On trying to get healthy.

I am admittedly and on again-off again weight loss/healthy eating proponent. I’ve written about it a couple of times.  Okay, fine…a lot. The balance of weight and food and exercise has been a big part of figuring out who I am and what kind of body I’m comfortable with. And I’m either all in or all out, there really is no in-between for me, which can be a huge blessing and also a huge thorn in my side.

Ate chocolate for breakfast?  GAME OFF FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!

Doctor says you may have gestational diabetes?  NO CARBS EVER AGAIN! Until Doctor says maybe you should eat a few more carbs, because it’s all about balance.  WTF, HOW DO I EVEN DO THAT?

What I have learned over these long decades is that it is a balancing act and I know that I am not the best balancer. It’s taken 36 years, give or take, for me to figure out what works for me. Here’s what I’ve found works best for me: not living in a world where I can’t have something.  Because when I start playing the “off limits” game, I know that all I’m going to think about and want is whatever is on that list. For me, I know that Weight Watchers works.  I’m given a very specific guideline (eat so many points per day) but I can choose how I want to use them.  Chocolate for breakfast?  Sure, down that bowl of cocoa pebbles. Friday night pizza with Finn?  Absolutely.  Go for it.

So I’m back on the WW wagon.  11 months after having my tiniest human (who actually came out weighing the most at over 9 pounds, but who I had the easiest recovery with, go figure) it was time for me to set some guidelines into place. This 11-month postpartum mark is about the time after I had Finn that I started to have weight/health issues.  My back went out in a big way and I had to walk every single morning (which was actually more of a slow shuffle) in order to loosen it up enough to then get through the day.  Uriah literally had to get Finn dressed and strapped into the stroller and then tie my shoes for me because I could not bend over, and I would push his happy baby body all over the trails in Iowa until my back was loosened enough that I could function.  You guys, an old lady in a velour jogging suit would pass me every single day.  This Granny would lap me on the trail. I was not healthy.  And uncomfortable.  And out of breath and sad and all the millions of other depressed feelings I could possibly have with being overweight.

My back and hips started to go a little wonky recently (which I guess is what happens when you co-sleep with a baby and carry 21 pounds of human around on your hip all.day.long). I could tell that the glory days of losing weight and being able to eat lots of calories because I was nursing was wearing off in a big way. The baby has pretty much weaned herself, so I guess that means it’s  time to take care of me.

I’m doing it solo this time around, although not really solo.  I’ve opted to try WW online since the closest meeting place is about half an hour away; not really a good use of my time once a week to cut out around 1.5-2 hours for a WW meeting.  That being said, I loved the meetings – the support, the ideas that come from a group of individuals who get what it means to be frustrated and excited and gain and lose in incremental pounds on a weekly basis is great. I can get behind the “rah! rah! cheerleading!” part of the meetings. I can get behind the motivation. It’s great.  But this season, with a baby and kids in school and a husband whose job is flexible, but not that flexible, I’m sticking with the online version.  And so far it’s been okay. There’s a whole community online and on Instagram. Pinterest is huge in helping me find ideas that are low in points.

The weather is warming up and so El and I have started walking after the kids go to school, up until this week when I put her on a strict nap schedule that is, but I’ll figure out how to get that walk worked back in over the next couple of days. I took a yoga strength class over the winter and I think I’m going to sign up for the next session. I already feel looser and at practice yesterday, I realized that I could do some of the sequences that were hard and awkward for me at the beginning.

I struggled with the scale for a hot minute, obsessively checking my weight to see if after 27 minutes of being “on the program” I’d lost any weight.  It’s tucked away now and I’ll pull it out at the end of the week for my first official weigh in (I started on a Saturday, but changed my weigh in day to Thursday because that works better for me mentally – so my first “week” was only 5 days and while I didn’t lose any weight in that 5 days, I didn’t have a gain, either).  I think that WW is kind of like riding a bike, after a few hard days of getting back into the swing of it, I’ve figured out how to peddle again and it feels pretty damn good.

 

I post food and weight related stuff on Instagram sometimes.

You can follow me on Instagram @heather.eats if you want to be motivated to work out (sometimes I post pictures of my walks – that’s as motivating as I get) or if you just like to see pictures of what I’m eating (spoiler alert: it’s usually pretty food, because I don’t like to eat ugly things) or what I’m making in the kitchen (minus the mess in the background, but sometimes I like to take pictures of my mess. It keeps it real).

Tales from the crib.

We have a baby that doesn’t sleep.  And when she does sleep, it’s usually because she’s in our bed, snuggled up tight, taking up all of the good real estate.

Before I had kids, I was like most: “My baby is NEVER, EVER, EVER going to sleep in my bed.”  Future Wonder Baby will sleep in her own bed, cry politely no earlier than 8:30am that it is breakfast time and perhaps time for a diaper change, and she will sleep through the night after our bedtime routine of a relaxing lavender bath, brain stimulating stories, and a lovely snuggle in the rocking chair, after which she will be put into her own bed to fall asleep on her own because that’s what all the books say you’re supposed to do.

Those books are lies. As in: Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!

Sweet baby El started out on the right path.  I could lay her in her bed and she’d fall asleep.  She wake up for her overnight feedings, fill her little belly and fall right back into her adorable snoring. This went on for a few weeks.  We patted ourselves on the back, deeply in awe of how amazing this little sleeper was.  Not at all like her brother who required hours of tag-team passing his crying/screaming/wailing body back and forth between us every single night before we finally caved, put him in the car and drove back and forth over the train tracks until he was lulled to sleep, at which point we ever so gently transferred the sleeping beast into his bed and tippy-toed silently out of his room, cursing (silently in our heads) anyone who dared to start their car within a 3 block radius of our house because it might wake the baby.

I’m not sure why Eleanor doesn’t sleep.  I’ve tried everything: essential oils – in her bath, on her feet and diffused, rice cereal at bedtime, a soft stuffie to hold, her bedtime blanket, no blankets and warmer pjs, nightlight, no lights, the cry it out method, the rocking her until she’s almost asleep method.  Nothing.  What works one night is sure as shit not going to work the next night.

She spent yesterday with a roller-coaster fever and just when I thought it must be her ears and I was about to call her doctor  for an appointment, two little white bumps appeared on either side of her two top teeth. She slept in her bed for about an hour last night before she was wailing and snuggled up with us.  Nobody slept great.  She was so tired she could hardly keep her head up for morning nap and yet still, eyes wide open and immediate crying when I laid her down in her crib. She slept for 2 hours while I held her, so you can imagine how much I got done today (spoiler alert: nothing.  I got nothing done).

I have read all the stuff.  I have seriously googled: too much sleep, not enough sleep, how much sleep do babies need, how do I get my baby to sleep, why does my baby cry when I put her to sleep, why does my baby fall asleep and then wake up crying, rate baby mattresses, pros and cons of co-sleeping, sleep train your baby, sleep train yourself, sleep train your family.  I have tried all the methods they’ve suggested; hell I’ve even combined methods.  I am resigned to this baby who requires not a lot of sleep and when she does sleep, she needs to be be snuggled and to feel secure (as in: her little body touching my body at all times).

People tell me all the time how much I’ll miss her needing so much of me and it does sound so sweet, to be loved and needed so much by someone so little, until you realize that I have literally not slept all the way through the night for over a year.  I have been seeing a chiropractor because my body contorts into weird angles when she sleeps in our bed. I am tired and crabby and that makes me a pretty mean girl.  I stop caring about things like showers and exercise and portion control when it comes to Girl Scout cookies. I start caring about mole hills that I subsequently turn into the greatest, tallest mountains you have ever seen and news flash: I will die on each and every one of them.

Eleanor is nearly a year old and she has yet to sleep all the way through the night in her own bed. I wish I could clean this little story up with a quick sweep of the: And then like a miracle, I was introduced to a crushed dinosaur egg supplement that I added to her bottle and, ta-da! She slept through the night forever and ever and we all lived happily and well-rested ever after!  Not so much, though, mostly because I can hear her shifting and whimpering in her bed as I type, which means I’d best wrap this up so I can move over and make some space for my tiny roommate.