m so excited, this race looks Amazing!

I’ve been having such a hard time working out lately, Brad’s late nights keep being late, and I am so out of energy after chasing a 1 year old around the house all evening. So, it’s come down to the decision that I should have made a month ago – I’m going to have to commit to getting up early. I HATE waking up early. Hate with about as capital and H as you can get. But, I figure that even if I have to get up to go to the YMCA to work out on the treadmill, I’d still only have to wake up about 45 minutes earlier than I do already.

(still hate it)

I plan on just running around my neighborhood, since 1 lap around our little division is just a little bit over exactly 1 mile.

(did i mention the hate bit?)

Ok, I’ll stop being snarky now, I’ve just got to work through my inner temper-tantrum throwing three year old and just do what is best. Besides, that means that I don’t have to have anxiety all day wondering how I’m going to fit in a workout, right?

We are going to my parents’ house tonight, so I’m going to bug out of work a little early, go home to pack, and then wait for Brad to get off work so we can go. My parents’ aren’t going to be able to make it to Reagan’s birthday party here next week (my dad is on oxygen and isn’t up to traveling yet), so we’re going to have a February birthdays party there tomorrow. My brother is Feb 1, Rea is Feb 21, and then my dad is Feb 22. I’m looking forward to it, but I could also lay down and go to sleep right now, my allergies are killing me! I don’t to be stuck in a car for 2 hours today…

I’m so whiny today, aren’t I!? Ugh!

What about you guys? Any fun weekend plans?

Still on Track

I’ve been horrible at blogging (which seems to be an ongoing theme in the last year…does having children do that??), but I’ve been great and on plan in regards to eating! The weight is definitely coming off slower this time around, as I try to do this in a healthy and “real life” way…but I’m down 19 pounds already, so I’m feeling great about it!

I’ve been participating in some Instagram challenges (you can find me on Instagram as user verdouxkai):

Apparently planks were sent to Earth by Satan for torture…

The “challenges” are just to do a plank and a wall sit each day and record your time. I just take a screenshot with my phone and then upload to Instacollage to get them both on the same image. My times have been going up (though slowly!), and so it’s a nice little victory, I try to go up at least by 1 second…the plank is extremely difficult for me, so 1 second is just fine as a goal for me, lol!

My trying a new recipe per week has been going ok – last week was a little harder just because I wanted to try a slow cooker recipe…I bought all the ingredients, picked the day to do it on…and then realized that we had lost our slow cooker in the last move! I had the dish, but the part it sits in was gone. I vaguely remember that we must have thrown it away because the cord was damaged, but I was so mad! I didn’t have money in the budget to run out and buy one. Since some of the ingredients would go bad before I could buy one, Brad actually ended up making up a nice chicken and rice dish for us. So, technically I didn’t make something new, but we tried something new, lol!

One thing I DID make since my last post was Paleo Pancakes!

Easy to mix, but also easy to burn, so watch out!

I found these on the web a while back and decided to try it one Saturday morning. I thought they were tasty, but I definitely want to try them again and play with it a bit. The mix came together really easily, but these suckers BURN really easily too. I don’t have a new griddle yet (another move victim), so I had to do it in a frying pan. I think a griddle will help the burning issue a lot! Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:

Ingredients:

• 2 bananas
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of nut butter (I used Almond Butter, but it’s expensive!)
• 1 tsp Cinnamon (optional)

Directions:

Mash the bananas in a bowl. Add the egg and almond butter and cinnamon. Mix until combined. Heat a frying pan (or griddle!) on medium heat and use 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour each pancake. Once you start seeing bubbles on the pancakes, flip them. (I would definitely keep checking though, I never seemed to see bubbles and when I finally did flip one, they were burned!)

This recipe makes about 6 or 7 small pancakes. They aren’t as “fluffy” as pancakes, and of course taste a lot like banana. I topped mine with a tiny bit of honey, and Brad used regular maple syrup. Reagan just smashed them up and turned it back in to goo…which is pretty much normal these days.

“What? Doesn’t everyone eat this way?”

Anywho, I just wanted to reach out and tap the blogging land to let you know that I’m still alive! Mothers: have you found that having young children saps your time to blog, etc? I need balance ideas!

Food Porn Friday

Today, I’m thinking of something that is evil, and I want it.

Drippy cheese pizza is the best…I’m salivating just LOOKING at it.

Can’t have it. Not now. I’m not saying NEVER…but not for a while.

Squats + Wall Sit = PAIN!

So, back in the land of 2011 when I was a workout machine and not pregnant yet, I did lots of squats. I use the 200 Squats app and I really enjoyed it! I was up to week 6 when I stopped, which is the last week of the program…so I was a squatting fool! So on Tuesday while I was single-momming it as Brad worked late and was watching The Biggest Loser, what did I decide to do?

Hell yeah, let’s do some squats!

And did I start back at week one like a smart person? Nope. I decided I’d be all bad ass about it and start at Week 3. Week 3 includes 62 squats divided out across 5 sets…so that’s like 10-12 squats per set. That didn’t sound bad at all.

And now today, for the second day in a row, I am walking around stiff-legged like my toddler and screaming when I sit down to use the toilet from the knife-twisting pain in my thighs. My husband finds this amusing, and me, not so much…

Add on to that the fact that I decided to do a Wall Sit…and made it about 19.6 seconds before having to give up. And now I am in SO MUCH PAIN.

Food it good, water is good…pain is HORRID.

I’m off to find more Tylenol…

(And yes, I’m damn proud of the pain and will be doing squats again as soon as I can stand it!) 😛

Sweet Potato Fries

Skip to the Recipe

This has been a week of Mondays! It started on…well Monday of course. And I’m ok with a bad day…but this week I have:

• Dropped my iPhone in a toilet…after a scary 2 hours or so it has somehow miraculously lived in tact
• Dealt with a sick husband (like vomiting, horribly sick…some sort of 24 hour bug)
• Left my laptop at home and had to drive all the way back from work to get it
• Fixed a lovely giant cup of coffee only to find someone had drank (drunk?) ALL THE CREAMER out of my office fridge (Brad and I work together, and we’ve been sharing with a girl across the hall as well…but dang!)
• Finally get my computer at work and the internet goes down (I am the website manager, kind of need that…)

That was just MONDAY. The rest of the week:

• Had an AWESOME interview…and didn’t get the job
• Reagan has been sick with a cough. No fever…but she’s definitely gone in to over-clingy mode. I can’t get anything done around the house.
• I found out our house hates us!

On that last note…our house (we rent) has an alarm system which is not connected to a service…but every once an awhile it will chirp at us. Usually at 1am. We get up, touch a button, it tells us something (like a status update or something, it’s 1am so I’m not really listening) and stops. Well, over the last couple of days, it started beeping more…and then finally, on Wednesday, it started beeping every 4 freakin’ hours! The best we could figure is that one of the motion sensors’ batteries is low. We had planned to call either the property management company or the home owner about this on Thursday. So, we get up at like 1am to stop the beeping, and the 5am. Brad did it at 1, so at 5 I go stumbling in to the laundry room…and hit the wrong button.

Instead of hitting the “Status Update” button, I hit the “Arm Sensors” button. So then it starts beeping and beeping…and then I tried to correct myself by hitting the “Disarm” button. It tells me “Please enter ID.”

I don’t know the ID.

And the alarm goes off. An alarm that is powered by the angels of Satan! The LOUDEST alarm on the entire planet lives in my laundry room.

So Brad’s jumping up, I’m running around like a crazy person…NOTHING will turn it off. Finally, I started calling the home owner. It’s 5am. Finally on the second call, he picks up. I’m basically trying not to cry at this point as a blubber in to the phone recounting what happened. He told us the code, and the screeching alarm from hell finally stops. At this point I’m basically having some sort of weird panic-attack like reaction…I have no clue why…my heart was racing, I had a horrible headache from the noise, I felt awful because it was all my fault of course.

Rea somehow slept through the whole thing.

It was later that day (yesterday) that I found out that I didn’t get the job that I had all but been told I was a shoe in for.

So yeah. But, last night we called the alarm company and disabled all beeps. Reagan is feeling a bit better, and today I found a pair of shoes that I thought I had lost in the move.

I call these my “boy shoes!” You can’t see it from this photo but it has a cute heel.

So yeah. The best thing of the week is that I never turned to food to soothe or cope with stress. I definitely thought about it. The worst I did was commiserate my not getting the job by having some shrimp moo shu, but not before looking up the nutritional info.

Anywho. You may be wondering what all this has to do with Sweet Potato fries…

I have been pinning recipes to a board on Pinterest of healthier food choices, and one of them was a “recipe” from Katie’s blog. I say “recipe” because there’s not really much to it. You can find the original recipe by following either of those links, but I’ll also re-post here just in case you’re too lazy to click.

Yum!

Sweet Potato Fries

• 1 large sweet potato
• cooking spray
• salt & pepper to taste

Set the oven to ‘broil’ (mine has high and low, so I chose high).

Peel the sweet potato and slice into thin slices (about 1/4 inch).

Slicing them was the hardest part of the whole thing, lol. I need new knives…

Spray a baking sheet with the cooking spray, and then lay all the sweet potato pieces out on the sheet.

Spray the tops with a little cooking spray and then sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. (I used WAY too much pepper, and the result was that it seemed to kill some of the sweetness. I’ll probably nix the pepper totally next time)

One potato makes a LOT! Please excuse my well loved pan…

Put the sheet under the broiler until the tops start to darken, then flip them over and place back under the broiler.

It took about 12 minutes on each side for me, but I think it’s mostly due to my rack being too low. I didn’t realize it until the oven was already hot though. I think I’ll try this again next week and move the rack up. 

Now, I’m the only one in the house that likes sweet potatoes (well, Rea like them, but in pureed form!), so I wasn’t able to eat the whole batch. They are a great, filling snack! So one potato should be good to last you for 2 days or more.

And there you go. Sweet Potato fries. I’m hoping to have something more delicious to post next week, but with the week I’ve had, I’m excited I still tried one new thing! The rest of my week included:

This was by far the hardest elliptical workout yet…

Taking care of the sweetest baby on the planet…

Signing up for a virtual 5k!

 

That is Katie’s Virtual 5k walk/run! Today is Katie’s birthday, and she’s hosting a 5k with her blogging friends to celebrate. I’ve got my bib printed and ready to go! Tonight Brad will be watching the rug rat, and I’ll be doing my first 5k in…2 years? Definitely not going for time, just to finish! Wish me luck! Oh, and if you want to participate, there’s still time to sign up. There are prizes from what I understand, and not just for best times, etc.

What about you? Making the fries this week made me wonder, has anyone tried dehydrating sweet potatoes? Any success?

Not Created Equal

This weekend was awesome! Brad and I took our little trip to the Metroplex, and we had a great time! We were able to see the Titanic Exhibit, which was pretty cool, though we were both just slightly disappointed…Well, not dissapointed I guess, but we just thought it was going to be a little “more.” We also spent the entire day Saturday walking and exploring the rest of the museum, and it was great!

Brad and Rea on a giant light brite!

This bow stayed on her head for about 2.5 seconds at a time…

The hotel was great, and it was just nice to have a weekend where we were just doing stuff that WE wanted to do!

I also tried a bit of an experiment this weekend, and was half surprised, half not by the results. This time around on the old diet train, I am working on trying to prepare myself more mentally for the “after.” When I lost so much in 2011, I was focused, focused, focused on losing the weight and FAST. My goal was to get preggo. Once I did, I went slightly insane in the eating department. This time around I am trying to be mindful of what I’ll do when I reach the goal. I’ve read so many blogs about people who lose the weight only to start gaining it back because they just weren’t ready to be at goal. Or what if I get pregnant again on the way down? I can’t just decide that that’s a free buffet ticket again.

So, this weekend, I continued counting calories, and continued to stay under my daily limit, but I didn’t necessarily pay as much attention as to where those calories came from. I ate whatever the people I was with were eating, as long as I didn’t go over my limit.

And of course, not only did I not eat nearly as much in quantity, but my body was definitely very unhappy with the quality. And the scale this morning reflected as much. And overall week-to-week loss still, but depressing in the measly amount! It’s almost comical that I ate hardly as much in quantity compared to “good” foods, so not only was I unsatisfied overall, but my body gave me the old fat finger as a reward. This is why plans like Weight Watches are so frustrating. Sure, I’d eventually lose weight, but infinitely slower and I would learn nothing.

So, the moral of the story is that calories are NOT created equal. Which, really, duh.

And now…Dinosaur!

Isn’t that always the way?

WARNING: Boys, advert your eyes, cause this post mentions some girly gross stuff. It might even have cooties.

I’m totally plugging on in diet lifestyle change land again this week. I’ve been to the work-out-atorium twice, been below my caloric goal each day, found a new blog for inspiration that I’m devouring, and basically having a grand old time. It’s been a bit hard this week since Brad’s had to work late so much. There’s a Big Cahoona coming in for quarterly review mess tomorrow, so it’s all hands on deck at work.

I woke up this morning while Brad was already in the shower, and it was one of those mornings where I woke up, and I just kind of felt thinner. Laughable, at still over 240, I know, but it was just one of those warm and fuzzy moments where my body was telling me that “Hey, you’re doing the right thing. Thanks for feeding me awesome foods and exercising, cause I’m totally digging that.”

I was getting up out of bed all set to say “You’re welcome body, I’m glad that we can work together as a team again,” when BAM. I could totally tell that I had started my period.

You know that feeling..standing up after being in bed…you know what I mean. UGH!

And let me remind my dearest readers that this sensation is not really one that I’m quite accustomed to. Having had PCOS since I was a teenager, I used to only have a lovely visit from nature maybe once a year. And I was ok with that.

Until, you know, finding out that dealing with periods was kind of a thing you HAD to do if you wanted children. But then, it was even better, because I always knew when I was going to have a period, because I was an OCD-cycle-tracking-desperate-to-get-pregnant person.

I’d heard before that after you have a child that sometimes a woman’s body can regulate itself. I didn’t really thing that would happen to me, especially after having gained back so much weight. But I guess it has. Which not only is decidedly inconvenient on the whole being completely surprised thing…but now I’ve got to remember that we can totally get pregnant again…without having to have a bunch of docs involved, etc. That’s awesome…except we are NOT ready to get preggers again so soon!

It may sound VERY silly. But I’ve been married for 13 years, and didn’t have to worry about…um…prevention. Looks like I have some phone calls to make…

So yeah. AT LEAST I know why I’ve been crying at TV commercials and songs for the last few days. Seriously – the TV was set to “Toddler Tunes” yesterday for Reagan, and even reading some of the album titles made me start to cry! (Stay a Baby Forever, I’ll always be Your Mom, etc etc…..oh and don’t EVEN get me started about this song. Jeez!)

Sheesh! All you “normal” womens…I don’t know HOW you do this hormone thing!!! ><

The only other craziness to report is that I had a business lunch today in which lunch was provided. My choices were chopped beef brisket, potato salad, beans and sausage…which giant pieces of fluffy white bread if you wanted to make a sandwich. Oh and a river of BBQ sauce flowed through it.

(I’m in Texas. This is typical.)

I felt obligated to eat it. It was a meeting with a new client for freelance work (building them a website), and they provided lunch. I had a little bit of the beef brisket on bread, and some of the potato salad. After putting the amount I had into MyFitnessPal and overestimating (since I have no idea how this stuff was cooked!), I am guessing I had about 632 calories. It was SO not worth it. The sad thing is that I left about half of the serving of brisket that I took on my plate. Sad as in calories that is. I actually found it very difficult to leave food on the plate (“clean your plate, there’s starving children somewhere!”), so of that I was very proud. But the fact that I wasted over half of what I try to stick to each day on such a measly meal (and greasy, my stomach is NOT happy) is really annoying.

Despite all this, I’m in a pretty good mood, lol!

Question of the Day: What awkward situations have you found yourself in when food is provided? When have you had to force yourself to eat something juts to be nice or save face?

Ouch!

Last night my dear husband was kind enough (and got home from work at a normal time, so was able) to watch Reagan for me for an hour so I could steal a workout. I say “kind enough” as if he’s some sort of ogre who doesn’t pull his weight! Brad is actually an amazing husband, and an even better father. His dad was a deadbeat, so I think it’s very important to him to be incredibly involved with Rea.

But I digress. Suffice it to say I felt guilty for going and Brad told me to shut up and get out and work out. 😛

And I did.

And it was HARD. The second workout is kind of like the the third day of dieting. It’s usually a pretty crappy experience which takes a LOT of mental willpower to get it done.

But I did! Only another 30 minutes on the elliptical. I was huffing and puffing like an 80 year old smoker at about 10 minutes in. I was so much tougher than it was on Saturday. I was THIS close to stopping at 20 minutes, but I just stopped for about 20 seconds, took a drink, and mentally just said “no, we’re doing this.”

I am not so sore today, but I think tomorrow I’ll be hobbling like that 80 year old smokers mom.  😛

Some workout pics for your viewing pleasure…

I put my jacket up in a locker…and chose a number that would definitely remember! My starting weight…262

Yay for another complete workout! Of course MyFitnessPal gave me more calories burned: 573

Post-workout face. It strategically hides my bad workout hair (hair is too short to wear a ponytail, so it’s a bandana basically), and my fat chin.

So that’s my 2nd workout experience. Yay for getting out again! I don’t know when I’ll be able to get out again this week yet, but I’m hoping to be able to go a third time before going out of town this weekend! 🙂

Heck Yes I Did!

I totally went to the gym and worked out. Finally!

On Saturday morning I resolved myself that THAT would be the freaking day I finally make my 250+ pounds of fat matter get up, out and moving. Of course my dear husband decided he needed to go in to the office and get some things taken care of that day, so I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to get out myself, take Little Miss and try out the YMCA that I had signed up for a million years ago. I even went in to the Y on Friday on my way home from work to get a proper tour so that I would feel comfortable with where I needed to drop her off, where all the equipment was, etc. I didn’t feel brave enough to go swimming yet, but I figured I would work on an elliptical for a bit.

So cue Saturday morning, as hubby heads out the door for work, I fix Rea a bottle so she won’t get hungry while I’m gone and set her up in the living room eating while I grab her diaper bag and make sure she’s got all she needs. Brad left around 10am, and I was 99% sure that their day care was open until about 1pm, which would give me a good 2 hours to work out, cool down, and drop off/pick up Little Miss.

Until I saw the fridge. I had posted several of the YMCA’s schedules to the side of the refrigerator so I could have them handy. Pool hours, class schedules…day care…CRAP! That’s when I saw that the day care was only open until noon on Saturdays. It’s already nearly 20 after 10am. Cue me now running around my house like a crazy person! Grabbing diaper bag, daughter, water, keys, phone and bolting out the door.

I seriously came SO close to just say the heck with the whole thing, but I knew 30 minutes is better than NO minutes.

And it was. I was able to get 30 minutes on an elliptical, and I guess the fact that I was running around like a crazy person made my fear of leaving Rea in a strange new day care not nearly as bad. And she did great, of course. The second I set her down she was off and running to play and didn’t even notice my leaving…or even my return!

And my arse and thighs are STILL sore. I guess after 1.5 years of not working out, 30 minutes is just fine, lol!

I was panting by 2 minutes in, and wheezing by 20 minutes in, but I did it. The readout the machine gave me said…

But inputting my workout info in to MyFitnessPal (which takes my current weight into account) said that the workout burned around 516 calories. Either way, I know it burned SOMETHING.

So, there you go. I went to the gym, took my daughter to their day care, and the world didn’t explode. Baby step #1 (pardon the pun) to figuring out how to do this thing with a Little Miss to watch after. Brad shouldn’t be working late tonight, so I’m hoping to make another mad dash to get another 30 minutes in there.

Oh! And weigh in was yesterday, and I’m down another 2.6 pounds! As I mentioned my body usually doesn’t drop huge numbers but every 2 weeks, so I am totally happy with that. 12 pounds down…100 to go.