Twitter lingo says it best - major #diet #fail

BABProject - Week 5 - I seem to be on a rollercoaster ride when it comes to my eating. I had an amazing week the week before last. I lost 4 lbs and was feeling great. Last week, I fell off the bandwagon. My emotional eating got the best of me. When we stress over finances, or future plans to move into a bigger place, I tend to grab naughty snacks to indulge in. Ya, ya, ya, I know about the stocking up the cupboard with healthy stuff but it's more than just reaching to the closest thing near me.

If I'm really feeling crummy, I'll go out of my way to drive over to the nearest burger king for a whopper jr. It doesn't help that my hubby is right along w/ me. Friday night he begged for me to get him some KFC. I was proud of myself for not getting anything for myself, but guess who was picking at his food over his shoulder? I ate the biscuit, half of a fried chicken breast, and half of the box of potato wedges. What the! And it happened so gradually that I didn't even realize what I was doing til it was too late!

And the rest of the weekend unfolded pretty much the same. All I can do is start things up again and hopefully pick up where I left off two weeks ago. Here's some NEW motivation for me: On August 7th, my girlfriends wanna go to Splish Splash, which is a water park in NY. Talk about fear out of my mind! Who wants to be walking around in bright sunshine with a roley poley belly all over the place?? NOT ME! So I would love to at least lose 6 lbs in the next three weeks. That may not be much but it'll do wonders for my self-esteem that day. That, plus a great black bathing suit with shorts that cover the badunkadunk and I'll be set!

Since I didn't reach my goal last week, I don't get the new make up (sob!) But this weeks goals are:

1) Exercise 4 times
2) Eat well
3) Lose 2 lbs

Reward: New Makeup! (I really need it!)

Lesson Learned: When he's ready, he's ready

My munchkin is so fun to be around! I would have to say that month 4 is the funnest month of being a mommy. Of course, I've heard time and time again that it gets better and better every month, so I can't wait to see what's in store. He sleeps longer at night, he's awake longer during the day, he plays, he's starting to roll, he laughs, he babbles, and is such a little character. It's funny because just 3 weeks ago, he was waking up countless times during the night, wanting to stay up and play. And I was really getting exhausted and frustrated. I tried so many things: schedules, feeding techniques, swaddling, no swaddling, binky, no binky, cereal in bottle, cereal by spoon, no cereal at all.. you name it - I tried it. And no matter what I did, baby still woke up throughout the night, time and time again.

But guess what? Right when I resigned myself to the fact that I would have luggage underneath my eyes for the rest of my life, he turned 4 months old. And he has been sleeping 9 hours a night every since. Crazy! It had nothing to do with what I was trying. And it definitely was a great lesson. We can't control our children. Even now, they depend so much on us to live, yet they are their own little beings with likes, dislikes, attitudes, sleep patterns, etc. All we can do is guide them in the right direction, and hope it sticks.

That is one piece of info I would definitely pass on to other new mommies. Every baby is different and what works for one may not work at all for another. The milestones they reach are completely up to them. This mama won't question it - just enjoy it. Sleep! Thank God for sleep! And thank God for my lovely little family! :)

Two steps forward, One step back

Boo! I weighed myself today and gained 2 lbs back from the 4 lbs I lost last week. I don't get it. I'm doing the same thing as last week! This time I've increased the working out to 4 times, and still stay within my calorie range. Okay wait.. the only thing I can think of is that I haven't been drinking as much water as I did last week. Also, even though I am staying within the appropriate calorie range, more of the calories this week are carbs, than last week. ... ok so maybe this week isn't exactly the same. But still!

It stinks that my body seems to react so viciously to carbs. God forbid I have mashed potatoes with my chicken instead of string beans and salad.. forget it, my body goes bonkers. This week I figured that I would keep under 1700 calories, but see if I could incorporate more of the food that I actually like. Sadly, the experiment didn't quite work. I really don't know how this will be a long term lifestyle then. Because I can't swear off completely from having an occasional potato, slice of bread, or even pasta. Will all of my hard work always get sabotaged unless I forever eat leaves and twigs??

I choose to believe that because I'm increasing my exercise, I'm gaining muscle. Whether I'm delusional or not, that has yet to be determined. For the rest of the week I'm going to go back to drinking 6 glasses of water a day, and hopefully by my Monday morning weigh in, the scale will be kinder. *fingers crossed*

Diet Success!

BABproject Week 4 - I had a great weight loss week last week! Finally! I worked out 3 times - 30 minutes each time. I also decreased the empty carbs I had been eating, and stayed within an appropriate calorie range. The result? I lost 4 lbs!

This really has motivated me to keep on going, and makes me feel that my weight loss goals are reachable. I have no idea what clicked this week LOL But being a part of the the BABproject definitely helped because the gals have been really encouraging on twitter. I also did NOT want to have another sob story post on here about how I didn't reach my goal. Phew!! I also think the exercising, as well as the low carb kicked things into gear.

Now I can get myself a pedicure! (Thank God cuz if you got a good look at these little piggies o' mine, you'd get me a pedicure even if I gained this week hehe)

This week's goals:

1) Continue with the low carb, 1600-1700 cal eating plan
2) Increase my exercise to 4 times this week

Reward: I can purchase a new make-up item (woo hoo!)

Family - Not what it's cracked up to be..

What is it about a new baby that makes grandparents (and yes even great grandparents) go completely insane? It's been a rough couple of days because my mother and I have not been talking due to excessive meddling from her and my grandmother. It doesn't help that they babysit my son 3 times a week so I can finish up the internship weeks that I missed during maternity leave and finally get my degree mailed to me.

The major argument was that the pediatrician said that the baby should be eating every 4 hours because he is a little overweight, and he needs to learn how to be able to eat at appropriate times. He's 4 months right now, so this is the time when it's important to start helping him have a more normal eating/sleeping pattern. Well, I've explained this to my mom and grandmother a number of times and they continue to belittle this and say that they've raised kids for years and pediatricians don't know everything.

So they proceed to feed him at their own schedule (which is pretty much as soon as the poor kid starts crying), as opposed to respecting what my husband and I have requested. I've tried to ask nicely, I've tried to send articles to my mom about grandparents having to respect boundaries, but to be honest, earlier this week I was at my wits end. I came back from my internship to find my grandmother feeding the baby about an hour and a half sooner than was necessary. I just blew up. It didn't help that I had about 3.5 hours of sleep that night since the little tyke still doesn't sleep through the night. Needless to say, I became the bad guy, and everyone pretty much came against me (including my brother which pissed me off, but that's a whole other story) saying that I shouldn't have yelled at them, I was out of line, etc.

My husband, trying to make things better, called my mom that night and tried to calmly ask her to please respect our guidelines for the baby and that we love them and know they love our son, but it's important that they realize that we are the authority figures when it comes to him. Well my mom was NOT having that. Considering our family is filled with a plethora of strong-willed women and spineless men, she was not used to a man sticking up for himself. She then told my husband that she did not care about watching our son, she was just doing it as a favor (which is not totally true), what does he know because he runs away whenever the baby cries (which is also not true.. not anymore anyways), and that she didn't care what he or I said, if the baby was under her roof, he would be taken care of the way she deemed fit. Wha?! I'm so proud of my husband for not letting her have it because I would have, but he wanted to be respectful (though he was seething inside).

The problem is, the situation goes deeper than a feeding schedule. It's about the lack of respect that we get from our family. I'm 28 and my husband will be 30 in a couple of months, yet we're treated like children. Always. Everytime I ask them to do, or not to do something in regards to my son, they scoff at it, saying that they know how to take care of babies, and that whatever I'm asking is silly. We've had arguments over when to start solid foods (They were trying to force me to feed the baby rice cereal at 8 weeks old!) We've had arguments over when to allow him to drink water, etc. By the way, just to let you know what I'm up against, my grandmother once refused to EVER watch our son again unless we followed her rules of feeding him cereal. So that's the craziness that's happening over there. Yup.

Anyway, it's been this constant back and forth, struggle, and it just came to a head. Though I miss talking to my mom, this had to be nipped in the bud. My husband brought up a great point to her. What happens when the baby is now 5 years old and we tell him that he's not allowed to eat candy, or watch something on TV because he misbehaved, but when he goes to grandma's he's allowed to do what he wants? That's undermining to us, and confusing to the kid.

Not to mention that for the past couple of months, I've gotten very little more than discouragement from them all. If it's not a snarky remark about my weight, it's a comment about how my house is not clean enough for a baby, or how I'm not bathing him enough (despite doctor's orders of only 2x/week due to bad eczema). It goes on and on. Why not have a little grace? Why not show some understanding that I'm a first time mom who still gets less than 5 hours a sleep every night, who busted my butt to finish up graduate school, who now is looking for a full time job to help support our family, I mean c'mon!

For once I would love to hear "Hey, you're doing an amazing job." I don't even remember the last time I heard that. Except from my husband and my friends. And speaking of friends, the scripture is sooo spot on that says, "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24) I have had more encouragement from friends (some friends that I have not even met in person, can you believe it??) than I have from my own family. Yes my family helps out with babysitting, yes my mom helps out financially when we're in a bind, but many times going over to their house is emotionally draining.

I wish I could express that to them, without being yelled at for being "silly" or "overly sensitive". At this point, all I can do is focus on God, my NEW family (me, hubby, and baby) and enjoy all that life has in store for us. I've been mulling over this family issue for the past two days now, and it really has done nothing more than give me indigestion. I have to remember, the bible says, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:27) Worrying about this family issue will not change the situation. I can work on myself, and eventually apologize for shouting at them, and what they do in return is up to them. I have Jesus, and I have tons of other people in my life that lift me up instead of tear me down. And I thank the Lord for that, big time!

Oh, What a Mixed Bag of Nuts am I!

Sometimes my head feels like a mixed bag of nuts. Being a new mom has been incredibly wonderful/emotional/scary/exciting and my opinions about my life change depending on what day or time you ask me. My son is 4 months old now and time seems to be flying by! (Note to baby: Don't grow so fast please!)

Over the past couple of months, I became a new mom, my husband lost his job, he then found a new job, I graduated with a Master's of Science in Mental Health Counseling, and as of now I'm trying to figure out where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I was hoping to stay at home with the bambino until he was at least a year old but God has a different plan, it seems. My husband earns enough for us to survive (barely) where we're at, but doesn't afford us to do the things we've been hoping for such as move to another apartment in a quieter, safer neighborhood for our son, and start to save up for our dream home.

So I've been having mixed feelings. I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place. If I choose not to work until the baby turns 1, we'll have to re-sign the lease and our goal of having a better life for him would be squashed. (Did I mention that we only have one bedroom? So by that time he'll be a toddler , and a toddler sleeping in our room will. be. chaos.) But if I choose to get a full time job at the end of the summer so we can have two incomes and start working towards our plans, then I feel like I'll miss out on some major milestones that my pumpkin will go through.

I have this fear that I'm going to hear from my mom or a day care worker that baby said his first word. Or took his first step. But where was mama? Out in the rat race unfortunately. I mean, I always knew that I'd eventually go back to work because I worked so hard for my Degrees and really want to help people with emotional difficulties. I even want to own my own practice one day. So yes, there are a number of things that are a part of my life goals that I would love to fulfill - but one little 16 pound chunky monkey has me all sorts of confused.

I try not to speak with my husband too much about it because he ends up feeling bad that he can't be the "ideal breadwinner" that he thinks he's supposed to be. But the fact is, this isn't the 1950s. We live in NY, the economy sucks, and we're both 20 somethings just trying to live and love life to the best of our ability. I mean, we're in this together so I don't feel any resentment towards him at all. I just wish that maybe we lived in a different state, where rent wasn't $1200/month minus utilities. Ahh well.

I think I know what I have to do, but it still makes me sad at times. I'm sure I'll feel differently once we're more comfortable financially and I'm decorating our new place and moving all of baby's toys into his very own room. But for now I'm going to continue being a mixed bag of nuts and enjoy every last moment being a stay at home mom. It's amazing how time can be your best friend and your worst enemy, all at once. Go figure.

It feels like Groundhog's Day.

BABproject - Week 3 - Remember that movie Groundhog's day? Remember how the main character kept waking up and doing the same things over and over again? OMG. That's me. I had major intentions to workout last week but guess who came to town for the first time since before I got preggers? AUNT FLOW. I hadn't seen the wench for over a year and I did not miss her one bit. But alas, she showed up less than two weeks after I stopped nursing. Bah.

In any event, when Aunt Flow is around, especially this being the first time she came in a long time, I did not have any motivation to move when I felt so bloated. so crampy. so icky. So exercise was a big fat zero last week.

But I did pretty well with my eating. As a matter of fact, around Friday I weighed myself and was actually down 2 lbs! But hold your applause everyone. Yesterday, July 4th, I made probably 2 bad food choices and this morning I weighed the same as last week. Talk about discouraging! I did a full week of eating great and one day where I decided to have two buttermilk biscuits and a regular coke, it all came creeping back.

I'm thinking that I may need to start a low carb type of eating plan because when I eat any bad carb, even in the littlest increment, it sticks to me. But in the past when I stuck to eating good carbs like veggies, along with poultry, fish, and a little fruit, weight came off quicker... The only problem was, yet again, if decided to have a treat like a small piece of cake, there goes the scale dial again. Gee wiz!

In any event, I'm glad Aunt Flow has left town so I feel more energetic and will try AGAIN. New goals though:

Goal #1 - Stick to a low carb type of diet plan for one week.

Goal #2 - Take a multivitamin and green tea capsule each day for one week. (I need the energy!)

Yup, that's right, if I finally reach my goals this week, I'll get a pedicure. My feet need it bad! This is why I put a reward for such a small amount of time (in case anyone was wondering) because it's so hard for me to reach even that! LOL Ahh well! Here's to another week of trying! At least I'm still motivated to try! Thanks BABproject!! :)