TGIF!!!

Thank goodness it's Friday!

Well, it's Friday by Navy standards.  Jason has worked everyday for the past two weeks.  They call it "14 Days of Nuclear Power" because even though he technically had a day off, he worked until 1:00 AM and went back to work at 8:00 PM the next day.  So he's been on the boat for two straight weeks.  He has a test tonight, but then he's off for TWO WHOLE DAYS!!!  And next month when he has to work this crazy shift, I'll be on vacation lounging out by the pool.

Photo source: http://randomfunnypicture.com/funny-pictures-motivationals/motivational-submarine-races-not-spectator-sport/

 
I did happen to peek at the scale this morning.  Despite two weeks of eating like crap and not working out nearly enough, I have less than three pounds of baby weight left.  I'm so thrilled to be past the stupid plateau that I was stuck on for the past two months.  I might actually get back to my pre-Harper weight before I see my family in a few weeks.  Yay!

As far as yesterday's question about running goes, I'm just going to have to suck it up and run.  Honestly, it's not like I'm going to go do a 10 mile run in 90 degree weather.  I'm just running around the block.  Next week, Jason works at 8 AM, so I'll do my run before he goes to work.  That's 5 runs; completely no excuses. 

This is What 50 lbs Looks Like

I think I may have swallowed a small watermelon.

I was sorting through some pictures and thought these made for a nice comparison. The left is me, 166 lbs and 5 weeks pregnant. The right is the day I went into labor (39 weeks and 6 days) at 215 lbs.

Seven more pounds to go!

X-posted at http://twoembrys.wordpress.com/.

Back to the Drawing Board

Ugh, my first weight gain since I’ve had Harper. I needed to lose 1.6 lbs this week to keep up with my birthday goal; instead, I’m up 0.8. Yeah, yeah… it’s not even a pound. But it really sucks that I’m at the point where the weight isn’t just falling off anymore. I’m breastfeeding! Aren’t breastfeeding moms supposed to burn like a kajillion calories a day and wake up looking like Heidi Klum ready to don tiny lingerie and strut down a runway?

I guess not.

Well, I really didn’t want it to come to this, but I guess I’m going to go back to tracking calories. Sadly, the 5th anniversary of my 24th birthday is only 5 weeks away and I have 10.4 lbs left to lose. I’m not going to throw the towel in yet since 2 lbs a week is still doable, but I really need to reign in the eating. Weight loss is 80% nutrition and I have to admit, I’ve been enjoying the freedom of eating whatever crap I wanted and still see the numbers going down.

I’m off to Nutrition Data to see how much I can eat today.

Bad Habits

The theory is that it takes 3 weeks to form a habit so it makes sense that it would take 3 weeks to break a bad habit, right?

Oh goodness, do I have some bad habits that need breaking.

Normally, I eat fairly healthy. I don’t care whether or not high fructose corn syrup is bad for you because I don’t eat it. It’s not food. If it has more than 5 ingredients or it has an ingredient I recognize from my chemistry class, I just don’t eat it. Lately, I’ve been slipping though.

I have a small caffeine problem. I am a Red Bull addict. When I got pregnant, I stopped drinking it for a few months, but my OB recommended picking it back up because I was getting the WORST headaches. But now, with a new baby and little sleep, I find myself reaching for 2 or 3 a day. This isn’t good. Red Bull is full of CRAP. I drink the sugar-free stuff but it’s not like that’s any better. Aspartame. Acesulfame potassium. Both of these chemicals have been linked to numerous health problems such as cancer and obesity. (More on that topic later.) Plus, it’s expensive. I can get it at the commissary for about $1.50, but you can pay as much as $2.50 for a small can at other stores. That’s about $100 a month! Man, I can think of a lot better things to spend a hundred bucks on.

My second bad habit is… diet soda. (Yes, I supposed Red Bull is technically soda, but still.) During my hard-core World of Warcraft days, I was going through about 6 12-packs a week of soda. My desk looked like a recycling center. I don’t remember when, how, or why, but I stopped drinking soda. Ok, maybe I didn’t actually stop because any time I eat out or get fast food, I get a Diet Coke, but I wasn’t drinking 10+ cans a day. Yet, for some reason, I’ve been buying soda at the store again and my desk now looks like a recycling center. Soda is bad! In addition to the chemicals in Red Bull, the acid in soda leeches calcium out of your body. I can only imagine how good that is for a nursing mother with joint problems and a family history of osteoporosis.

Next up — candy. Mmmmm, candy. I have a sweet tooth. If it’s sweet or made of chocolate, I’ll eat it. I got really fussy for a while and wouldn’t eat anything that was less than the most expensive gourmet chocolate (which isn’t bad because you can only afford so much of that stuff), but lately, I’ve been binging on crap. I’ve eaten BAGS of white chocolate truffles over the last few weeks. I haven’t counted, but I would say at least a dozen. I’ve been eating crappy candy bars almost daily. I’ve been picking in Kaelin’s candy stash more than I should. I’ve eaten so many black jelly beans that I felt sick.

Finally, I’m a fast food fiend. I hate this because I don’t even like most of the fast food I eat. McDonald’s is terrible on so many levels, but there I am sitting in the drive-thru. Actually, I’ve been doing much better with fast food recently than I have in the past. I used to eat it 3+ meals a day and my cholesterol levels were scary high for someone in their 20s. Now, I’m only getting it once every couple of days, but that’s still too much considering that I don’t even like how it tastes. Seriously, when I was still married to my first husband, we were spending about $1000 a month on fast food. We NEVER ate at home. Now, Jason and I have a $100 a month limit on eating out, and I would much rather go to a decent restaurant every now and then instead of giving the money to a stupid clown face.

Four bad habits (at least, 4 that I’m focusing on for now). Four bad habits of which I’m getting rid. It’s going to be painful and Jason doubts that I can do it, but for the next three weeks — no Red Bull, no soda, no candy or chocolate and no fast food. Twenty-one days. I know that in moderation, none of my habits are particularly bad, but I’m not a very moderate person. If I have candy, I’m going to eat the whole bag. If I have a case of Red Bull, I’m going to drink it over a couple of days.

Then, after 3 weeks, when I kick this challenge’s ass, Jason will owe me. BIG.

Q & A

Question: Your blog is called KUrunner. Why aren’t you talking about running?

Sadly, I haven’t been able to do much running since I became pregnant. At first, I was too sick. Later on, I was too big. There are tons of women who can run while incubating a baby; I just don’t happen to be one of them.

Now that the bun is out of the oven, I’m trying to ease back into running. However, finding time to run with a newborn who is nursing every hour or so has been difficult. I also need to buy a couple of new sports bras because of aforementioned newborn. Let’s see… I also need a new pair of shoes, a new Nike+ sensor, and a few hours to make a new running mix for my iPod. (I’m sorry, but if I have to hear SexyBack one more time, I’m going to shave off those pretty little locks of his.) Plus, running with an extra 30+ lbs on your bones is killer on your joints.

Question: You are doing P90X. Are you following the whole program?

No. So far, I’ve followed the exercise program, but P90X also has a nutrition plan. For the first month it’s very low carb, and bad things happen if I don’t get enough carbs. Sure, I’m not going to get the same results as if I used their meal plan, but my husband’s not going to get stabbed with a butter knife. That’s a win in my book.

I’m also going to add running back into my routine. I’ll still be doing the same P90X workouts but with a couple of added cardio sessions.

Edit: I’m also not doing AbRipperX. I just had a baby; my abs are ripped enough, thanks. (I’ll be starting it during month 2.)

Question: So, what sort of diet do you follow?

Diet? What’s that? I haven’t done a “diet” in almost 10 years and that was Slim-Fast. Yes, I lost some weight, but it wasn’t anything I could follow for the long term. I’ve tried South Beach a couple of times but I’ve never made it more than a few days because, again, carbs keep me sane.

Basically, I eat real food. If something is made from chemicals, I don’t eat it. Real food: eggs, milk, wheat, etc. Fake food: HFCS, aspartame, red dye #3, etc. I do have a sweet tooth and I tend to eat out bit too much, but it’s a work in progress.

Question: What’s up with your picture page? Are you taking before & afters of your P90X experience?

My old computer crashed. While I have bought a shiney new computer, I have yet to install my old hard drive into it. All of my weight-related pictures are on it. (At least I hope so. Man, it would suck if my old hard drive crapped out. Let this be a lesson about backing up your files.)

Yes, I have before pictures of both myself and the husband. However, they are incredibly embarrassing and I don’t want to make them public until I have some awesome after pictures to share. Plus, I just had a baby. Nobody looks good right after having a baby. You know all those celebrities on the tabloids? Airbrushed!

P90X - Day 1

In my anxiousness to get my fitness back, I decided to go ahead and start P90X instead of waiting until 6 weeks postpartum. I passed the fit test… almost. I have never been able to do a pull-up and my abs are pretty much non-existant after 9 months of pregnancy.

Day 1 was chest and back. Lots of push-ups and pull-ups (or in my case, modified pull-ups with a band). I HATE push-ups. There is a reason they’ve never made it into my normal gym routine. I’ll do all the bench presses, pec flyes, and cable crossovers you want, but I completely wuss out on push-ups. P90X has you do like 30 varieties of push-ups too. Ok, well, it’s more like 6, but it still sucks. I’m not able to do a decline push-up or a divebomber yet, but hopefully that changes soon. Day 1 also involves ab work, but I’m going to wait a few more weeks before I start.

Plyometrics tomorrow. Fun stuff.

Harper Grace is Here!

This post comes a little bit late, but it’s very hard to type when you have the most adorable little baby craving attention. Harper is two weeks old today after a very surprising appearance (a quick 2 hour labor followed by an unplanned home delivery). She’s doing well, and the whole family is just in love with her.  (Click here for her birth story.)

Unfortunately, I gained more than I had hoped with this pregnancy — 50 lbs! I lost 14 of that at the hospital, then another 13 during our first week home. So even though I’ve lost 27 lbs so far, I still have another 23 to go just to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight (and 60 lbs total to get to my goal.) I haven’t “dieted” yet because I’m breastfeeding and cutting calories can interfere with your milk supply, but now that Harper is getting the hang of it and gaining weight well, I’m thinking about trying Weight Watchers.

Numbers on the scale aside, I’m really nervous about my actual fitness level. I stopped running in October and stopped going to the gym altogether in December when my shoes stopped fitting. Apparently, they frown upon working out in flip flops. I’m not supposed to do any vigorous activity for another month, but light exercise is okay, so starting tomorrow, I’m going to be doing the C25k program… again. It feels weird not being able to run for a minute since less than a year ago, I ran a half marathon with no problems. I know I have to start somewhere, but I’m really worried I won’t get my endurance back in time for the Marine Corps Marathon in October. Registration is in April, so I need to figure it out and fast! Sadly, I can’t get back in the gym due to child care issues, so I’m going to be doing 30DS every other day until I can start P90X next month with my husband. I’ve never had much luck working out at home, but I don’t really have many other options.

32 Weeks

Eight weeks to go — which, if you know anything about birthing babies, could be as soon as five or as long as 10. I’m hoping it’s not the latter, but given my history of late babies and my aversion to induction for non-medical reasons, I could very well be pregnant at the end of February. Yikes! I’m still going to the gym, but my quantity and intensity has really gone down. Plus, I’ve had two bouts of bronchitis over the last three months, so I’ve missed almost a month of workouts from that.

I switched doctors a couple of weeks ago and was given the typical stack of papers explaining what I can and can’t do, medicines not to take, food not to eat, etc. There was also a sheet about staying physically active during pregnancy. Yay, I thought. Then, I actually read it. They encourage walking for 30 mins 3-4 times a week. Ok, yes, walking is good exercise. I’ll agree with that. No biking, skating, skiing, rock-climbing, etc. Um, ok. Yes, I don’t think someone who is 9 months pregnant wants to be balancing on inline skates, and obviously sedentary women probably shouldn’t pick up rock-climbing as a hobby. I’m not biking right now because my stomach gets in the way, but I imagine that most healthy, fit women wouldn’t have an issue.

No weight lifting. Do not lift anything more than 10 pounds.
…

Really?

Again, someone who has never lifted a weight before probably doesn’t want to pick up a barbell and rack up 80 lbs and start benching, but no weight lifting at all? I think weight lifting is an excellent workout for pregnant women, even if they are beginners. Of course, as you get bigger you have to make modifications, but what’s with this nothing heavier than 1o lbs thing? Sorry, ladies. Don’t pick up that crying toddler of yours. Let your husbands carry in the groceries. Be careful lifting that gallon of milk — it’s eight pounds!

Weight lifting really has gotten me through this pregnancy. I define myself as a runner, but between the pressure on my bladder and the pain in my pelvis, I haven’t run since October. Honestly, I haven’t really run since I got pregnant because I was just so danged tired during the first few months. It’s amazing how quickly your cardiovascular endurance goes out the window when you aren’t using it. Anyways, weight lifting is great. You get to sit down and resting is encouraged! I haven’t been taking bodyfat measurements, but I’m sure that I would have lost a lot more muscle tone that I have had I just been doing cardio. Recently, I’ve had to lighten the load, but I’m still lifting a lot more than 10 lbs.

Maybe in the next month or two, I’ll be confined to the cardio room walking, REALLY REALLY SLOWLY on the treadmill (the retired chief with an amputated leg walks faster than me), but for the time being, I’ll be trying to maintain what fitness I can.

Yikes, How Long Has It Been?

It’s been almost 3 weeks since I’ve posted. Actually, let’s be honest… it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve taken any sort of active interest in my health and weight.

First of all, the bedrest. I had my appointment on Thursday and I’m no longer confined to my house. In fact, the doctor I had this time told me I should never have been on bedrest anyways. I guess that’s what happens when you go to a practice with more than one doctor. So, um, yay! (And what the hell have I been doing laying on the couch for three weeks?)

In addition to the bedrest, I had a terrible cold that turned into bronchitis. Of course it was viral, and there was nothing they could do for it other than the typical rest and fluids. I finally kicked it and felt great for a few days, but then on Friday, just as I was clear to go back to the gym, Jason so lovingly gave me ANOTHER cold. Yes, I know you can work out with a cold, but my energy was zapped. It’s also hard to do cardio when you can’t breathe and I don’t want to be that person at the gym coughing all over everything. I was all set to go to the gym this morning, but now Kaelin is home sick and the gym is eluding me again.

I don’t know if it was the bedrest, the cold or just Halloween, but I’ve been eating like crap. I didn’t keep a food journal most of the time and when I did, I was averaging like 4000 calories – most of it junk. Did I mention that the commissary is already stocking Christmas candy?

But it’s ok… I have a plan!

1. Get back to tracking. Whether I like to write down the can of Pringles or bag of candy I inhaled, my body know I what I ate.

2. Drink, drink, and drink! I’ve been slacking in the water department when I need it the most. Between being sick and going into the third trimester, I have to make sure I’m getting at LEAST 8 cups of fluids.

3. No more diet soda. Before I got pregnant, I rarely had any sort of diet drink, but a few months ago I started having headaches and the doctor recommended adding a cup of coffee or soda into my diet. Since I don’t drink coffee, I started having a daily Red Bull (sugar-free). Of course, that daily Red Bull turned into two Red Bulls and a Diet Coke. Diet soda is bad. It has no nutritional value, it leaches calcium from your body, and it makes you crave sweets.

4. Limit my fast food. I’ve been eating out way too much and not only is it affecting my health, it’s hurting my wallet. Jason and I have decide to limit ourselves to twice a week.

Bedrest

Four days and no gym.

I love the gym.

Ok, well, I love the gym when people aren’t commenting on how much weight I’ve gained or how I shouldn’t be doing certain things in my “condition.”

For those of us who have spent years or even decades watching the number on the scale or fixating on our pant size, pregnancy can make you feel lost and out of control. Yes, yes, we all know that you have to get bigger and that the end product makes the torture of getting dressed a little easier, but it’s still hard to look in the mirror everyday and know that what you’ve spent the past year working towards is slowly unraveling.

I’m a runner. It took me a long time to be able to say that. Sure, I’ve been running since high school, but it was only last year that I decided I was going to be a “runner.” I ran my first half-marathon one week before I got married and two weeks before we conceived. I tried to keep running through the first trimester, but between fatigue and nausea, it didn’t work out so well. I didn’t make it back to the gym until August and by then, I had lost a lot of stamina. Running was no longer fun and even bordered on painful. I have bad knees anyways, and you can’t take most supplements while pregnant. Plus, pregnancy relaxes your joints — all of them, even your toes. Yeah, it helps when the baby is trying to push his big head out of your tiny pelvis, but it really sucks if you try to run more than a few feet.

It’s also really hard to run when you have to pee every three minutes.

So, my running has gone the way of my size 4 jeans.

I still run on occasion, but it’s usually only a few minutes along with a lot of walking. I’ve also slowed way down. I had imagined myself being one of those amazing pregnant women who ran up until the day they went into labor. You know, the ones who only gain weight in their stomach and maintain perfectly sculpted muscles everywhere else while wearing the most adorable maternity running clothes. (Ok, so I’m not sure where these muscles were going to come from on me, but shut up… it’s my fantasy.)

Yeah, that didn’t happen. I’m pretty sure that when I do run, it’s pretty unflattering. I have a Kim Kardashian butt when I’m not gestating, and I think it’s gotten even bigger. I’m not sure since I can’t bend back far enough to look. Plus, I had a hard time keeping the girls in check before and now with an extra cup size or two, not even the best sports bra can hold them down. Thank God there aren’t mirrors in the cardio room.

Did I mention that I was supposed to be running the Marine Corps Marathon Saturday?

At this point, you might be asking, “Well, if you can’t run, why do you love the gym so much?” And I would respond, “Well, if you are only doing cardio at the gym, you are missing out.”

I <3 weight lifting.

I started weight lifting after I had my first daughter, and I love it. Nothing changes your body like lifting heavy weights repeatedly. I am sure that if I was consistent in my workouts (ie, stopped taking six month long workout breaks every seven months), I would be in fitness model land. That is, if fitness models had stretch marks and cellulite. Weight lifting is also the perfect exercise for pregnant women. You even get to sit down most of the time! I’ve been lifting again for 2 months now (after a three month break, aka the trimester of doom) and I really look forward to it. Sometimes I feel awkward because I go to a military gym and about 99% of the other lifters are men. Very big, muscley, strong men. With lots of tattoos. But now, they accept me with a nod and we all go back to our own business. Plus, I keep a workout log (if you don’t have one, you should start one… trust me) and it’s great to look back to August and see that I’m pressing double the weight that I was then and that I’m benching twenty more pounds. In a time of chaos and hormones, it’s nice to know that my body isn’t losing everything I have been working towards, at least yet.

It’s hard for women to build muscle. We just don’t have the testosterone levels that men do and testosterone is what builds muscle. Pregnant women have even smaller amounts of testosterone than their non-gestating counterparts. So, it’s really, really hard for pregnant women to build muscle. Hell, it’s hard for us just to maintain our muscle mass so the gains in strength that I’m seeing make me pretty happy. I’m anticipating losing some muscle when I have the baby and can’t go to the gym for 6 weeks and during the third trimester when I have no energy to go to the gym.

I think that’s what is bothering me about being put on bedrest.

I’m on “modified” bedrest which means I can get up to go pee (which I do a lot), I can make myself something to eat, and I can drive Kaelin to school. I’m not supposed to be doing housework, taking the dog for a walk, or going grocery shopping. I’m now sedentary — doing only what I need to for basic survival. In addition to not burning my normal three to four hundred calories at the gym, I’m not burning the 100 calories by vacuuming the house or the 50 calories by doing laundry. Those little activities add up. I’m very interested to see how my weigh-in goes this week, since I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster since this weekend and living off of chocolate, pasta, and fast food.

Plus, daytime TV really sucks and the weather is perfect outside to take the dog for a walk.

24 Weeks

I think there is something about pregnancy that saps the creative energy from you. That, or maybe it’s just all the energy going into baby names and nursery themes. Either way, my blogging ability has significantly declined in the past few months. I have topic after topic I want to talk about, but when I sit down at the computer, every thought goes out of my head.

I’m 24 weeks now. Yay for viability! That means if something bad happens and I go into labor, there is about a 50% chance that the baby will make it. Granted, those aren’t great odds, but over the next few weeks, the survival chance will jump up to 90% and after 34 weeks, the chances are the same as a full-term baby. Of course, I don’t plan on going into labor early, but it’s nice to know. Twenty-four weeks is also supposed to be the best time during pregnancy. You are showing, but you aren’t so big that you can’t see your feet. You still have energy, the baby is active, and you aren’t swollen yet.

Supposed to be, anyways. I’m peeing every 20 minutes, I’m very achy, and I can’t sleep. I feel like I’ve been hit in the crotch with a bowling ball. Repeatedly. I don’t understand it, but I can workout for an hour at the gym with no problems, but I can’t walk around the grocery store without getting winded. I’m also getting overwhelmed with the basic parenting stuff. Since my baby shower isn’t until next month, we have very little set up for the baby. In fact, the nursery is still full of our office furniture.

It’s funny that this is baby #2 because I don’t remember having these feelings when I was pregnant with Kaelin.  Anyways, I had my 24 week weigh-in and I haven’t quite hit that 20 lb mark yet. I’m at 19 lbs, but if I keep gaining at about a pound a week, I’ll be around 35 lbs when I deliver. It’s a little high for what I wanted at the start of my pregnancy, but still within reason.

Weekly Weigh-In

I must admit, I’ve been terrified to step on the scale lately. My last weigh-in was 3 weeks ago, and since then my diet has taken a turn for the worse. I had been craving fruit and yogurt. Now, it’s Pringles and cake decorations. I’ve eaten out in the past few weeks more than I have in the past few months. I’ve stopped at the commissary almost everyday to pick up cheesecake, donuts, ice cream, chocolate, pepperoni, and candy. I’ve still been going to the gym, but I haven’t been tracking my food. I would like to think all of this is pregnancy related, but honestly, it’s not really that different from how I was eating two years ago sans bun in the oven.

Ideally, I wanted to gain 21 lbs. I would be okay with gaining 34. Thirty-four pounds would put me back to the 200 mark, and I’m really not okay with going over 200, even while pregnant.

I sucked it up and stepped on the scale after a 3 week hiatus… 183. Ouch. It’s not as bad as I expected, but that’s not saying much since I thought it would be more of a 10 lb gain. Four pounds in 3 weeks isn’t unreasonable for a pregnant woman in her second trimester, but that leaves me with only 4 lbs left for another 19 weeks. Not going to happen. My second and third trimester weight gain goals are about half a pound a week. Even if I was able to stick to that, I would need to gain another 10 lbs. Which again, I’m okay with… the problem is…

Pregnant bodies are dumb. Apparently, growing a fetus means that the whole calories in, calories out thing doesn’t apply anymore. There were weeks where my diet was PERFECT. Dairy, fruits, veggies, water. My calories were spot on. Then I would step on the scale and gain 5 lbs. Weeks when I was living on McDonalds, not getting enough water, and craving sweets I would actually lose. So it’s really hard to convince myself that my weight will be fine as long as I eat healthy. I could do everything “right” and still wind up gaining 50 lbs with this pregnancy.

Don’t get me wrong; I would never diet while I was pregnant. My first concern is that the baby gets what she needs and grows. It’s just hard to block out the weight loss mentality when you’ve been so concerned about a number on the scale for the better part of a decade.

Previous weight: 179.2 lbs (18 weeks pregnant)
Current weight: 183.0 lbs (21 weeks pregnant)
Change: +3.8 lbs
Total pregnancy gain: 17.4 lbs