tewie-building

brayden will be rid of my boobies TOMORROW.  he started biting right before i left for vacation and couldn’t wean him while i was going away because of traveling with milk bags and i think that would be a traumatic time for a baby to be weaned so i decided i would work through the biting till we got home and cross my fingers that maybe i could get him to stop by th etime we got home with my goal of nursing for a full year.  he did seem to back off of it or at least limit it to daytime feedings so i removed two day feedings.  the first i replaced with pumped breast milk and the second with formula. (there are few things i despise doing more than pumping my breasts and i ONLY do it before a workout because i couldn’t do cardio with all that excess in there!!)  this lowered my supply of corse and so i cut the morning feeding and am down to bedtime nursing only right now, which i have decided to cut tomorrow.  he pushe off of my breast, bites, picks at my nipples… it’s just time.  i feel that it is time for both of us.  he is not acting satisfied again, i want my body back… it’s time.

that said… i am going to go get ONE bottle of hydroxycut.  i don’t liek to use fat burners but i think hydroxycut gives such a great energy boost and i feel such a drop in energy from cutting calories, that it will get me through that initial blow to my energy.  i also know that hydroxycut is too expensive for my stay at home mom budget and so i will have to just maek the best of one bottle.  i get pretty strict about my diet on that sort of thing because i don’t want to be wasting money.  i am pretty confident that this will help me to kickstart my way back to a better place by thanksgiving… i have been doing a little better even in the last week where my cheats have been relatively smaller and more reasonable than my overeating had been.  i really believe i can be in a pretty good place by thanksgiving and by new years be where i like to be (of corse you can ALWAYS improve but i mean i’ll be in the range of where i am comfortable and like the way my clothes fit, etc)

jeremy and i have also been talking about when to have another baby.  i want to move first which means not for another year, but i also sort of think it may be one of those things that will not come till it’s forced to (moving) so i wonder if i should just take the mindset of "no good time to have a baby" and just go for it sooner.  then i toy with the idea of competing once before another one figuring that there is no way i’ll be competing again for probably several years (being a mom is a lot of work and i don’t want to put competing before that… i can work on my goals as a secondary thing to mothering, competing is something that takes too much out of me to be a good mom at the same time if i had TWO BRAYDENS!  i can only barely think that i could do it with one of him!!!)  so i’d sort of like to get that out of my system once since afterall i was planning on competing once before i had him, only whoops that’s when i got knocked up! haha….  what better reason to drop out of a competition! ha!!!  (i’ve actually never heard a better reason! hehe)  so i guess i have some decisions to make there… perhaps God will decide for me… afterall He sure decided about brayden! (thanks to Him!!! unexpectedly!!!)    either way i am looking forward to not worrying about eating enough to make enough milk, and using that as an excuse, and depending on nursing to burn a ton of calories (i don’t really think it did me any favors) and my hormones leveling back off (i think nursing makes you hold fat because of the incerease in prolactin)  and so on.  however, i admit… that after the ABSOLUTE HELL that is nursing at first… and i mean hell… and i mean a longer time than what they say (they say it’s rough for a few days but in a week or two it gets better… took me 4 months before nursing wasn’t a dreaded fact of my existence!!!) it did get to be something that is a very intimate and fascinating thing.. .to know that i am feeding my son’s life…. to see his sweet face falling asleep…. there are some mornings i’ll have engraved in my brain forever of his slap on my chest with his little fists, his "talks" with my breasts, his tickle under my arm… i must sound crazy… i bet i would have made fun of someoen for saying these things and feeling this way in my prebrayden life.  but nwo…. as excited as i am to finally feel like i’m taking back my body… i am also feeling a little bit of a disconnect to him… a loss of his infancy…. something i’ll never get back.  i had no idea it felt like this to be a mom. how bittersweet each day is.  how you can love it so much and love every minute, and be so excited for the next minute, but still missing what you leave by going to the next… i had no idea how bittersweet the whole thing would be.  i never imagined i would be this type of mom… well any type of mom much less the type that is sitting here in admitted tears because i am watching my baby grow and change and mature and… so excited for every "next" thing, but also wanting to pause each day.

so the weather was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING today… as it has been most of the week… only i vowed to do my fall cleaning this week so instead of enjoying that wonderful breeze and bit of pre winter sunshine i have been locked in my house tearing apart closets, cabinets, dusting on top of the kitchen cabinets… etc… the real down and dirty fall cleaning!  i met up with a really great friend of mine this afternoon for a little stroll around the mall with the babies… and on the drive home i was totally nodding off in the car.  brady fell asleep right as i pulled into the condo complex and i figured there was a great afternoon nap in store for the two of us… but instead, the second i stepped out of the truck i realized WTF am i doing!!! it’s going to be raining again by tomorrow and there are such few nice days left before winter is fully here… why would i waste it dusting cupboards… they will be there tomorrow!!!  besides most of the work is done and i am down to my own closet and braydens and i’ll be done…  there is rain forcasted tomorrow i will have nothing better to do but finally conqure packing up the pack n play (anyone who’s taken one apart knows how impossible it can be to get all that crap back into the bag it came in… it’s almost like reversing giving birth!!!)  and organizing the bedroom closets for the final to do of my operation fall cleaning.  oh and the sad task of condensing the 0-6 months of braydens life that i am ready to pack up and get out of the house for more space. (tears!!!)  so i strapped up the baby and off we went.  so glad for that… i LOVE afternoon walks.  i am not sure what brady and i will do all winter in the afternoons… the walks hada become a scheduled part of our day for the summer and lately we’ve just been running more stupid errands to get out of the house, but i won’t want to drag him out as much as it get’s colder and i hear more threat of swine flu.

so (in my normal long winded fashion) the point of all this is that a walk alone with brayden is valuable think time.  i was walking along feeling my flabby stomach (it does not look like it did in my last progress pics right now… ugh)  and remembering how tight it was the thursday before our wedding.  (that’s when i fell off the boat and have been all over the place since with a few good weeks in there somewhere)  and it occured to me that when i eat whatever i want in whatever amounts i want, i weigh all of 130 pounds.  132 max.  that’s working out of corse because i LOVE working out so i don’t even have any idea of what i would be without working out… it has been over 12 years since i started to be able to have a clue.  so the thing is that even at my max weight… at 5′7′’ there is no way that 130 can be "fat" right?  well it can because of skinny fat which is what i very easily become very quickly.  but it’s like… i know a ton of girls my age and my height that would kill to be where i am when i’m at my worst, so then i start this brain game that goes, "i guess i should just be happy that that is my worst and not be so damn worried about it!!!" but the thoughts always circle back around and i remember that the fact of the matter is that i am just not happy or comfortable there.  no matter what… i just don’t feel good when i slip to that place.  and so instead of waking up adn thinking, "oh yay a skinny day, i can afford to eat a bunch of crap today" followed by three days of oh my gosh how did i turn into that bad from ONE DAY off my diet (i get puffy, bloated, and soft right away)  and then i’m back on till the bloat wears down a few days later and the cycle continues.  but what i need to remember is that i will never know how great i could be if i keep pulling that bull ****!!!  why am i so retarded that i play this game with myself!!!???!!!!

i need to focus on my other priorities:  1.  teaching brayden a healthy lifestyle that focuses on balance and discipline and being better than okay or good enough.   2.  dieting is a discipline… something i definately value… something that i let slip away when i play this game.  discipline would be to stay prudent with my plan even if i realize i can afford a little wiggle room…. because… can you ever REALLY afford wiggle room?  if you can it simply means that your standards need to be higher because you can always improve or you become complacent.  3.  that 5 pounds is the difference between my clothes fitting or not, the difference between me feeling comfortable taking off my clothes with my husband, the difference between feeling like myself or me in a big comforter…  that five pounds is a big deal actually.

i will never forget when a friend of mine said that she judged me harshly until she went to a weight watchers meeting and learned that each person veiws themselves on their own scale so a person who needs to lose five to ten pounds… that is just as real to them as an obese person who is struggling with 30, 60, 90… pounds.  then she understood why i stress over that rediculous five to ten pounds.  i appreciated her new respect and understanding.

i know that i have two choices… i can continue to diet one day and not another, lowering my self esteem and self respect… never reaching my potential or i can suck it up and stick to it through thick and thin…. there are two ways to end this mind ****.  i can give in and accept myself fat, or i can committ to my "best laid plans" and be someone i can respect.

why i am retarded… i am retarded for continueing this for so long now.  for allowing myself to act like knowledge is enough.  knowledge is nothing without behavior.

has anyone out there every cycled their calories (or currently??)  i have been able to lose weight at a higher calorie range from nursing but will have brayden weaned in the next two weeks.  i am thinking i could try to cycle between 1800 and 2100 at my activity level but was wondering if anyone out there had any insight.  (was going to go higher on 4days of weights and lower on 3 just cardio days that i sleep in a little later)

insight welcome.

i am very dissapointed in myself lately.  i have really been struggling with my diet and with workouts that have been less than stellar i can’t afford it.  (only because i am hacking my brains out between sets! not a lack of motivation or just being wussy… credit where it is due… it is VERY RARE that i struggle with working out.)  i’m getting ready to clean my closet out and put my fall/winter clothes in this week… something i’ve been avoiding because i am dreading going through things and realizing that some of it’s just not going to fit right now.  i know that in 3-4 weeks time i could be back into everything and looking better than before probably because i do have more muscle than i’ve ever had, but damn i have to stop eating **** to do that.

i thought i needed the consistency of getting up at 3:30 so i had made a workout plan that forced me to the gym 6 days a week but i think that (especially in the cold of winter) i’m ganna be better to only have to go in there early 3 days. (i have stuff to do things at home other days) and then go in on saturday with a little more sleep.  so i reworked my workout plan back to close to what it was and am thinking i can cycle my calories to get a couple of lower cal days by sleeping in an extra three hours  a few days a week. (i often think i have to have my cals up because i am tryign to stretch them out over such a long day.)  i don’t even know what my weight loss calories are anymore with being pregnant and then nursing and now that i’m weaning him, i am clueless these days. it used to be 1500-1800 but i wonder now if that was too low even before because i would eat pretty bad on the weekends and still lose weight at that… i want more balance and consistency so i am thinking i can probably cycle between 1900-2300 (1900 2x, 2100 3x, 2300 2x per week) and lose but i may be in a dream world thinking that’s not too high not nursing?

tips and insight always welcome here!

my weight is clear up to 129… that’s 8 pounds i gained since the wedding. ugh.  again, four weeks is the difference between where i am and where i can feel a little better, so it’s a matter of just sticking to it for four weeks… i want to feel like me and not like me wrapped in a big soft blanket!!!

so i got sicker… way sicker.   i was fighting a fever that kept creeping up to over 103 (went from 101.2-103.7 in like an hour)  it was rough.  there has been a lingering chest cold that i’m coughing myself awake at night with and then if that’s not enough, family stresses that have had me crying pretty much daily through this.  doesn’t help the sinuses!!!  basically what that adds up to is that my "first week" of my plan for my sister and i has been a waste.  my workouts have been weak, my diet a wreck, and in general, i have just taken a step back.

brady has been SUPER fussy at feedings with me the last two to three weeks and i’m pretty sure it’s because i don’t have enough milk durring the day.  he’s fine at bedtime feedings and some mornings, but durring the day he is pushing away from me, scratching my nipples, squeezing them, crying and generally uninterested for more than four minutes total! he started biting right before vaca and i had said i was done if he started that, but couldn’t quit right before vaca, so i waited till we got back and he was acting better so i thought i’d stick it out.  then he started bitting AND the other crap.  he almost acts like, "yeah i’m done with this."  i hafe put a LOT of work into nursing him for the last eight months so i made the decision to go ahead and start weaning. i called the doc for help with how to ease him into formula for the three months he’ll be taking it and such and he is fine with it.  i think i’ll take the next two to four weeks to wean him and then i’m going to tak a round of hydroxycut so that i have the energy to get through my days on fewer calories until my body is adjusted to eating less again and then i can ease off of that instaed of quitting it cold turkey.

i have been able to lose weight at 2000 calories while i was nursing… does anyone out there know how much they had to cut cals when they quit nursing? my day starts at 3:30am and ends at 11pm so it’s a long day to run on too few cals.  lately i’ve been doing 2100 and am not losing but not gaining.  do i need to cut the cals further to lose as i quit nursing?

… six weeks to thanksgiving already….

so i just got back from vaca.  it was really really nice… bittersweet leaving because i do love to get home to my normal schedule and life, but sad to leave my grandparents and the relaxed feel of the little middle-of-nowhere town they live in.  it always does root me to go there for a little, and reconnect with roots.

unfortunately, the whole ride home i was sweating (very rare for me to be the hot one in the car) and the only way to sleep was to put my head against the window and the cold air on my head… i guess that’s what got me so sick.  all i know is that my eight month run of only missing one day of working out is now up to three days because i had to miss the day we got to iowa (18 hour drive and the gym was not open by the time we got there) and today because i was bed ridden pretty much all day.  i have it ALL.  i mean the aches, the stuffy/runny nose, the congestion, the chest wheezing, the eyes and ears running, and the worst part (the part that made me unable to workout)… the headache.  i took some tylenol and laid down and thought i’d get up and push through cardio to break up what’s going on in my chest and give it a good hour and then rest the rest of the day, but the second i sat up, my head felt like it was going to explode and i fell back over.  my mother had to come over to help me with brayden so that i could sleep.  it was awful. so i am praying to feel better by tomorrow. brayden had a little cough that soudned full last night and i freaked out and called the doctor haha.. i may have over reacted because he sure is a happy baby today while i am worse!  i just got nervous because if he was as sick as me… gosh at 8 months old… that could be bad, right!?!

it’s good to be home… in my bed.  in my nice quiet doesn’t hurt your back bed.  it’s good to be home.  but what a reality check with this whatever i have!  ugh!!!

my sister and i will start the 12 weeks to twenty ten program i designed for us before i left monday.  i am hoping to take pump tomorrow so i may be starting this off with some moderate soreness, but i’ll have to feel a little better than i did today.   wish me luck….