Moving On and Focusing on Health

Three weeks ago from yesterday I found out I had miscarried and life’s been a series of ups and downs since then – but I’m happy to say, that despite the circumstances – it’s been mostly UPs. This event has reinforced my belief that everything that happens to me is the best possible thing that could happen to me. And that attitude is everything. The news was shocking and sad and tough to deal with here and there, and I let myself grieve as I needed to, but there’s no rule saying you have to be devastated and miserable all the time.

I actually did so well that I had many people not believe me when they’d see me after finding out the news… they’d give me the side-eye waiting for me to crack or lose my mind. When I didn’t, some thought I was in denial. No… I just don’t believe you can’t be sad and happy at the same time. We’re more complex beings than that. I did go through a week where I got the impression from others’ reactions that my own emotional response to MY circumstances wasn’t appropriate somehow [not directly or on-purpose by anyone in particular], which was a really strange feeling. I just decided it wasn’t my problem if others felt worse about my situation than I did.

It Wasn’t Meant To Be…

I had started a post last week describing the ups and downs of the last 4 weeks of pregnancy, but decided to wait until my first prenatal appointment and held off on publishing. I’m not sure why… maybe it was instinct. I had my first appointment on Monday and they did a regular ultrasound which didn’t show anything because I have a retroverted [or ‘tipped’ backward] uterus, so they scheduled me to come in the following day to meet with the U/S tech to do an internal U/S.

Needless to say I was very excited to see the baby for the first time and see its little heart beating. What I wasn’t expecting was for the tech to tell me she couldn’t see a heartbeat. But she didn’t come out and say ‘sorry, you had a miscarriage,’ she just looked sad for me and told me she was going to have me talk to my doctor. I had no symptoms leading up to this, so this news was a total shock to me. Apparently the baby just stopped developing at 8 weeks – and the day of the U/S I was 8 weeks and 4 days – so it had just happened.

Primal Thoughts

Primal Breakfast

This has been one of those years where life throws curveballs left and right, but somehow I’ve managed to get back on course each time. Whether it’s surgery with a painful month wait and then another painful month of recovery, or a month-long battle with the flu [probably thanks to all the antibiotics I was on before and after surgery], or family issues causing extra stress, 2013 has been a bitch. But it’s also been great. I’ve learned a lot about myself – like: I still have a knee-jerk need for comfort food when I’m in pain… Not working out for 4+ months makes me feel old and horrible… I really can rebound from just about anything.

I’m happy to report that I have my dad gung-ho on the Primal diet and he’s lost close to 40lbs in the last 3 months. I feel like every time I see him, he’s smaller. He’s inspired ME to get back at it 100%, and I have. For me, the scale doesn’t move so easily, but my clothes are not only fitting better but some bottoms are getting loose, which hasn’t happened in a while. I’m back to a regular exercise routine that I really enjoy and am getting stronger each week. I’m done with ‘chronic cardio’ and tough resistance workouts every other day. Here’s my current routine that is really working for me:

• I walk 3 miles at lunch with a coworker 5 days a week
• I ‘lift heavy things’ [LHT] twice a week – usually Sundays and then Wednesdays or Thursdays depending on my schedule
• I go on an extended 2 hour hike once or twice a week
• I do sprints on one of those hikes each week

I wear a Jawbone UP band [which I will post about separately because it’s worth it – I LOVE it!] that tracks my activity and sleep, and today it told me I’m in the top 10% of UP band users for activity level – and yet I don’t feel like I’m killing myself like I used to. I have more energy and feel stronger now than when I was doing ‘Turbo Fire’ or ‘Insanity’ cardio and lifting heavy 3x/wk.

Thoughts: 10.17.08

Life is hectic lately… less time to write and I miss it! Ever since coming back from Bermuda I’ve had a tough time getting back into eating healthy. I’m not doing terribly and I haven’t regained any weight back, but I’m not making the kind of progress I want to on the scale, anyway. I did have a pleasant surprise when I took my measurements the other day: from the last time I measured a month ago, my waist is down a whole inch, and my calves are down a half inch – the latter measurement hasn’t changed in months. Not that I have enormous calves, but there’s still some excess to be burned up.  =)  What really made me feel good was comparing my measurements now, to my measurements from when I first took them as I started working out back in February [by that I mean working out consistently 5-6 times a week, not once a week or every other week like I had been]. Here’s the progress from that starting point – and this is from just exercising alone, really… the first 6 months I ate whatever I wanted: 

Chest: 3 inches lost
Waist: 2 inches lost
Hips: 2.5 inches lost 
Thighs: 2 inches lost
Calves: 3/4 inches lost
Arms: 1 inch lost

 And from that starting point I’ve lost 13 lbs. and a dress size. I still have a lot to go, but physically I feel 10 years younger than I did this time last year. I’m actually amazed at how much stronger I feel and because of that I love my body more than ever right now, even though I want to lose 2-3 more dress sizes. I’m still heavy, but I’m much smoother and everything is a little smaller. I’ve put on a lot of muscle, gained strength and flexibility – and stamina. The fact that I can go non-stop in the yard for 4-6 hours doing heavy work is pretty amazing. I haven’t been this fit since I used to run a horse farm and ride every day. And I know I have more progress to make, which is great. If I feel this good now, I’m excited to see how good I feel this time next year.  =)

It’s a long journey, but it doesn’t seem so bad anymore – quite the contrary. I’m enjoying it immensely these days… it feels good to finally take care of ME.  =)

Thoughts: 9.27.08

We got back from our vacation in Bermuda Thursday night. It was a great trip – Bermuda is so beautiful. We’ll definitely go back! While there I did a lot of swimming and walking and was happy to see I didn’t gain any weight, despite eating 3 large meals per day and dessert with either lunch or dinner. I did eat better than normal. I generally went for salads or fish if it was on the menu, but one night I did get veal. Yum… I’m a sucker for veal dishes. Not very PC, but I don’t give a crap. I grew up on it with my mother making her weiner schnitzel… and I had it almost every day when we honeymooned in Rome 6 years ago. Ahhh… Rome. I miss Rome. That was the one place I cried about leaving and still feel ‘home sick’ for it now. I told my husband we were retiring in Rome – I wasn’t kidding.  =)  I did gain 10lbs in 10 days when we were there, but I had just finished starving myself for our wedding, so no surprise there. And the food is so good… and I think we drank a bottle of wine every night with dinner, where normally we may have a glass or two per week… but I don’t regret it. 

Anyway… I’m just really happy and feel really good about how I ate while on vacation. Probably the first time ever. I normally go hog wild and then feel like complete and total crap when we get home. Not this time!  =D  I just finished working out, too and feel amazing. I’m glad to be back, though. Back to routine, my yoga room, my food. I realized while on vacation that I really do eat a lot less than I used to. And I normally do wait until I’m hungry before eating… and I’ve gotten better about snacking on fruit and nuts inbetween smaller meals. In Bermuda we didn’t snack, and because I did do a lot of swimming, stair-climbing and walking [I have the blisters to prove it!], I was FAMISHED at meal time, I’d eat too fast and get stuffed a lot quicker than I would have expected… even though I was eating healthier – or making healther vacation meal choices – I could have done with less if we were able to snack more between meals. We know next time to get on the bus, go to St. George’s to the little grocery store on York St. and buy some healthy snacks to keep at the hotel in our little fridge. Live and learn, right? That’s what it’s all about.  =)

I took that photo of Tobacco Bay on our way down from Fort St. Catherine’s as we walked back to town. It didn’t rain, thankfully, but we did get the most amazing dark & stormy sky… just gorgeous. Everything was a picture. I took about 400 in the 6 days we were there. I’ll post more here and there.  =)

Thoughts: 9.18.08

I’ve been so busy lately, it’s been tough finding time to do anything, let alone post – but my absence here by no means connotes that I’ve given up! lol… I’m still plucking away, doing what I can, trying to make better choices. I am NOT perfect, and I do slip up, but the difference these days is, the slip ups aren’t as frequent and don’t do any damage to my perfectionist psyche like they use to. I’m relaxing about a lot of things, which I think is part of learning moderation. I don’t have the time or energy for extremes anymore. 

I’m trying to switch my workout time from first thing in the morning to after work, which I think will end up being better. I won’t have to rush, and my muscles are just more loose and flexible in the evenings vs. when I first wake up, so I think takes the chances of injury down a bit. BUT, if I go out after work and get home any later than 10:00 [which happened last night], the likelihood of me getting my butt upstairs to workout are slim to none, whereas working out in the mornings is pretty easy. I rarely sleep too late to get at least a quick workout in. I guess there’s trade-offs either way. But I am realizing that no matter how hard I try, I’m just not capable of going to bed early enough to wake up early enough to have the time to do everything I want to do in the mornings AND get to work on time. And now that we’re ramping up for the holiday selling season I have to get there on time. So I’d rather cut into my TV time in the evenings and workout, stay up as late as I want and make up for it in the morning since all I have to do is roll out of bed, wash up, eat something, pack a lunch and go… vs. working out, showering… and all that other stuff. lol… 

I have continued to lose weight – albeit very slowly – but I’m more concerned about ‘positive trend’ than speed or numbers at this point. It’s more about feeling well and happy than competing with the contestants on ‘biggest loser’ – I find that show inspirational, but also so drastic. I suppose if I could be taken out of my regular life for 5 months and worked out 6 hours a day and ate healthy, low carb meals all the time, the lbs would melt off pretty quickly. I would actually not be a good contestant – I’d run out of weight to lose fairly quickly and they’d vote me off. lol… I do have a decent amount to lose, but it doesn’t seem like THAT much compared to some of those people you see on shows like that. 

We leave for Bermuda on Saturday, so I’ll be off the grid for about a week. I just hope we have decent enough weather so I get to swim each day, and we can walk around and explore the island. I’m bringing my yoga mat with me, and also the videos I just bought. I caved and watched an informercial on “Turbo Jam” – a mixed discipline, high-energy workout that looked like fun. I tried the ‘learn and burn’ workout the other day and it was a lot of fun, and also made me sore in parts of my core that are never sore. I do a decent amount of crunches each week with my regular routine – including swinging crunches for my lower abs and side crunches for my obliques, so I was surprised at how sore I was just doing 15 minutes of this new workout. And I was sweating and panting, which I have learned to LOVE – so the plan is to use those workouts every other day along with my usual circuit so I don’t have to do the bike anymore. I just don’t enjoy it at all. Once I get more familiar with the turbo jam program and have used it a while, I’ll post a review for it if anyone is interested. 

Anyway… so, according to physicsdiet.com, I’ve lost 3.4 lbs since I started keeping track on 8/20. And I just measured myself again and saw some interesting things: In the past 2 weeks I’ve lost another 1/2″ off my chest, only 1/4″ off my waist and nothing off my hips [but the last time I measured I lost a whole inch off my hips, so I guess my body pulls from different areas at different times??? who knows…], but I did lose a full inch off each thigh and 1/4″ off each arm. I’ve definitely noticed my arms looking a little more cut and there’s a lot less ‘excess’ hanging on them, which is great. I’m hoping once I get used to the TJ workouts and I’m doing those regularly, I’ll see a pick up in weightloss, along with just eating better again. With all the birthday celebrations and BBQs & parties we’re hosting this month… and a vacation… I’m looking forward to October just to get a normal routine back with less [fun & tempting] interruptions.  =)

Thoughts: 9.1.08

Today was the first day I had a little no-so-healthy food, but I was okay with it. I baked a chocolate cake from scratch for my husband and my dad’s birthdays, so of course I had to have a small piece. I also had a couple of beers and the bun with my bratwurst, but also plenty of veggies and fruit mixed in throughout the day, so I’m not going to worry about it. I found it interesting how I really didn’t enjoy the cake that much. It was good, but I think I’m used to having fruit for dessert – sometimes I get crazy and put a little Greek-style yogurt in with it. lol… 

This time around is definitely different than any previous attempts at eating healthy. For one, I don’t feel I’m dieting this time. I’m really not. I’m just choosing to eat better. And feeling a lot better for it, which makes it easy to keep up. That and food shopping and veggie prepping, so making salads or meals with veggies is easy. 

I didn’t get to workout today – spent my day grocery shopping and then baking and cooking. I’m looking forward to my workout in the morning, though. I think my healthy mentality towards exercise has spread to include my mentality towards eating well: I don’t have to be perfect at it, I just have to be consistent. Missing a workout here and there won’t do me in – neither will enjoying a meal at a cookout I’m hosting. I don’t do those very often. I’m feeling really good, though. I feel in control and at peace with food these days. I don’t think about what I ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ have anymore. Just what I want and what’s best for my health – and how to prepare it so it’s super-delicious.   =)

Right now I have some yogurt straining in the fridge. I realized that it’s a lot less expensive to just make it myself. I can get a large tub of yogurt for $2.99 or $3.49 and just strain it overnight to make about the same amount of Fage brand Total Greek-Style Yogurt that they charge $4.99 for. And I happen to like it better when I make it myself – it tastes better and I let it get really thick, almost like a spreadable cream cheese. It’s so delicious. 

Time to get some sleep.

Thoughts: 8.21.08

Today was a good day, except that I didn’t eat nearly enough. I had a banana in the morning and then my dad came over to help me install some exterior light fixtures… we got busy, had to leave to get screws that actually fit [why, oh, why would they give us screws that were a 1/4″ longer than we needed??? one of life’s little mysteries, I guess…], and by the time we sat down to lunch it was 2:00. Ouch. I was crashing just before that… I can’t survive on just a banana. I know plenty of people who brag about how they ‘forgot to eat’ or only ate an apple all day long. I don’t know how they do it. The thought of skipping meals terrifies me because I’ve come so close to passing out when I’ve inadvertently let my sugar get too low, and it’s the worst feeling. Like a robot shutting down, one system at a time. Being so out of control of my body is not my idea of a good time. Nor is it a good time for my poor body. But I digress…

So… It was a great lunch – just a simple salad with some roasted chicken tossed in. My dad loved it – I tend to go a little over the top with salads. They’re like painting a beautiful picture, but with veggies in a bowl. I can’t help myself. I love the colors! I used romaine, thinly sliced red cabbage, celery cut on the diagonal, fresh red pepper, red seedless grapes, strawberries, grape tomotoes and then tossed it in a quick, homemade honey mustard dressing with whole grain mustard and white balsamic vinegar. YUM. Tonight I threw together a stirfry using the same chicken and it came out great. I didn’t find myself craving the pasta with meat sauce my husband was eating across the table from me. 

Thoughts: 8.20.08

Yesterday was rough. I ended up falling into bed as soon as I got home and napping for a couple of hours, I was so tired… and I never nap… I ended up going to bed a little early, too and woke up feeling much better. My energy level is back up already, thank goodness! I did get on the scale this morning, and was kind of surprised it hadn’t really moved since the last time I got on, maybe 6 months ago. Optimistically-speaking, that means I haven’t gained weight – which is amazing because I’ve been basically eating anything I want for months now – until this Monday. So, it’s nice to know that when I do reach my ideal body shape, I can maintain it pretty easily using the routine I do now for exercise. 

I’ve also noticed that my body’s signals seem to be getting easier to recognize. Yesterday my thirst came back… and later in the day, my need for sleep did, too. It’s not like me to go home and immediately go to bed because I have to have sleep RIGHT NOW! lol… I also was able to walk away from the Olympics and get ready for bed at a more decent time than usual. I also noticed with both dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it seems much easier to tell when I’m pleasantly full. Normally I don’t get that signal and just keep eating until I physically feel stuffed, which is uncomfortable. I’m not sure if this is all in my head or not, or if there is a correlation between body signals and inflammation [due to the liver and colon being ‘distracted’ by too much junk to process???], or maybe excess insulin in the bloodstream, or both…

Either way, I’ll take it. It just makes my life – and this process of getting healthier – that much easier.