Ready... Set...

So, seeing you girls post here again has me all anxious to see what my body does post-partum too. All I need now is to get there! Actually, it's not just your posts that have me anxious: I was loosing in the month prior to getting pregnant, and had a great thing going. I'd dealt with some emotional things that were holding me back and leading me to sabotage myself, I had a *great* workout routine (sadly, it's too intense to do in a pregnancy, since it hinges on high heart rates & the Dr. said no more than 150bpm), and was doing well with my food choices, and dealing with some of the estrogen dominance. There was exciting stuff going on! (And a baby is exciting too- just exciting different.) There's some exciting things still: I've gained very little in this pregnancy, even though I took forever to figure out a workable exercise routine. I actually think that a lot of it is dealing with the self-sabotage: I am maintaining healthy food choices much more often, and that is hugely healthy for both the baby and me. So I'm excited to join the two of you in the whole post-partum weight loss thing in a few weeks!

Sweet-Tooth Attacks!!

So, as I'm working to make smarter choices with my eating, trying to eat better foods, I find I feel more and more temptation to eat sweet things. What's up with that?

Last week I realized that I'd eaten a dessert or candy pretty much every day. I think that is not a conducive way to maintain my health, or work on trimming my figure for that matter.

So, this week, I decided to avoid eating desserts. Yesterday I actually forgot about it and had a little bag of Reese's Pieces. But today, I'm back to my determination. I even brought fruit for lunch (that frequently satisfies my sweet-tooth). However, it's nearing the sleepy time of day and I totally have the munchies!

So, in hopes that I'm not the only one, I thought I'd open this up for discussion.. What do you guys do to avoid giving in to your sweet-tooth?

Weigh-in

Not too bad. I always suffer when I don't drink water, and I had several days in a row, what with Independence Day and the Fast Sunday. I fluffed right up with bloating. But all but 1 pound of that is gone now. My measurements were a mixed bag: some loss, some gain. But I'm back on track and getting things going in the right direction. One thing that's helped is that when I write my measurements, I write down the new number, then in parenthesis I'll put the change for the week and the total change. That's pretty wordy. It's just this:

Weight: 203 (+1/-6)
Waist: 36 1/2" (-1/2" / -2 1/4")
Hips: 45 1/4" (+1" / -1 1/4")
R. Thigh: 26 1/4" (+1/4" / -1")

It's a bit of a mess to look at, and the math is sort of obnoxious. But I've decided that it's absolutely worth it: when I had the gains this week, I could see that there is still progress, even though it wasn't a stellar week. And it has helped keep my thoughts in the way they should be so that I'm still feeling successful, still feeling hopeful. And THAT means that I'm not feeling the urge to sabotage myself. It's worth a bit of messy math to me!

Gathering Momentum

I picked up running again, to go with my efforts at putting more veggies and less sweets in my mouth. So far, it's going really well. Today was Day 3 of that Runner's World training program. I haven't had to repeat a day to get it yet: first try all the way! I'm feeling pretty good about that, let me tell you! I think that the furthest I've been into that program is Day 8 or so, so I'm going to start out with a modest goal: Make it to day 10. Someday, I want to run a 5k, but I'm not worrying about that right now. Right now I'm working through the issues that keep me sabotaging myself. Like fear of miscarriage and gluttony. Things that happen in my head that keep the food going in the mouth or the feet off the treadmill.

I'm coming to the conclusion that weight loss isn't really so much about calories (though those ARE important) as it is about psychology or something like that. How many times have I started to loose, been making good progress, then let it all slip away and ended up heavier than when I started?? That's not a problem with my ability to loose weight: the weight loss was working. That's a problem with the things that happen between my ears. So I'm trying spending more time on my knees, asking for clarity and help. It worked yesterday. I managed not to eat more than I should.

I'm setting smaller goals: just this week. I want to loose 2 pounds this week. I'm doing that by drinking water and running. Next week will take care of itself when it gets here. I have to Pay Attention or I find myself with a fistful of M&Ms or something and then another and another... But yesterday I made it. I resisted the temptation to sabotage. And I'm not doing too badly today, though I really need to find my water.

In Praise of Water

I went to Mom & Dad's house this weekend, and we had dinner. It was yummy: spaghetti and salad. There was also chocolate milk on the table which I enjoyed very much. That is, I did until I looked at the label and realized that for the brief pleasure of a glass of milk I had spent 170 calories or so. And I'd had more than 1. I usually know it when I'm sabotaging myself, but I'd been completely blindsided by this one. Nothing to do about it but enjoy the fact that I'd been to the ice rink earlier in the day and skated for an hour and a half. At least I did a good job on the exercise!

Just one more reason to love water: it's crazy easy to drink your calories, which leaves you still hungry enough to eat them too. Milk's not even all that bad: check the label on soda some time. That stuff is liquid candy. Juice makers want you to think their apple juice is the same as eating an apple, but you don't get any of the filling qualities: no fiber, no pulpy bulk filling the belly.

Makes me want to make sure to drink water at my meals: it's an easy way to keep the calorie count lower.

Accomplished: Day 8 minus 2

I did another day. Well, my 1st of 2 steps to get to accomplishing Day 8. The "official" program is a bit ambitious for me. But I'm pleased. Even though I'm not loosing weight yet (still), I am loosing inches nicely. And I'm excited about that. It's definitely a step in the right direction. I set up a route and then I have measured distance in my Runner's World exercise journal. Then I run it with my stopwatch and see how I do. I'm getting better: the route I ran today I had a little bit of extra time at the end of the day's run. I finished 6 seconds before my 30 minutes, which is exciting to me because last time I actually made it through this route I had to tack a few seconds on to get to the end of the block. So there's been some improvement. Probably mostly improvement in my ability to breathe as that's typically the limiting factor.

It's good that I made myself go today too, because after Thursday when I actually decreased my pace to 12:54 - about 3 minutes faster than the run before it - although I was running faster (The jogging stroller was pulling me along I think. I'm always faster pushing it.) I was so incredibly frustrated by not finishing the 30 minutes I usually do that there was a good chance that I would sabotage myself and just fall off the wagon. I could feel the nagging "it doesn't work anyway" at the back of my mind. So it's good that I went today. Now I can get my momentum back and keep loosing inches. Someday my body will have no choice but to unload some pounds!