Weigh in: Starting point and Moving on

I’m sad to post this. Facing the scale this morning after weeks of screwing up sucked. I have had very bad binges lately. I’m pissed at myself because I have had many nights where I was shoveling food in my mouth that I haven’t eaten in years.
I think the root of the problem is night anxiety. Matt works nights and I’m home and have a hard time staying out of the kitchen. It sounds stupid to even type it, because I know better and should have better self control.

This week was better than prior weeks but I do have work to do on myself. I have been taking walks with Quinn in the stroller or Baby Bjorn

This has helped me stay a little more focused this week.

I’m hoping that by focusing on myself a little more and letting Matt take Quinn I can get back where I need to be. Matt took her the other day for 2 hours, the longest I’ve been away from her since she was born. I felt weird about it. I felt great because I had 2 hours to myself. Then I felt guilty because I wanted her with me. I’m still a bit of a hormonal mess.

My divorce is finally final. Well, it was final back in August, but I got a settlement I had been not so patiently waiting for and the cars that I had during our marriage have been repossessed as of last Monday. This was a HUGE source of stress for me for months, not knowing how or when it was going to happen and not being able to move on without those two things happening. I was pissed off and bitter that I hadn’t gotten the settlement I was owed. I’m more at peace now that I have it. Feels like closure. The cars were baggage that we no longer wanted or needed. I feel like with the cars gone, it’s over. Finally. It is sad that in order to break away from a marriage neither of you want to be in anymore you have to destroy your credit and everything you worked so hard to build and protect.
I’m not mad about it. I gained more than I ever lost.

And I’m happy. That’s all that matters anymore.

Three Things Thursday

1) It’s going to be 80 degrees in Atlanta today and my best friend from high school is here on business. This means I have to wear summer clothes and see someone who hasn’t seen me since I gained (and lost) weight. I feel a breakdown in my closet coming on later. It serves as a good reminder to myself to stay strong and track what I eat. And to push play on my yoga DVDs because I’m pretty sure my arms aren’t going to look as good as they looked last year in sleeveless.

If like these ankles back too, please. Pregnancy wrecks your body, y’all. This was the day I went to pick up Matt from the airport. Almost a year ago!

2) I’m working on another post on my mommy blog, Mommy Ray Cyrus

This little screaming monster is keeping us on our toes. I took her to a play date (re: I needed to hang out with my friend date) at the park yesterday and some funny stuff happened. I hope to get that up soon.

3) I caught the first part of Leno last night. He was making fat jokes about New Jersey Gov Chris Christie. I was offended. Fat jokes aren’t funny. I actually think they make you a bully. I commend anyone trying to get healthy for themselves and their family no matter how they’re doing it. Can the fat jokes die already? It’s annoying.

Weight Watchers Meeting Topic: Mindful Eating

I am doing something I haven’t done in a really long time- I’m reading the Weight Watchers meeting topic and applying it to my life. Seems like a no brainer, huh. This week’s meeting topic is Mindful Eating. This is a perfect topic for me to blog about right now, because as a new mom I’m struggling with it.

Weight Watchers gives us these tips this week on how to be mindful when we eat. This is my take on how I can apply these to my life and my weight loss.

Making food the focus

Food is hardly ever the focus anymore when I eat. I find myself eating entire meals without tasting a single bite. This leads me to binge later when Quinn is finally asleep. If I don’t have her dangling off of me, I’m checking Twitter, Facebook, or texting while I’m eating. For people without eating issues, this may be ok. But people who tend to binge need to make food the focus. I need to unplug and put Quinn in her crib and shut the door and eat my dinner with no distraction. It is so difficult to chew food and listen to my baby cry. My mind isn’t on what I’m eating, it’s on her. Maybe I should pop earbuds in my ears and listen to music to drown her crying out long enough to finish a meal? Does that make me a bad mom? Meal time needs to be just that, meal time.

Before your meal

Pay attention to food choices

I have been eating anything and everything in sight (jar of peanut butter with a spoon. Big BIG jar. The shame.) I used to pre-track my days the night before and use my tracker as a guide. That helped me balance my choices and made my days go much more smoothly. I’m doing that again starting now. When you know the points plus value for the foods you eat and budget them into your day, you are less likely to go whole hog on a block of cheese or a massive serving of pasta smothered in butter. I have gotten out of the habit of looking at foods and seeing the points plus value of them. I need to remember that everything comes at a price, some heftier than others.

Set a smarter table

The first thing I need to do is actually sit at the table for my meals. Pregnancy brought along some bad habits as a result of working 10 hour days. When I got home I’d plop on the couch and eat my dinner in front of the TV. I used to eat meals at the table, even if I ate there alone. I’m ready to do that again. I also used to drink water with every meal. This is important to focus on again as well, since my water intake while nursing is some obscene amount.

During your meal

I need to be in the moment when I’m eating my meal. Instead of shoveling it all in so I can start another load of laundry or go pick Quinn up because she’s crying, I should take my time and chew and enjoy it. This should not be as hard as I’ve made it for myself lately. I find that the faster I make myself eat, the more I eat because I’m not enjoying it at all. It becomes quantity over quality, and my poor food choices lately have really shown.

After your meal

After my meal I plan to check my tracker and make sure I tracked everything accurately. Little things like forgetting to track a sauce or condiment can really add up, and I can’t afford those kinds of mistakes. I also plan to chug a glass of water. That’s a little trick I used to use to make sure I felt full when I pushed away from the table. It’s especially handy when I’m just getting back to eating healthy amounts of food and I’m feeling a little deprived.

I have prepared myself for tomorrow by laying out the things I need to make my oatmeal.

I’m armed with lots of healthy choices and I’m ready to make the right decisions again.

How do you make sure you are eating mindfully?

Weigh in and Blog Changes

I didn’t weigh in. I’m not going to this week. I fear it won’t be good.

I’ve been struggling. Before I had Quinn I had a schedule. I may not have blogged about it everyday, but I ate pretty much the same things for breakfast and lunch like I always have, with the only change being dinner. This helped me keep myself in check. Now that I have her my schedule is all over the place. I have been unsuccessful in creating a set schedule for eating and working out. I’d like to change that.
I’ve also been blogging primarily about my baby. I love her.

She’s all “Mmmmhmmm, don’t blame that shit on me.”
And she’s adorable and all that, but baby blogging on this blog that was started to help me lose weight and get healthy isn’t working. I want to share her life with the world because I feel I have so much to say about being a first time mom that could help other people. I have realized that when I blog about her here that my focus isn’t on weight loss or eating healthy. My focus is on her chubby cheeks.

The focus of this blog should be my chubby cheeks, both upper and lower.

I also acknowledge that not everyone wants to click on a link to this blog and see my kid 24/7. I get it. You want to know how to lose weight. I promise you I know how to do that, I’ve just lost my way.

The only solution is the one I’ve come up with is this:

I’ll blog about my weight loss and fitness here. I’ll go back to what worked (blogging about meeting topics, recipes, new workouts I try, my feelings and insecurities about losing weight, etc). I’ll go back to WTF Wednesdays because I enjoyed them. I’ll have Three Things Thursdays again. It’ll be like old times, friends.

I’ve started a new blog for baby stuff. I’m really excited about it because it’s going to be fun and allow me an outlet for all the crazy mommy stuff I’m just getting used to without further boring my audience here. I should have it up and running soon, and I plan to link posts here and there and make it easy for RRR readers to jump over to that one to see what Quinn is up to. I won’t keep my baby completely away from RRR, I’ll just post the occasional picture instead of every post being smothered in baby love. That will be for the new blog. I think this is going to work out great.

This blog was instrumental in my weight loss at one time. It offered an ear when I thought no one else could possibly understand what I was going though. It offered a shoulder when I had bad weeks and just needed to cry. It’s offered a laugh when I needed it the most. It allowed me to meet the wonderful man that gave me that beautiful chubby cheeked baby.

Every single one of you that have ever clicked on a link to get you here picked me up and dusted me off when I fell down time after time.

Here I am again, holding my hand out to you.

Pick me back up.

Worth a thousand words

I’m working on Quinn’s birth story and hospital review but I’m having issues with pictures. I hope to have time to resolve them soon.

One of our friends gifted us a picture package as a baby gift and we had to use it by May 1st. I had low expectations for the patience of our almost 8 week old little feisty one, but I think she did awesome. The photographer was amazing and kept her asleep, posing her here and there without waking her up. Matts said it looked like she was diffusing a bomb. We giggled a lot while she was moving her around.

Love that face. I love her tiny feet, too!

Things got interesting after the wardrobe change. She threw us a few looks, but overall I think she did ok. The quilt she is on was a gift from my mother. I had a beautiful quilt as a baby that was later used for my brother and then for his first son. Unfortunately, his crazy ex wife ran off with a bunch of things and that was one of them. My mom got Quinn this quilt so we can start the tradition over again.

As our photo shoot came to a close, the photographer took one final picture that will forever be my favorite. I love that she caught it on camera, because I fully intend to embarrass the shit out of my kid the first time she brings a boy home.

How perfect is that? Bless her little heart, she has the ugly cry.

Weigh in

Reality has set in that my weight is climbing and I’m not doing much about it. That has to change. I set out for a walk this morning with an 11 pound weight strapped to my body.

It felt good to sweat and feel my legs burn. I’m making this an everyday habit.
I’m tracking and taking one day at a time.

Anyone else trying to recommit to a healthy lifestyle? Matt and I are on it so far this week.

Busy Mother

I thought when I became a stay at home mom life would slow down. Someone thinks that’s funny

We’ve had a busy week. I didn’t even weigh myself, not that I’ve done all that great at tracking.
Quinn had the 2nd part of her Hep B vaccine last week. She had a reaction to it that landed us in the ER.

Seeing her get an iv (after 2 failed attempts) broke my heart into pieces. She’s fine now, though I’m kicking myself for allowing the vaccine. I know some people skip Hep B altogether. My reasons for allowing it were solid. The potential for overseas travel is high for us, with Matt’s parents being in England. I want to protect her, but at what cost? Quinn was treated at Children’s Hospital of Atlanta. I can’t say enough good things about the staff there. They made a very scary situation better every step of the way.

We also got our world rocked with the passing of Matt’s grandfather. Grampy was very proud of Quinn. She was his first great grandchild and I only wish he would have been able to meet her. He was very proud of her, and very proud of Matt. Please keep him in your thoughts. It’s hard for him to be an ocean away from his family when they are going through something so tough.

Quinn took her first road trip yesterday. We went to Chattanooga to visit my brother and his family. My brother and sister in law met Quinn at the hospital when she was born, but the kids weren’t allowed to visit her at that time because of hospital policy. So yesterday was a very exciting day for the kids

My brother got a promotion and will be relocating to Buffalo, NY in a month. I will miss having them so close to us. I get emotional when I think about how seldom we will see each other since we’ve always been so close.
Quinn is a chunk.

I’m so delighted with my chubby baby. She doesn’t miss a meal!

I’m hoping to write about several things. Posts I have in mind in no particular order are:
- Quinn’s birth story
- Review of Northside Labor and Delivery, since oddly enough there isn’t one anywhere I’ve found in blog form
- Matt’s immigration process and how our interview went, including things the average American may not know about the process. May change your view on immigration. Sure changed mine!

I promise to have atleast one of those posted by the end of the week. I’m finally getting our apartment in order after a crazy month of baby love.

I get lots of Matt love, too. Like when he forgets to restock the toilet paper and then leaves me things like this

I love him.