STUPID

I have this dessert leftover from the barbecue Carl missed. It's a low-cal, low-carb dessert from a diabetic cookbook recipe so it's really not supposed to be that bad for you, but I think we need to redefine 'bad.'

I grew up in a family that was pretty poor. We didn't have running water in our house for awhile and I have vivid memories of putting my snowsuit and snowboots on over my nightgown in the middle of the night to trek to the outhouse to pee. A philosophy of not wasting anything is deeply instilled in me. My family values included eating zuchinni with every meal so that it didn't go to waste, and composting any part of anything that we couldn't actually eat. When I first met my husband and we went out on dates, he had to convince me that it was okay to take something home in a 'to go' box instead of stuffing myself sick so that nothing was left on my plate.

I still struggle with the value of not wasting anything, which is in essence a good value. It means we don't take what we don't need and makes it easier to track the pocketbook, but it also means that I eat every leftover we have in the fridge. Most of the leftovers are good, like soup, lean meat, and vegetables.

But right now the leftovers include this dessert that's not too damaging, but not necessary, either. I'm eating it, not because I want dessert, but just so that it doesn't go to waste. I've been consciously eating a bowl a day with the aim of getting it out of the fridge and washing my cake pan. I don't want any, even though it tastes good (especially with whipped cream), but I'm eating it when I'm not hungry and not really even craving something sweet. STUPID.

So I threw the rest of it away and washed the pan. I have to give myself permission to let food I DON'T NEED go to waste if that's what it means. I'll still eat leftover soup for lunch because it's a meal and it's good for me, but I won't shovel a 'healthy' dessert' in my mouth just because I feel guilty if it doesn't get eaten. My duties as Mom might include supervising chores, vacuuming, or bathing the baby, but it doesn't have to include 'eating all of the leftovers in the fridge so that they don't go to waste.'

Enough said.

Holidy Abs

I'm starting out my holiday with a very sore body. It's different eating the holiday cookies that brought by those who fall under the people-who-like-me-but-don't-quite-get-the-contest category have brought to the house (All the cookies have been on red plates--is green out this year?) with extremely sore abs. Being sore takes some of the indulgent pleasure out of the sweets. I didn't work hard with Carl yesterday just to eat cookies. I actually don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I'm also not totally strict about my diet. And sometimes I like to eat cookies.

I'm a little distracted--the Jazz are losing to the Bucks and Millsap just went out with an injured knee. As if the Jazz need another power forward out with injuries.

And the baby is starting to fuss because it's her bedtime.

And I'm trying to blog in a way that makes sense to you people, but it just might not happen tonight, like sometimes workouts don't happen when cookies do, or diet Coke.

So, my point is, a strategy to avoid some of the holiday overeating--work out and get extremely sore and see how it feels to shovel that second piece of cake into those twinging abs.

Good night.

Nostalgia

When Michelle feels out of control, she eats (that's her own confession). When I feel out of control, I clean. It's amazing that during layout, when I should be absolutely glued to my computer chair, my house is the cleanest it is out of the entire month. You should have seen it Saturday night. I can't control getting all of the stuff in for the layout--articles, ads, pictures--but I can control how clean my house is, so I clean it. Well, everybody cleans it when I'm in that mode because I don't give them any other options. My kids suddenly have a chore list that's fifteen items long and we all go at it with cleanser and toothbrushes.

So, Saturday I was feeling out of control and I cleaned my house. (The previous paragraph is simply an extra self-disclosing introduction to this single fact.) And as I was cleaning, I dusted a shelf full of old journals/albums and picked one up and started to flip through it. Well, the journal really isn't that old, just a few years. But the significance of this is....

I was hot!!!

I have been missing my body. I knew when I got pregnant I wouldn't magically still have a six-pack, and I knew I would have to work hard after the baby to get back into shape. But I didn't realize quite how fit I was until I didn't have it anymore. I was, for the most part, pretty satisfied with my body. I worked out hard and didn't worry about what I ate and I looked pretty good. But I still got on myself every now and then about another five pounds or so off of my butt.

For some perspective, here's a sample of the butt I couldn't be satisfied with:

My new perspective is that I looked so good I should have been on billboards. Well, okay, maybe I need another ten inches of height or so to qualify in the model range, but the heels help. My point is that I looked good and I couldn't fully appreciate it because I think in this society we're programmed to think that if losing fifteen pounds is good, losing another five or ten must be better.


I don't plan on making that mistake again this time. I feel pretty and basically in shape after having lost fifty postpartum pounds and weighing in at 185 (oh, what's that you say Carl? I'm down to 183?). Another twenty pounds from now, at 165 or so, I'll probably even feel a little sexy, and when I get back to 145 or 135 or whatever, I'll be smokin'!


I will not take it for granted this time! I will get in shape and it will be good enough and I will not worry about a stupid five more pounds. I will buy expensive jeans because they WILL be the jeans I plan on wearing for a long time, not just a pair of jeans on the way to losing five more pounds. And I will accept that I am pretty and sexy and woman enough.


Yeah!!!! Time to go see Carl...

Layout

Oh the days of layout. This is without doubt the hardest time for me to avoid the diet Coke. Not like I've completely stopped, anyway, but I am down to one can of the caffieinated stuff a day. Just for some perspective, before I got pregnant I drank the equivalent of a twelve-pack a day. A couple or few refills, and the four or five cans after I got home from work. Ouch. If that doesn't age a woman, I don't know what does.

It's going to be hard during crunch time to work out in the evening, too. It takes a serious number of hours over only a few days to get the layout done, and it all has to be in front of my computer. But I have my next workout scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and then I'll have to decide if Iwant to try for Monday.

I like having karate in the morning. It means that my workout is the first thing I do, then I can take a shower and be pretty the rest of the day with my makeup on. Evenings are hard because that's when the family is all home. But I'm doing it for me and I love it when I come home and my boys ask how my workout was. Someday I hope they go home and their kids ask how their workout was.

Enough chatting--back to the layout.

Dis-ap-point-ment

So, I had my weigh-in, too. According to the scale, I didn't lose anything. I didn't gain anything either, but I feel more tone and tighter in my core. I spent days over the last week sore in different muscles and I'm sleeping better at night.

I wasn't too surprised, and not even really disappointed. There's a reason I don't own a scale. What matters to me is that my jeans fit the way I like them, I can see muscle in the mirror, and I can do two or more hours of karate at a hard pace without passing out. I'm getting there, and that's what matters.

I do really feel like I lost some inches (or quarter inches, or 1/8 inches) because my gi pants fit a little more loosely. I think Carl was more disappointed than me about the whole thing. He's working as hard as I am to lose this weight. He didn't quite pout on the outside, but I could tell he pouted on the inside.

I usually don't lose the rest of my baby weight until I stop nursing, which will be around March for me. Until then, my body wants to hang on to what it has to feed a growing baby. I'm alright with it. I'm sculpting underneath the momma suit and it will all pay off, just not maybe the way you'd expect. When I stop nursing, I'll lose ten pounds off my chest the first week. That'll be a good week for Carl.

I feel better, I move better, and I'm liking the treadmill a little more every time I get on there. Now I better hit the hay so that I have what I need for karate in the morning and Carl in the evening Yawn..........

Whittling

I've looked at all of our pictures (well, I took the ones of Michelle), and I don't think we look that bad. It's sort of like a sculptor looking at raw clay, in a way (by the hay, how was your day?). Michelle can outlift me on the weights, so I know the Greek sculpture muscle is in there. It's like Carl has to just whittle away our momma suits and find the physical sweetness underneath. Well, we're whittling while Carl works on his own Greek sculpture muscles.

I want to look like that. I want to turn heads and have even guys envious of my guns. And I really, really want the Brooke Burke/Terminator butt.

I look forward to the workouts. The endorphins are a bit of a fix for me, a fix that is going to have to replace diet Coke if I'm going to make it to the guns and the butt. Karate helps, too. I'm sore from working out with Carl and I'm sore from working out in karate. I don't think there's a spot on my body that has been missed this week. In fact, I'm working out harder in karate now that I'm working out with Carl--maybe to make up for still drinking some (not a lot of) soda.

I teach karate for four hours tomorrow. Granted, I won't necessarily be working out myself the whole time, but I should burn some good calories in there somewhere. And then it's back to Carl. I'm excited for the weigh-in on Tuesday or Monday or whatever. I don't know if I've lost Carl's goal of four pounds/week, but I'm sure I've lost some. Getting to that butt.

Whittle away, Carl, whittle away...

Sigh....

Selfish

I've discovered that staying in shape requires a certain degree of selfishness, especially as a mom. Everybody in a mom's world wants her time--kids, husband, PTA, Scouts, the people she wants to hang out with--and staying in shape requires her to put herself first. Good for me, I'm plenty selfish enough to get my work out time in. My priorities keep karate at the very top, and then sleep and family is somewhere under that.

I have discovered in my 11+ years of being a mom that I'm not really very good at taking care of anybody else if I haven't taken care of myself first. I have no problem telling my kids they can't do something if it will interfere with time I need for myself. Working out helps keep me centered and mellow, it helps kick pms in the butt and it helps me feel sexy.

I know some ultra self-sacrificing moms who put all of the activities that their kids want to do first, and then the husband and house next, and their personal time ends up somewhere down past the middle of their list. Not me, ever.

So today I got some time in with Carl. I could give you details on the workout, talk gym lingo like machines and weight and reps, but that won't truly give you an idea of what kind of workout it was.

So I'll let you know about my shower.

I turned the hot water on just fine. It's one of life's fortunes that tub faucets are generally below the waist and you can reach them by letting your arms dangle downward. So far so good. I got in the shower and it felt great because I was sweaty.

And then I tried to wash my hair.

During shampooing, I had to let my arms down for a break. They refused to stay anywhere above the elbow for longer than ten seconds. We did an upper body workout today, and I was a little worried about being too tired to hold my baby girl, or whip up a snazzy healthy dinner, but it never occurred to me that pumping iron would make it so hard to wash my hair. So after a bit I decided that it was clean enough and just stood in the hot water for awhile.

I still think Carl is a great guy. I might change my mind tomorrow after I wake up and try to lift my arms the day after a workout.

The bummer part about today is that, looking in the mirrors in the gym, I have a little less vertical and a little more horizontal than I thought. Oh, and I've carried on my affair with diet Coke. Not a lot, but still cheating on my goddess-body-in-waiting with the carbonation. Good news is that I only had one can today. One, even though 3:00 hit and I reallyreallyreallyreallyreally wanted another one. Pat myself on the back.

Charisma and Abs

I met Carl tonight. Carl Parker, the fitness consultant and life coach. He's something like Mark Wahlberg in that movie where he plays the football guy on the Eagles. Charisma and abs. That's what I want to have by the end of this year--charisma and abs. I want to put 'sexy' in between Jenn's 'super' and 'mom.'

I'm excited to work out. I'm excited to be pushed, molded into some sort of Greek sculpture that makes the gods envious of my beauty. That's how I like to think about it.

Carl has given me one main task. I must stop drinking diet Coke. Now Carl is not discriminatory when it comes to diet Coke--he's equally against any soda. And we all knew this was coming.

That's why (gasp!) I will stop drinking diet Coke. I have to. I know it. I've done it before, but in my world, where I like to think I have so few bad habits, I feel as if I have a right to indulge in SOMETHING. And that has been diet Coke.

And, so, as I move on to a new relationship, here are my last words:

Diet Coke, we have been friends for awhile. And I can't say that it has been a good thing. I realize now that I was just using you. I got together with you after I broke up with Dr. Pepper, and although our relationship has lasted a long time, it began when I was on the rebound and I realize now that you are not what I need. I was using you as a crutch to make me feel better after sleepless baby nights and during magazine layout. But no more. It is better for us both if we move on. I have found a new love, Water, and we are building a close relationship based on sweat and pee. I will miss you, but this is how it has to be according to Carl.

A Pic is Worth a Thousand Words

So Michelle and I took our 'before' pictures today. I have been feeling fairly good about the weight I've lost so far since my baby, and I've stayed pretty optimistic about losing the rest of it over the coming year. We took the pics, which didn't bother me since I'm not what you'd call shy.

And then I saw mine on the little camera screen.

I have a little farther to go than I thought. I told my husband about taking the pics, and he asked what I thought.

"Not so bad."
"No, really, what did you think? Come one, didn't anything come up for you?"
"Well, yeah. I'm bigger than I thought."

Hmmm. Even as I write this I tell myself that I've been losing the weight just fine. The part I liked the least, since we took front, back and side shots, are the backs of my arms. I'm surprised it wasn't my butt--maybe I'm starting to agree with my husband that my butt is sexy--but the backs of my arms are NOT SEXY. They have all of the breastfeeding mama fat on them right now. To be honest, I've never really liked the backs of my arms. Even when I was bowflex buff they never quite got to be as toned as I wanted them to be. I do like tank tops, though. Not skinny bra strap tanks, but the buff gonna go work on a car tanks (wifebeaters, but what do you call them when the woman wears them? Husband beaters?).

Later I meet Karl. That's another blog. He's going to be my new best friend, except that I pulled my back out in karate yesterday and couldn't even bowflex when mMichelle came over this morning. So, Karl will be my new best friend in the near future.

Family Her-Story

I guess I should commit to a target weight for the next year. I would really like to get back down to 145, which is where I felt like a hot mom and could do karate or haul rocks in my yard all day. Hmmm, I think I'll shoot for 140. I'm more interested in having a tight butt and guns. I like to wear tank tops and show off buff arms.

My last weigh-in on my dad's scale was 182. That gives me another 40+ pounds to go, which I think is possible but still a challenge for me. I'm only 5'1" and the charts say I'm supposed to weigh 118. At 140 I don't think I'll have anything else to lose but my boobs. Not willing to sacrifice those. I have an intimate relationship with Victoria's Secret that I'm not going to give up. And while I have a larger badonkadonk, I don't necessarily want to lose it. I just want it to look good.

Last night I showed Jenn and Michelle my dad's gym. He has his own personal work out equipment that rivals Gold's Gym (minus the treadmills--we don't do treadmills, we do karate). I grew up in a family that works out. Always have, always will. My dad has a six-pack and he's sixty-one years old. I've always taken it for granted that I would stay in shape. We eat, sleep, work out, and practice procreation. It's just the family value system. My daily priorities put working out above doing my hair. If I only have an hour and I have to choose between getting sweaty and washed up or showering and make-up, getting sweaty always wins. My dad gives us things like Bowflexes for Christmas presents. He's not giving us a not-so-subtle hint, he's giving us something he knows we'll use and enjoy.

I also never saw my mother 'diet' in terms of limiting calories. Never even heard the word until I got to high school. Cutting down on my calories was never my solution to weight. I eat when I'm hungry and I eat until I'm full. Now that I'm over 30, I have become conscious of my own family's daily menu because I want my husband and I to live a very long time. He's at high risk for heart attack and diabetes, and I don't want to be a fit and beautiful widow.

I feel lucky for the legacy of working out. It makes things so much easier now when it comes to staying healthy. I want to leave the same for my children.

Cave Dwelling

Well, I'm what you would probably call a cave dweller. I like to stay home. I'm not a recluse, exactly, but I don't like running around very much. I don't really even like (are you ready for this?) shopping. I'm the kind of person who would like my fortune and fame to be kept anonymous so that people take me for who I am, not what I do.

This blog pretty much blows that.

That's assuming, I suppose, that putting all of this out there makes me a little bit of a small town celebrity. Maybe by the end of it all people will recognize me when I go to the grocery store and little league games, or, heaven forbid, WalMart. (Sorry--I know that's sort of a bad word.) I don't know a lot of who's who in town. I recognize faces and mostly kids who have played sports with mine. That's my job with the magazine in a weird way. I certainly don't have any biases because I don't even know who people are talking about when they gossip.

I know what Jenn means by a super mom. For me, though, it is seasonal. I tend to hibernate in the wintertime. With a young baby, I'm ready to hunker down and weather out the cold in my little hollow of a yard (she has Rook Acre and I have Haggerty Hollow :) I will be out there again for baseball season, but if you don't see much of me, it's because I'm enjoying the sun that shines through my windows all afternoon.

BFF

I am tired. I had a good workout in karate today and I can feel it all the way through my muscles. It wasn't the kind of workout that makes the sweat drip down your face and onto the dojo floor, but it was the kind of workout that hits every part of your muscles. We worked on kicks, so it's mostly in the legs. Gonna sleep well tonight.

I'm really proud of Michelle and Jenn. It's one thing to struggle with your body privately and be self-critical without an audience, but it's a brave thing to put your thoughts, feelings, and struggles out there for everybody to see and hear. I'm not very shy or self-conscious, and weight is an issue that I'm not very emotional about. I know that it is not so matter-of-fact for many others. I think it's impressive that Michelle and Jenn are sharing all of this with you because it's a hard issue to share. Especially so publicly.

I'm glad that at the end of it all, we'll have a longer forever as BFFs. The best part of it for me is knowing that my friends will be healthier and live longer and we will have many girlfriend trips to Las Vegas!

Badonkadonk

I forgot to fill out my food log today. When I went to fill it out, I couldn't really remember everything I had eaten. So, I wrote down something like this:

I was hungry, and the hunger was not good. I went in search of Food in the great land of Kitchen. I found some Food, and I ate it, and it was good, and it banished the hunger.

I've been thinking about what I want to get out of this contest. Everybody has an issue with a particular part of their body. I tend to pick on my butt (not pick my butt, but pick ON my butt). It's a genetic marker that I don't mind most of the time, but when I have some extra weight on me, it goes there. I have decided that I want to have a snazzy badonkadonk (hee-hee, that's a fun word. Say it with me--BA-DONK-A-DONK. Okay, again--BA-DONK-A-DONK). I have an easy time toning the rest of my body, but my badonkadonk lags behind a little. It still looks good when I'm in shape, but Iwant to take it to the next level with some body sculpting. It would be cool to end up somewhere between Brooke Burke and Terminator.

The Contest

So this is set up as a contest. I'm not sure how getting in shape works as a contest. I've always just done it for me, not even just to look good. I get addicted to the way my body feels when I'm strong and flexible and have enough endurance to save the world and have dinner on the table by 5:00.

In this blog you'll put up with me talking about karate a lot. Well, 'a lot' is probably an understatement. I'll probably talk about karate pretty much every blog. If it gets too redundant, let me know. I'll take your comment into consideration and then still probably talk about karate in every blog. It's what I have morphed into through years of hard training. It sounds cool, I know. It's fun to tell people what I do, "I teach karate at a boarding school," and then not quite as fun to listen to the jokes about beating them up, etc. I don't kick anybody's ass but my own. I just push myself to be better because outside of karate I don't have many limits to push.

I've trained in karate for about eight years, or seven if you discount this last year that I was pregnant and couldn't train. My baby caused some problems with my hips and I'm still getting over them, and the thirty-plus extra pounds I'm still carrying around has set me back a few years in training, but I'm catching up fast.

If these first posts sound a little dry, it's probably because I'm inexperienced at blogging and it'll take me a few rounds to warm up. That's why I'm starting now.

More tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...

Getting Ready

So, the girls decided that we are going to go on a weight loss venture. I just had my third baby, gained ninety pounds, and I've already lost about fifty of it. I got a head start :).

I've been fit for years. I've always gained a lot of weight with my babies, but after each of my two boys, I came out ten pounds lighter in the long run. I teach karate at a boarding school, so my workouts are built in and I get paid for it. After my girl was born in March, I've had to admit that I'm older and it's not so easy. I've never been on a 'diet.' I've never restricted my calories and I don't know how I'll do if the dietician gets involved. Hmmm...I guess we'll find out.