Week One-Day Six

I wasn't able to post earlier because life got really crazy. Between my first day back at work and leaving my little guy at daycare for the first time, today was awful.

Even though I wasn't able to get my shake in, I was able to do a partial workout. I got three quarters of the way done before my little man decided he needed attention.

Dinner tonight was a wonderful chicken taco rice dish. Another great recipe from Pinterest, it had ground chicken, onion, salsa, black beans and rice. We altered the recipe a little bit so instead of using your own seasonings we used a packet of taco seasoning and tortilla shells to make an awesome burrito.

So, overall today feels like a win. 😃

Fitbit Flex is a no go

I found my Fitbit but I'm not going to be able to use it right now. The metal band seemed to work okay but I didn't like wearing it because it caught on my son. I tried to go back to the regular band. Sadly, I broke out into a rash again. The metal band is very pretty and I found it on Amazon.

The band I used was the a standard Fitbit Flex band. 

And this is the rash I broke out in. 

Once my son is a little older, maybe I'll try to use the metal band again. It's just a little too bulky to wear while he's so young and needs to be held all the time. 

Week One - Day Five

I realized I started the post for yesterday, but didn't post it. So, instead of doing a day four I'm just going to move onto day five. 

Yesterday: I didn't have my daily shake but I had an overall healthy eating day. I found a really yummy healthy lemon chicken on Pinterest. Yesterday was also a rest day, so, I didn't workout but I did stay very active doing things around the house. 

Now onto today! I'm going back to work on Monday, which means I need to get a ton of stuff done. My list to get done before I start back is: 

Laundry- caught up, folded & put away
Dinner- prep 2-3 dinners so I don't have a lot of prep work to do when I first go back
Clean/re-org office space- I work from home and I haven't been in my office for 8 weeks, so, I need to get in there and do a quick once over
Trash- today is trash day (if the weather clears up) I will run it to the dump
Wrap x-mas gifts- I want to have all the gifts wrapped so I'm not worrying about this Thurs & Fri
Pack up my maternity clothes- I'm no longer in them so there is no reason to have them in my closet anymore
General Cleaning- I want to do a general deep clean around the whole house, so, Monday evening I'm not stressing

I'm also drinking my yummy shake this morning. I had to throw the berries away because they were really disgusting. So, I'm back to my green shakes. I used spinach, apples, pears, honey, chia seeds and cinnamon.

Since I'm positing in the morning, I'll try to do a quick post this evening with an update on my list. If I can't, then you'll get the update tomorrow.

Stretch marks from Pregnancy

During my pregnancy I carried only in the front. Despite my constant use of baby oil and lotions, I got severe stretch marks on my lower stomach.

I did a little bit of searching and found there are a ton of different products that say they will reduce stretch marks. After reading reviews for tons of products, one stood out to me. Art Naturals® Stretch Mark & Scar Removal Cream. I found it on Amazon for $16.00. It stood out because the reviwers felt strongly enough to post pictures of how well it worked for them and most raved about the product,



I will be using twice a day for the 4 weeks that I'm doing the exercise program and at the end I will provide a photo of what my stretch marks look like then and a review of how I feel the product worked.

**Note: This review was done completely on my own. I have no affiliation and am not being compensated for anything I say about this product.**

Week One - Day Three

Ok- well, I am obviously a newbie at the blogging thing. I somehow screwed up my day 1 & 2 posting. Maybe someday I'll get the hang of this. 😊

Today's workout went really well. I did two circuits with minimal modifications, which were:

Wall sit- 20 sec both times
Side Crunches 35 ea side
Plank- full 25 seconds in a modified position
Pushups- 10 modified ea time ( I'm going slow on the arm workouts because little man is 13 pounds and growing and I need to be able to hold him without pain.)
High Knees- 40 ea side instead of 40 sec

Then I did a lot of stretching. Right after I started to make my daily shake. I say started because while making it I found the berry bags had leaked in my brand new (5 day old) refrigerator. So, I had to clean  that up before I could finish my shake.

Today my shake consisted of spinach, frozen berry mix with kale, honey, chia seeds and whey protein. I'm not a huge fan of this one because the kale didn't chop well in the ninja so its really chunky/chewy. It was pretty gross but I managed to choke half of it down.

I fell off the healthy wagon a little bit today, I was brought down by a bag of chips and some jelly beans. Oh well, I'm not perfect and this is a work in progress.

Week One- Day One

My first day down! I think it went well overall. As it is Wednesday, that's the day I started on the HIIT workout plan. I did have to adjust some of the exercises: 

Wall Sit- 20 seconds

Plank- 15 seconds

Squat Jumps- 15

Lunge Kicks- 20 ea side

Push ups- all 15- but modified

High Knees- I did 25 per leg not 25 seconds

I only did one run thru of all the exercises because I started to feel light headed. When working out I live by one rule, listen to my body. If I start feeling dizzy, weak or light-headed I stop or take a break. 

After not working out for a few months ( I had trouble moving around staring in my 8th month), I will be taking it slow to start and working up to doing the whole workout by week 4. 

The healthy addition to my diet today was a shake. In my Nutra Ninja (best house warming gift EVER!) I mixed up a shake of spinach, green apple, pear, water, honey, cinnamon, and whey protein. It was delicious and gave me a healthy boost. 

In addition to having a shake a day, I'm going to be making sure I have the proper water intake. I have a 33 oz water bottle that I'll be using to make sure I get my daily intake. According to the Mayo Clinic it varies by individual, they do suggest for women about 9 - 8oz (72oz) glasses per day. So I'm going to shoot for drinking 2 - 3 bottles per day. 

Week One- Day 2

Day 2 and I'm still going strong. I got up at 6 am when my son started to fuss for breakfast, got him fed and then hit the ground running this morning with my workout and got my list ready for shopping.

Like most people in this economy, I pinch my pennies, shop sales and use coupons. Even with both my husband and I working, we still struggle some months to make ends meet. This is the most frustrating feeling because we try so hard to pay all of our bills in full, on time and put some money in our savings account. We both have student loans, a car payment, a mortgage and our utility bills. In addition to making the minimum payment on our loans, I try to put a little extra toward at least one loan of our student loans. By doing this even, I've been able to pay off one of our student loans 3 years early. I had to stop paying extra for the last two months because I am on maternity leave right now and I have a reduced salary coming in. Starting in January I'll be able to restart this and hopefully I'll be able to pay off another loan in 2017.

Well, enough about my financial rant, sometimes I just start typing and go off in a random direction.

So, my workout went well. I again had to make some adjustments which were:

Plank- 30 sec
Wall Sit- 15 sec
Push ups- 6 modified
Lunge kicks- 14 ea side

There were less modifications then yesterday, so, I take that as a win!

I've also pulled out my old fitbit. I'm hoping to use it everyday to track my activity. I had to stop using it because the band made me break out into a weird rash. I've bought a metal bracelet that will hopefully allow me to wear it.

My shake today was spinach, frozen mixed berries, honey, cinnamon and chia seeds. My shakes will be very berry heavy for the next week. I had a freezer mishap and they started to thaw. So, I need to use them quickly.

Post Pregnancy weight loss

After trying for six years, my husband and I were blessed with our first child. He is the joy of my life, however, the weight I gained during my pregnancy is not a joy. Prior to pregnancy, I had gained a little weight and was up to my all time weight high of 153-155 pounds. At my doctors appointment two days before he was born I weighed in at 196 pounds. I know that 40 pounds is normal, however, now that he's here I want to get rid of all of it and more.

This is the story of my weight loss post pregnancy and I'm hoping that keeping a journal of it here will help me keep up with my weight loss and exercise goals. My goal is to reach 145 pounds and lead a healthier life.

Prior to starting this plan, I had my post pregnancy 6-week appointment with my OBGYN and got the all clear for my health. This is really important because that appointment is in place to make sure that you have completely healed from pregnancy and to ensure you have no lingering health issues after pregnancy.

At my 6-week appointment I weighed 163 pounds, so, my goal is 18 pounds and tone my muscles. Below is my starting picture, when I've finished my 4-week plan I'll up the before and after.

I'll be following the workout plan that I found from HIIT you can find it here. It is a 4-week plan and with a healthy food plan, I'm hoping that in those four weeks I will be able to lose 4-8 pounds. I need to keep my weight loss goals realistic and healthy because I'm breastfeeding. If I were to do a crash diet with a severe workout plan I could hurt my son by not providing him with the nutrients he needs.

I'll be posting daily about my workout and my meals for the day. At the end of the 4-weeks I'll post a review about my opinion on the this workout plan from HIIT.

If you have a workout plan that worked for you, please leave it in the comments section and I'll be excited to look at it.

Trying to Get Pregnant

Getting Pregnant

We started trying to get pregnant about six years ago. I had been on birth control for a long time so we expected to have a wait period for all the hormones to get out of our system. Unfortunately, it took much longer then we ever expected. 

During the six years we did run into some time that we weren't together at the right times, such as required business trips, family commitments, etc. Another obstacle for us was our schedules, we worked opposite schedules and there were days we wouldn't see each other. 

After four years we decided to go for some testing, I had blood work done to make sure that everything was ok. Once that came back normal we kept up our attempts for another few months and then I went for another test called Hysterosalpingogram or HSG. The testing was again came back showing no issues. 

I want to talk a  little bit about this test because I felt blindsided by it and mislead. This test is to find out if your tubes are blocked and is a necessary part of fertility testing but I do want to warn you, this testing is extremely painful. My doctor told me it would be like some period cramping. I have very painful periods, with shooting pains down my legs and up into my back, I also get light headed, nauseous and during the really bad cramping I can even see spots in front of my eyes. So, I figured what ever, it can't be as bad as some of my periods. Well, I was very, very wrong! This was some of the worse pain I have every felt. If they tell you that it'll be like period pain know they are down playing it. 

The HSG is done in the radiology lab, you will lie down on the table with your knees in stirrups and they will insert a needle or catheter thru your cervix and insert the dye. The dye insertion is the worst part. They are pushing fluid thru your cervix into your body, which isn't naturally supposed to happen. During this excruciating pain you will have to lye still and only rotate your hips if they need to get clearer pictures. They did need me to rotate my hips to the right and the pain w/ the movement only intensified.

Once the testing is done they will give you a pad, which you will need as the dye comes out slowly over the next few hours. The doctor performing my test was pretty inconsiderate during this part, she told me that I was all set and could go to the bathroom. She handed me the pad and then kept talking to me while I had blood and dye running down my legs and onto the floor. I had to ask her if we could finish the conversation once I was dressed since I was dripping on the floor. She looked stunned and said oh yes, but when I came out it was only the nurse in the room.

Your probably thinking that the worst is over now, right? Your wrong now comes the very painful period cramps. The intense pain will last for a few hours, so it may be wise to have someone drive you to the appointment. The cramping lessened within that first day, however, over the next few days I experienced crampy, achy feelings and some pain if I moved too quickly.

I'm not trying to scare you off this test because it's important. I unlike my doctor want to give you the full picture of what happened to me, so you know what will happen and be prepared for it. As this post is so long I'll be finishing my post about getting pregnant a little later. 

Working Through It

I've taken a hard look at myself, I didn't really like what I saw. I had become complacent in my life and just went with the flow. Thankfully this was mostly contained to my personal life. I am done binge watching shows, and since my last post have kept my house, including my dishes clean. 

I realized that just getting up and moving is great progress because it motivated me toward doing more. For example: Once done loading the dishwasher I didn't want the counter next to the sink to be dirty or cluttered so I cleaned that as well. My working around the house has also motivated my husband as well, not only is he helping me but during one of his scheduled days off he started sorting through boxes and cleaning the basement. 

I understand that depression can be debilitating and many (most) need professional help to get through it, but if you have a case of the little blues (just feeling crappy not full blown depression) get up and move, exercise, go for a walk, get out of your house somehow. It will help, especially the walking or the exercising because it will release endorphin's that improve your mood. 

Now don't think I'm advocating for skipping treatment from a doctor for depression if you have it, I'm NOT. Depression is a very scary and as I said above debilitating condition and that is not what I'm discussing in this post. I'm talking about feeling down about yourself or giving into the laziness that your feeling. 

Well it's another sunny Saturday and I'm going to go enjoy my day. Good luck with getting moving. 

Procrastination

Since putting up my first post I have completely forgot about my blog and then procrastinated in putting up another post. There were a few reasons, not feeling like posting anything, not being able to write the post I wanted to about my pregnancy and getting stuck on that and then there was the binge watching of a TV show on Netflix. 

Well I do have one subject that I won't get stuck on writing about, so, I'll skip my pregnancy post for now and move on. 

Perfection, it's what we all strive for and never get. I want to be honest, so, here goes. I'm not perfect! Now that you're all done rolling your eyes, and thinking duh, I'm going to tell you why. 

My top 10  list of not being perfect right now is: 

1. I haven't weeded my garden in 4 weeks, 

2. I hate doing dishes so much that I let them pile up until there is more then one load; 

3. I haven't done any reading about pregnancy ( I know I'm pregnant and I haven't done it. Seriously read the title of this post I procrastinate.)

4. I get irrationally mad (even before pregnancy) at really slowly loading websites; 

5. I binge watch television shows to the detriment of taking care of other things in my life; 

6. I haven't exercised in almost a year; 

7. We moved into our new house at the end of March and still have TONS of boxes not unpacked; 

8. I'm six months pregnant and still haven't figured out daycare or even what type of car seat I'm going to buy; 

9. My house is never clean (because I binge watch shows)

and finally

10. I rarely follow through with ideas that I have, like writing a blog or writing a book. 

Now you may be thinking that these "flaws" are silly or not important, but to me they are and that is what makes them important. 

So, now that I've bared my flaws, remember we're human and perfection is an illusion. Those that seem to have it, usually are the ones that hide very scary flaws. 

The Beginning!

After seven years of being unhappy where we lived my husband and I made the huge decision to sell our home and buy a new one. We lived in the middle of a larger city on a VERY small piece of property (it was barely big enough to park two cars). We needed to get out of the city, at first it had been great, we could walk downtown and go to the bars or concerts and other events, but after a while it got boring and costly. So, we decided to move out to the country. We found an amazing piece of property with a gorgeous house. We bit the bullet and went for it. 

Our goal is to become much more self-sufficient. To that end we have started our garden. 

You're probably wondering how we plan to be self-sufficient with such a small garden. The answer is this year we aren't planning that. We didn't want to try to over extend too much this first year for a few reasons: 

1. This is our first time really having a garden and we wanted to start smaller and then move up. 

2. We are expecting our first child in October and with me being hot and uncomfortable in the fall, I will likely not be that into helping my husband pick/harvest and store everything. And finally; 

3. We had to buy all of our plants this year. Given our moving timeline we were unable to start our plants from  scratch like we wanted too. 

Coming up

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting on the following topics: my difficulty getting pregnant, our plans to be self-sufficient, our budgeting plan, how I'm working to bring in extra money, my meal prep/plans and I'll throw in a few other random topics that catch the attention of my crazy pregnant brain.