Grumbles

My pants say I'm down; my scale says I'm up. Way up. Four pounds in just a handful of days. I don't think so--- oh wait. I've been eating salted cashews (Yummy protein!) aaaannnd I'm dehydrated. OK. I'm retaining water. Whew! That one's easily solved. Unlike my other grumble.

Counting calories is hard to do when you only have half the tools. My new Sparkpeople software is great! As far as it goes. I can scan stuff, and it searches its database, and usually there's something in there. As long as the food is bought. But bought food isn't the healthiest food, and one of the things I try to do is make a fair amount of our food. I'm not as successful right now, but still, I make some. Figuring out the calories on that stuff is not easy. I have software that does it... but it didn't get moved to my new computer and now it's packed. The other tool that I'm missing is my little kitchen scale.

Drat. This business of having the house on the market and a bunch of our stuff in boxes is for the birds. I hope we move. SOON.

Food Addiction Blog?

Last night our RS put on a Food and Nutrition Night with a registered dietician and fitness consultant. Very fancy. But I was so grateful, because it has been on my mind. A lot.
I am reading a book about a lady's love of horses and how her horses gave her the strength to look at herself closely and realize she was an alcoholic. They gave her the motivation to stop drinking so she could be a better provider for them. It's a very interesting read and I picked it up not realizing that it was about her struggle with alcoholism. I thought it was about her love of horses and blah, blah, blah.... I'm interested in horses. But what it really turned out to be was an eye opener. The author describes her realization of the problem and how it affected her life and somewhere around 100 pages in I realized that, if you were to exchange food/sugar for every time she wrote alcohol, she was describing me.
At the activity last night, I talked very briefly to the speaker about food addiction. It's real. It's not just in my head. It's something that will be just as hard as a cocaine addiction to overcome. She recommended the church's 12-step program. It was so nice to know that I'm not just lacking the discipline to stop over-eating. That is the case, but that's not the only obstacle to overcome and she pointed me in the right direction to start.
I'm thinking of starting a new blog - one that I will commit to actually posting on a regular basis - to write my thoughts and be accountable for putting some serious effort into fixing this problem. I have the manual for the church's 12-step program and I have read skimmed over it but didn't figure out how to apply it to me. I want to figure it out, get some more materials and learn about nutrition and how I really should be eating instead of just taking a shot in the dark. No more yo-yoing. No more emotional roller coaster rides. And *hopefully* I won't pass this problem to my children through my bad example.

Counting Calories

Counting calories gets a bad rap, but I like it. Now, I could be crazy; I like to weigh myself daily too. But it's not just random. I have my reasons for liking these things.

I like to count calories because it makes me take a close look at what I'm eating. I have to think about each thing I put in my mouth, and that means that I can use it to reeducate myself about food. I like breads. I like to bake them, and I like to eat them. But they're pretty calorie-dense, so I need to balance them with fruits and veggies. Happily those are tasty too. To me, it's all about balance, and learning to get my portion sizes right so that I can eat good food and not be hungry. Counting calories helps me figure out what that's going to look like on my plate. It makes me realize how much of a difference it makes to have an apple for a snack, instead of half a bagel with some tasty spread on it. My counting is teaching me to make better choices.

As for the scale, I know that conventional wisdom says to do it only once a week. But if I do it daily or near-daily then I see the small progress, which is very motivating, and if I'm eating poorly then the scale will wake me up. But only if I stand on it. When I weigh daily, I notice and correct quickly. If I wait a whole week i may gain a pound or two, which I find very frustrating, and that just kills my motivation.

And, because I weigh frequently I know that I'm already down a pound. I like that.

New Beginnings. Again.

I bought the SparkPeople app for my phone to help me track my calories. I am planning to leave a mixed review, because they don't want nursing mothers to use it, but don't say so until after the purchase. I'm also using the software anyway, and I am really liking it so far.

I'm hopeful that I can use the stuff to help keep the weight loss thing going. I lost quickly and easily after giving birth, and stabilized about 5 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. I like that! The extra baby jiggle, not so much. The pathetic muscle tone, particularly in my abs? The fact that I'm still just over 200 pounds? Eww... I have plenty of work to do now that the easy stuff is off. But I knew that was going to be the case, so it's ok. And I'm hopeful that the new tools will help me return to a place where I'm eating better, cooking better, and working out more. Last time I got all those things in place some very exciting things started to happen! So here's to new beginnings, again!

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!

Happy Friday

I have made it to my goal! As of this morning I am down 11 pounds! :D I think I get to go shopping. Kind of have to anyway - Dave has a work Christmas party coming up and it is fancy enough I need a cocktail dress! I'm a little nervous. Nursing has made the girls bigger again and last night I tried on my dress from Kate's wedding and it was nice and loose in the belly and too small up top. I hope I can find a good looking dress without breaking the bank. If I'm lucky, I can find one that is inexpensive enough I can get a new pair of shoes! I have been wishing for red shoes...

Working up the Motivation

Awesome Emma!! Your posts are really very inspiring. I need to get better about consciously making wise choices about weight loss. I mean, I *am* back in my real, non-maternity pants, but that's more from lack of eating (while being occupied with feeding little Townshend) than from wise food choices and working out.

It's been a rougher transition into motherhood than I really expected.. Lack of sleep and the learning curve of breastfeeding has me feeling like my days (and nights) are a cycle of me moving from my bed to the rocking chair and back again. However, he's been sleeping in his bassinet more often (which means I sleep in my bed vs the rocking chair) so I've been feeling more rested myself. This week we took a walk with the stroller 3 times.. so that's something!

My dr said to take it easy 'til 6wks, but we're coming up on that pretty soon. Until then, my goal is to go for walks with the stroller at least 3 times a week, and with all the vertical rocking I do to keep Townshend from snoozing through his feedings, I'm sure my arms will be more toned before too long.

"Hello!"

So as I am going along in my weekly meetings with the scale, I always get excited when one of the numbers goes down. Particularly if it is the middle, or even better!, the first number. Today my middle number went down! "HELLO to a new middle number!" Oh, if only you could have seen my happy dance! But then again no... I weigh with nothing on. Awkwaaard....
So I am down a total of 7 pounds today. Is anyone else playing along with me? Rits, I know you can't yet, but anyone else? I'm wishing for buddies today. Good luck to you all!