GUILTY.

I’m married to a personal trainer. I, myself, try to live a healthy lifestyle, at least during the week, by finding the time to exercise on my lunch hour and trying to stick to eating protein and veggies. Being health conscious is a top priority for my husband and I.

When Skyler was starting to transition from the bottle to solid foods, I attempted to make a lot of her baby food. I pureed & froze green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes mostly. I attempted chicken and ground beef, but I could never get the consistency right unless I added a jar of gravy, which to me, kind of defeated the purpose. So I bought the jarred baby food meats.

I will admit that I got very lazy at times and bought jarred veggies too – especially the blends of veggies that had DHA added – it seemed to have more calories and nutrition than what I was making at home, and back then, I was so concerned about getting her to gain weight since she had lost so much in the hospital, I actually chose some of the most calorie-dense foods for her. She was always a good eater – never too picky about any of the pureed foods she ate. It took her a bit when we started table foods as she wasn’t into things with texture. But eventually, she’d eat just about anything I gave her.

Fast forward to the last few months. It’s just her and me in the evenings at dinnertime since Ronnie doesn’t get home till late. The rides home from daycare have been generally stressful (despite us test driving the awesome Chevy Traverse). She’s tired, hot, whiny and hungry, and by the time we get home, she’s crying for dinner. Everything healthy takes a bit of preparation, and by that point in the evening, my patience is nowhere to be found. When she screams “hot doooooggg” I make a hot dog. When she screams “cheeeeeeeese” I get out cheese. When she yells “coooookie,” I give her five cookies. And most of the time, she doesn’t eat whatever she was wailing for in the first place! Sometimes, her dinnertime eating just ends up next to nothing, and I wonder how she’s even growing?

Her nutrition at home has gone straight out the window. We basically just try to survive at home. At least her daycare says she eats really well there!

Crunch Time

Starting in January, I got serious about getting back to my happy pre-pregnancy weight. By happy, I mean the 5-pounds-less-than-what-I-weighed-right-before-I-first-got-pregnant-weight. I signed up for the South Beach Diet online, ate very deliciously healthy, and was working out 3-5 times a week through the beginning of March. I lost nearly 8 pounds, and got only 5 pounds away from my goal (which if you do the math means that I was right at my pre-pregnancy weight, just not the happy one). I was feeling great!

In March, my social life got crazy (and fun!), which meant the diet and exercise routine got way too loose, and my clothes started to get way too tight again. April, I just managed to maintain, and here we are in May, and I’d really like to lose those last 5 pounds and tone up some more. Especially with our Las Vegas trip coming up in just two months, as hot as that weather is going to be, I’d like to feel great in a swim suit and cute little summer tops/dresses.

So I am writing it all down again, hoping it will help keep me motivated to get back on track. It’s time to cook up some of the yummy but healthy recipes from South Beach, and restart my workouts at lunchtime with my coworkers and also hit the gym on the weekends. I know it will work. If I just do it! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…as soon as Ronnie gets home from his motorcycle ride, I think I’ll head out for a run!

Poor Me

Even after the previous post of listing all the fun things I have to look forward to in the next few months, I find myself having PMS, or Poor Me Syndrome. Sure, it probably also coincides with the original meaning of the acronym PMS, but this week I’m especially feeling sorry for myself.

It’s just the evenings. Same old, same old. Pick up Skyler, come home, prepare dinner for her, and [lately] graze on every possible unhealthy thing in the house while simultaneously NOT preparing dinner to be ready when Ronnie finally gets home. Which then becomes an ordeal via text messaging between us:

Ronnie: What’s for din?
Me: I don’t know. We don’t have anything
Translation: I didn’t thaw any meat, nor did I attempt to throw anything else together
Ronnie: Fast food?
Me: Chipotle?
Ronnie: Neh. McDonald’s?
Me: If you get McDonald’s, forget me. I’ll eat something here.
Translation: I’ll continue to graze on every possible unhealthy thing here.
Ronnie: Ok

Don’t even ask why we don’t just call each other, but that is how it works.

Then I get depressed about not being a good enough wife to prepare us a healthy dinner, on top of feeling guilty for all the mindless mouth-stuffing I did for three hours straight, and thinking of all the other healthier and more productive things I could’ve done with that time. But then since it’s just Skyler and me till 7:30 or 8:30, there really isn’t that much I can get done that isn’t directly related to her. She’s been very adamant about quality time together lately. Why just now she was clawing at the computer chair and crying to me to let her up on my lap, while I ignored her just so I could finish this post. And now her feelings are hurt, and I feel even worse than I did already. It’s just that stupid downward spiral that I really can’t win. At least not one week out of every month.

Random updates

- Skyler is repeating so many words lately! If she knows what something is and I point to it and say it, she tries to say the word also. It’s so cute because her versions are vary toddlerific – diaper is “biper,” up is “Puh,” Bruno is “Bobo,” pasta is “papa,” and so on. It’s pretty adorable.

- We are thinking hard about getting rid of our diesel Jetta and getting something bigger (and something that starts up easily on cold mornings!). Ronnie has had the pleasure on recent weekends of getting Skyler in and out of the backseat of that car, and commented “Sure glad I don’t have to do this everyday” at which time I gave him my “square-eyed” look of death. I am very at odds with that car and would love the chance to drive something different. That car and I just don’t mesh. Since I took over driving it, the battery went out on the key fob so I have to manually lock/unlock the doors (not easy when I have a child and purse in my hands already), the wiper fluid pump broke, the brake lights went out, the stereo shorted out, and the passenger side door will only open from the outside. And this is the nicer of our two cars (unless you count the Harley!).

- Since starting the South Beach Diet and working out about five times a week for the last three weeks, I have lost six pounds and even up to an inch in certain places on my body! This is the most progress I’ve had in any efforts to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. And I feel great! The diet itself has not been hard and I’ve learned some great new recipes. I’m also eating so many more veggies than I have in the past and that just makes me feel healthier. A couple girlfriends at work have committed to working out with me on our lunch hour three times a week and we haven’t missed a beat. We’ve mostly been doing the Power90X cardio videos, and I can feel myself getting stronger and more toned. It is like a new high to finally feel stronger, healthier, and leaner than I have in a long, long time! I’m almost halfway to my goal, and my motivation has not yet faltered!

Holy Guacamole!

Yesterday I attended a 1 hour class that was offered through my employer’s Wellness Incentive Program. Experts will volunteer their time to come in and teach on one of various wellness-related topics, and just for attending, we get 10 points, which we can add up along with logging regular exercise points, fruit/veggie points, and other healthy things like that. At the end of a certain time period, if I’ve got a minimum of 1,200 points, I earn an extra PTO day! The class was on Holistic Nutrition. I will be completely honest that I signed up for the class merely to earn points, and had no burning interest in what I thought would be a human granola bar teaching a class telling me I need to meditate before every meal of tofu and tea or else my soul would burn in an unbalanced hell.

To my surprise, the teacher was a small, preppy looking woman in her late fifties, with a warm smile and gracious attitude. She defined holistic nutrition simply, told us her story, and then spent a little time educating us on “whole foods”, and finally talking about the kinds of gradual changes we could make to start living and eating more holistically. It wasn’t weird or overly spiritual, but actually very practical, and it inspired me to try and eat more “fresh and whole” rather than processed foods.

This brings back the old veggie issue that I have. Urghhh. Must eat more veggies! So I went to the store in a quest for edible raw veggies (so I could easily snack on them at work) and something not too unhealthy and processed to dip them in. I opted for the pre-cut tub of broccoli, cauliflour, carrots, and celery. I know it’s expensive, but every other time I’ve bought actual heads of broccoli or sticks of carrots and celery with intentions of preparing them at home, 90% of the time they just end up rotting in my crisper drawer. Now that’s a waste of money! Next challenge: dip. Ranch, dill, or spinach dip might be tasty, but probably not the kind of healthy, wholesome thing I was looking for. But then I saw it: Wholly Guacamole, which came in these amazing four 100 calorie packets, perfect for dipping veggies! And, the guacamole is all natural and nutrient-packed, so in and of itself, it’s quite wholesome. Best of all, avocados and guacamole have been an addiction of mine lately, so this was right up my alley! I tried my new healthy snack today and was actually sad when the packet of guacamole ran out. I’d eaten half the tub of veggies with it, and enjoyed every bite.

Paired with my new inspiration to eat more “wholly,” I also recently picked up the magazine “body + soul” because I thought it looked interesting. Turns out, it’s got the same holistic/wellness theme to it, with tons of great recipes, exercises, and information about maintaining a healthy body, mind, and environment. Lots of good, practical stuff there!

While all this is inspiring and interesting to me, I am not turning into some weirdo-hippie-shaman-holier-than-thou holistic pracitioner. I’m just taking what makes sense in my life and trying to make some healthy changes, and most importantly, share my fantastic store-bought natural guacamole discovery with my fellow guac-lovers!