How quitting the gym is healthy (for me right now)

It seems strange to connect my decision to end my gym membership with health.
It isn't like the gym was costing me a ton of cash ($15.89 per month).
But the gym membership was costing me psychological energy.
It was causing me psychological stress.

As the kids have gotten older, my mental energy load has increased what feels like a thousand-fold. (It probably is actually a thousand-fold and not just a feeling of that being the case.)

I'm trying to keep up with all their things:
field hockey practices
science fair paperwork
student council schedule
homework
Girl Scout events
doctor visits (which feel like all the time, given G is seeing a psychiatrist once a week for ERP and M has a plantar wart that has been needing twice-monthly visits, and M has orthodontist appointments once a month, and the boys and I need allergy shots anywhere from 2-3 times a week (me) to every 2-3 weeks (the boys).

Plus, there are my jobs---subbing, cottage school, tutoring, consulting, freelancing.

Plus, there is the podcast which is my hobby right now.

Back in the days of yore, I was home a lot with the kids. Nap times made afternoon outings impossible. I yearned to be out doing something.
At that time, getting out of the house was a treat for me, a much-needed opportunity to speak to adults and get away from my children.
It was my me-time.

But now, I'm rarely home, and when I am, I don't want to leave.
I don't want to get in the car and drive somewhere I don't absolutely HAVE.TO.BE.
I am happy to go for a walk on the treadmill or take a walk with D during his lunch break when he works from home or do some yoga stretching on the floor of my living room.

Having the gym membership was one more thing that required my attention and needed me to remember it.

To have it off my mental to-do list makes me feel so much better.
And that is worth a lot more than the $200 it was costing me every year.

Weight gain--the good, the bad, and the anxiety

Last week, when I went for my annual girlie appointment, I had gained 7 lbs from the previous year's visit.

To say that this fact is now taking up valuable real estate in my brain is an understatement.
I am, more or less, obsessing.

I'm not overweight, which many people would say precludes me from being able to fret about this 7 lb gain.

Those people, if they are reading this post, should probably stop reading now.
Because I am fretting about this 7 lbs.

I weigh 148 lbs.
My BMI is 23.2.
Totally "healthy."
Totally normal weight.

My doctor told me not to worry about it.
But I am worried about it.

Because I cannot gain 7 lbs every year.
I am this close to 45-years-old.

And I have been slacking off on my health.

In one sense, that is the good part. That I have allowed myself to not worry about what I'm eating or how much I'm exercising.
That is also the bad part.
And now, I'm in the anxiety part.

I began fretting over my weight, in one form or another, in 2003, when I was pregnant with N and developed gestational diabetes. When I was put on a super strict diet and lost 7 lbs during my pregnancy. When I began walking 45 minutes every single day on the treadmill.

The day I delivered N, I weight 141 lbs.
The day I came home from the hospital, I weighed 120 lbs.
Between breastfeeding and walking nonstop on the treadmill, I dropped even more weight.
Six months later, I weighed 112 lbs.
When I began not eating as a result of depression, being 112 lbs was not a good thing.

My therapist at the time (prior to medication) asked me if I had an eating disorder, and I guess in some sense I did.
When you are obsessive, you find things to obsess about.

Gradually, with medication and therapy, my weight increased.
Two healthy-weight pregnancies followed.

After M was born, my mid-section bothered me, so I began working out regularly.
My mid-section dropped to 29 inches.
Over the years, it has increased to 33 inches.
Partly, this is due to working more and not having the energy to want to work out.
Plus, I began to snack more and have an occasional adult beverage more than just one night a week.
(When you drink good full-calorie beer, having an extra 1 or 2 a week can make a difference.)
I'm also not lifting 25 lb kids all day long, as I once was.

So I am refocusing on my health, which I hope will result in the loss of the 7 lbs.
Perhaps not all 7, but maybe 5?

I'm having to fight the urge to buy a scale (which I haven't owned in years).
Because I'm already obsessing; I don't need to buy tools for my home that will help me obsess more and better.

I'm having to tell myself that cutting out chips and after dinner snacks and walking every day and increasing my strength training will probably be "good enough."

I wish I could burn calories by obsessing. 

I'm not trying not to be supportive

I am a natural-born skeptic.
The older I get, the more skeptical I become.
Whether you believe humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years or three thousand years, I suspect that if there was a simple answer to things, we would have already figured them out.

As Trump has discovered about health care and North Korea/China---it's all complicated.

Ultimately, I think people have to do what is right for them regardless of what I think.

But sometimes I find it difficult to support them in the things they do because I inherently disagree.

Like diets.

I do not "diet."

The word connotes a temporary, strict way of eating that in many cases cannot (and possibly should not) be applied to one's entire life.

I don't care what the "diet" is, but I am always suspect of diets that eliminate certain types of food unless there is a diagnosed medical condition under the guidance of a physician that makes such elimination necessary.

A diet that cuts out whole grains is suspect.
A diet that cuts out nuts is suspect.
A diet that cuts out legumes is suspect.
A diet that cuts out potatoes and carrots is suspect.
A diet that urges you to eat loads of one particular food group is suspect. The all-kale diet is a bad idea, even if kale is a superfood.

Diets often make us feel that foods are either good or bad, and mixing emotions and judgment with food choices is often a very dicey mix.

I am also not a proponent of out-and-out denial because that backfires, and I know this from experience.

When I was pregnant with N and developed gestational diabetes, I was put on a strict diet and I followed it to the letter.  I weighed my food. I did not eat anything with sugar, including cake at my own freakin' baby shower.  I walked 45 minutes every night on the treadmill from week 28-41.

Between my 28th week of pregnancy and my 41st, I lost 7 pounds of the 18 I had gained.  I should have been allowed to gain 20-25 lbs, but I only had 11 extra pounds of weight on me when I delivered.  N weighed 7.5.

My strict adherence to their "DO NOT EAT SUGAR" dictate resulted in me gorging on sweets for a very long time after delivery.  I stuffed so much sugar into my mouth it was ridiculous, and I don't see how that was healthy.

So what I learned from this experience is that for me, being an obsessive person, following a diet that restricts my food choices is a bad idea.  I really need to strive for a balance. Eat as much fruit, vegetables, healthful meat, whole grains, legumes and nuts as possible but don't freak out if I want a handful of chips.

I had a very poor experience with a "diet" and so it makes it difficult (if not impossible) for me to get on-board with friends and family who adopt "diets," especially if those diets are super strict or restrict certain food groups.

I support my friends and family in their efforts to be healthy, to reduce eating out, to exercise more, to eat as much whole foods as possible and cut back on processed foods.

But if your diet begins to rule your life or make you a little bonkers about food, then it probably isn't sustainable to your life and your mental health.

Being a bad-a$$ versus just playing around

The other day, D and I took a bike ride through a local park system while the kids were at friends' houses.  While biking, I was thinking about my general fitness level, which isn't fantastic but isn't terrible either.  My motto is "do something rather than nothing," which I think is a good one considering as a person ages she is usually unable to be a fitness queen.

This led me to think about people who are or try to be fitness "bad-asses."  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but it is not something I care to do or aspire to be.  I personally think that sucks a lot of the fun out of exercising.  It takes a lot of work to be a bad-a$$.

I then tangent-hopped to my own non-athletic children, especially G who is, of the three, the least physically coordinated.

We encourage our kids to get outside and play in whatever form that takes.  Usually it is frisbee throwing and play-set swinging and, occasionally, it is baseball throwing and hitting with a bat.  We don't focus on correct form much because for G just agreeing to go outside and do anything physical is a huge success.  If we spend too much time and energy correcting him on form, he will become frustrated and stop playing since he doesn't really enjoy doing physical stuff to begin with.

I began to wonder about how kids played baseball or other games when kids used to just go outside and play without parents coaching and instigating the game and schedule.  I guess I thought about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when Neeley plays baseball with his friends.  Parents were busy working and didn't interfere with how or why or when kids played their pickup games.  Did the kids play with correct form?  Did they hit the ball in exactly the way a professional would?  I doubt it.  They played.  They had fun.

Of course, I'm not suggesting there is no value in learning correct form, but for kids who don't enjoy sports and whose parents are happy for them just to go outside and do something physical, focusing on the form isn't a priority.  Playing on a team isn't a priority.  Winning isn't a priority.  Just doing something rather than nothing is what it's all about.

Part 1: Me at the gym. Part 2: Why I love seeing older folks at the gym

Part 1:

I walk in.

Many times I forget I have my sunglasses on, but I'm too lazy to walk back out to the car to switch to my regular glasses.  So I'm Joe Cool working out in shades.

I get on the elliptical-type machine (there are 2 kinds that probably work different muscles, but I don't know which muscles) or a stair-climber.  If on an elliptical,  I do a mile, keeping my heart rate around 130.  I'm not busting a sweat usually.  If I'm on a stair-climber, I do 15-20 flights.

Then I go lift some weights and do floor work (planks and various modifications on the plank, mostly).

When I lift weights, I stick to between 5-15 lbs.  Sometimes I just stop actually lifting the weights and hold them.  When I see these big dudes lifting a gazillion pounds, and they are huffing and puffing and jerking their arms around, I wonder how much they could lift if they stopped moving and just held the weight?

After a half-hour, I am bored and leave.

Tonight, as I was writing this blog post, I started to burn the pancakes I was making.  I might be on the thinnish side, but it is certainly not because I work out with any enthusiasm.  I simply burn our dinners a lot.


Part 2:

I love old(er) people, in general but especially at the gym.  (Like 65 and up is what I'm going to consider older people.)

Maybe it is because I workout mostly during the weekdays, but there are usually older people there.  Not too many single, young people.  I think they probably go to LA Fitness or someplace cool.

It is inspiring to me to be around older people who go to the gym for a number of reasons.

First of all, they make me look like a freaking rock star fitness freak with my yoga pants and sports bra (covered with a shirt.....I'm not that kind of duckface, selfie-taking, show-off-my-lack-of-cleavage girl .)

Secondly, and more to the point, they totally don't kill themselves, and I think that is the key to real fitness longevity.  They don't bust their humps to the point that they are sick and sweaty messes.  They exercise, they get tired, they stop.  But THEY ARE THERE DOING SOMETHING.

And that is all I care to do.

Do enough so that if I have white hair and wrinkles all over me and a mess of grandchildren, I am still physically able to get myself to the gym and do something in moderation.  

Stumbling into cool learning tools

Theft is my shtick.

I'm not creative enough to have great ideas of my own very often, so I've learned the fine arts of discovery and mimicry.

But there are occasions when I stumble onto ideas or activities or books that prove to be great tools in helping my kids learn or be more active or improve their awesomeness.

One of these recent stumbles is the book The Deep Blue Sea by Audrey Wood.  It is a perfect book to read to a preschooler and a kindergartener because they can both read aloud.  The color words are actually colored, so when we get to those M can chime in with "purple" or "blue" because he sees the color.  But the other words are simple and repetitive enough that G can read them (with occasional help from mom).  Talk about two little dudes who feel immensely proud of themselves for reading a book together!

The other stumble is making sidewalk obstacle courses for the kids, which even N enjoys.  Each square of sidewalk gets a different path route.  One square might be small rectangles that wind around the perimeter before ending at the start of the next square.  The adjoining sidewalk square consists of small circles with a break in between where I have made squiggly blue lines for water marks (so the kids have to jump over the ocean).  The next two sidewalk squares are white puffy clouds that the kids have to leap to, with the sun or other planets in between so they must leap over these obstacles to get to another cloud.  I've even done some circles with numbers or letters in them.  The kids can only jump onto the first letter of their first name or their age.

These chalk obstacle courses run from our driveway almost to our neighbors, which is a good 20+ squares.  In just a couple weeks I've used up a bucket of chalk that I've had sitting in the garage for years.

Body image at "this close to" 40

In May I joined a gym with child-care.  I love my trainer and my bootcamp friends, but for a couple reasons, I have not been able to attend regularly this summer.  I have been trying to get to the gym two times a week, but I know my solo workouts don't challenge me in the way my trainer does.  It is better than doing nothing (something I try to remind myself when I'm feeling particularly lazy and unmotivated).

I made the mistake of taking advantage of a new gym "service," which is having body fat assessed.  Now I've had this done before, numerous times, but not 6 months post-end of breastfeeding and post-vacation when I ate junk food like a boss.  At 5'7" and 144 lbs, my body fat is 25% according to the hand-held monitor.  Depending on the chart you read, this is either considered "very good" or "average."  The chart they used at the new gym when they provided this service said "average."

I've never been one who is "ok" with the notion of being average in any respect, although I've dialed it down a lot over the years.  With this milestone birthday looming, I'm having a difficult time with the whole idea of aging (and how my body is adapting to that phenomenon).  There is no getting around the fact that I have the mid-section of a woman who gestated three children.

It seems petulant for me to "complain" about my body fat percentage, and I don't expect a whole lot of any sympathy, especially when others look at me and think, "What body fat?"

I jokingly remarked on FB that I could workout like mad to be in the "very good" by age 40 or I could just wait until my 40th birthday and automatically be "very good" just by being bumped into the older age category.  One of my bootcamp buddies said I could workout a ton and be in the "awesome" category by age 40, and a part of me likes the challenge of doing this.  A part of me would like to look washboard ab awesome at 40.

But the more realistic part of me, the part that continues to be a mother to 3 kids on a full-time basis for another two weeks until school resumes, the part that must clean her own house and shop for groceries, the part that is still trying to plan her curriculum for the part-time teaching job this coming school year---that part of me is working tirelessly to remind the insecure, almost 40 part that I am doing the best I can given my circumstances and that having more toned abs can happen, just maybe not right now at this particular moment of my life.

I wish boosting my self-image counted as strength-training.

Bathing suits, weight, healthiness

Yesterday I went bathing suit shopping.  In general, I would rather eat glass than shop for clothes, and this is especially true when it comes to purchasing swimwear.

I admit that when I looked in the mirror, I was not too happy with what I saw.  Despite working out, there are some things....3 pregnancies and age....that are really hard to overcome unless you are willing and able to work out every single day with great consistency for at least an hour and give up a lot of things you love in the food department.  So I left the stall with two separates in hand feeling somewhat defeated.

I shopped a little more, with the intent of finding a new blouse, and looked at my fellow shoppers.  I managed to turn my psyche to my general thinking in life, a spin on "Is it better than what I have now?, which is, "Is my (weight, intelligence, hairstyle, insert whatever here) better than those of the people I see around me or the public at large?"

And I would be a liar if I said my weight/body didn't look better than most of my Kohl's shopping cohorts.

I realize that if I stood in a swimsuit next to a model (especially one who wasn't 38 and hadn't birthed 3 children) I would look crappy.  But next to average Jane who is the same age and has 3 children, I look pretty awesome, in my opinion (at least in my neck of the US woods, which has serious obesity/sedentary problems).

This thought didn't make me feel smug;  rather I felt a little sad.  It made me wonder whether I am prejudiced against overweight people.  Swistle's post, which I read last night, made me wonder even more.

I don't think that overweight people are any less smart, capable, well-read, nice, decent than anyone else.  But I admit I do tend to judge heavier people about their lifestyle choices...the food they eat, how much and often, and how frequently they exercise.  I know that body types are fixed and beyond our control, certainly.  I am taller and thinner than most women, which has much to do with my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother being tall and rail-thin.  I know that people can be heavier and strong/muscular/athletic.  Skinny is no good either; there is nothing appealing about skin & bones, a'la Leann Rimes.  I want to be fit.

(Lest anyone surmise I only judge heavier people, I should note that I judge anybody who purchases nothing but junk at the grocery.  It simply baffles me how anyone can eat that much processed stuff.  I also judge people who smoke....cause that shit is just dumb.)

One of the questions I asked myself is whether I am prejudiced if I think to myself, "I don't want to become fat."  Because whenever I feel particularly not in the mood to work out, I need only to see someone overweight to give me the motivation to keep at it.

Because I had gestational diabetes during my first pregnancy and my A1C levels put me at high risk for diabetes until I began working out for 2 1-hour sessions a week, another big motivator is keeping my insides healthy.  I do not want diabetes if there is anything at all I can do to keep it at bay.

To be honest, I know I mention the unhealthiness of being overweight to my children.  I know I say things like, "We need to eat our healthy food first before we have treats."  I know I say things like, "If you overeat treats and don't exercise enough you may become overweight."  I don't want my kids to think being overweight makes someone a bad person, but it is certainly not optimal.  I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "I am so thankful that I am overweight."  In all honesty, I haven't thought a whole lot about how my children, especially N, think of what I say in this regard.  Maybe that is one of the luxuries of innate thinness.

Every woman has body issues; I would living in la-la-land if I thought N would be exempt from this.  When I was younger I wanted larger breasts.  Now I would like perkier breasts, less of a abdominal pooch, and for my thighs not to touch.  But I'm not going to starve myself to be that way, nor am I going to exercise constantly and forego the more important things, like taking care of my house and kids and enjoying life.

I have to remind myself that celebrities, who have trainers and chefs, and who work out often also have body issues.  They are real people who just happen to be airbrushed and Photoshopped to make the rest of us feel like our bodies are "less than."  How many times have I looked at the photos of Scarlet Johannsson in a bikini to make myself feel better about my back quarters.

So at this point, I'm still muddling through these feelings.  I don't have an answer for myself yet as to whether I'm doing N a disservice by feeling as I do and saying what I say.

I'll complain about my body as I eat another plate of Christmas cookies

Overall, I am not the kind of person who pays much mind to my personal appearance.

I have some standards, although just barely.  I do not wear my pajama pants out in public (and I don't count walking out to my mailbox to retrieve the newspaper at 7:30 a.m. as going out in public).

I keep my hair short because it looks best on me.  I do not wear makeup because it makes my face itch.  I wear clothes that are comfortable.  That is my personal appearance philosophy in a nutshell.

In general, I think I am pretty fit.  It has been almost 2 years since I have been working out with a trainer in a group fitness "bootcamp" at a friend's house.  I started it when M was about 6 months old.  In the early days, Eric, the trainer, had us squat up against the wall and hold the pose.  OMG!  It just about killed me.....my thighs would shake and daggers of pain would shoot up to my hip.  I had to pant to get through planks.  I was on the thin side but extremely out of shape.

At first I could only commit to 1 day a week for a half-hour.  Now I go 2 times a week, for an hour each time.  My goal for 2012 is to add another day of exercise in.....30-45 minutes on the treadmill, probably on a weekend day when D is at home and can keep the kids from bugging me.  While I would love to commit to more, the truth is that I am still woken up during the night at least once every single night and G usually has me up for the day at 6:00 a.m.  Once M is in preschool and I am getting consistently restful sleep I can do more......but not until then.

I am proud of being able to do as much as I do.

But even though my arms and legs are more cut and my A1C level has gone down, my abdomen bugs the absolute SHIT out of me.  And I hate it that I allow my mid-section to bug me.

I know why my mid-section bulges---the 3 babies who grew there, the uterus that still lives there, and my poor posture.  If my breasts were bigger, I don't think I'd pay much attention to my abdomen.  But with my breasts being naturally small and now terribly saggy, they don't stick out enough for me to think my mid-section looks small in comparison.

Even though I'd like for my abs to look better, I am not willing to starve myself or do cardio 7 days a week (for the aforementioned reasons).  When I get all hung-up about how thin people look in magazines, I have to remind myself that I would look amazing too if my livelihood depended on me looking hot and having an awesome body and if I were airbrushed and Photoshopped to within an inch of my life.

I recognize that is is pretty stupid to focus on one part of my body that I don't think looks so great when 90% of me looks pretty darn good.....at least when compared to the general population.

My mom, who will be 74 this spring, said she has finally reached the age where she just doesn't care anymore, and that is nice to know.  It is nice to know there will come a time when I just won't care.  I won't focus on any part of my body and what it looks like because it will all look old.

Ok, now I'm not depressed about my abs.  Just the prospect of aging and death.

Momma is feeling her age and needing some self-preservation

When N was a baby and toddler and even as a young preschooler, it absolutely pained me to be away from her for any length of time.  I waited until the eleventh hour to enroll her in 3-year-old preschool because I feared it was too much change at once (her going to school and having a new baby brother, G within a month's time).  

But by the time she started kindergarten two years later, I was out to THERE with a pregnant belly (fully of M) and had an almost 2-year-old G to manage, so I was levitating with excitement at the prospect of her going to all-day school.  

Tomorrow, G goes for his 3-year-old preschool orientation at the same school N attended, and I am thrilled at the prospect of having one less child underfoot for 5 hours a week.  

It remains to be seen how I will react when M starts preschool in two years, but my guess is that I won't  be welling up with tears.  

With my birthday coming up in a few weeks, I also told D that what I really, really want is a gym membership so I can take M (when G is at school) or take both boys and workout for 45 minutes or so in the morning, leaving them in childcare so I can have "Mommy mental health" time.  

It is absolutely impossible to walk on the treadmill or do an exercise video with two little boys at my heels.  I have tried at least a couple times and failed.

It is also impossible for me to wake up at 5:30 to exercise.  G continues to wake me up at least once or twice a night every night, and his morning wake-up call for me is 6:00.  I'll be damned if I am going to get up even earlier to exercise.

By the time the kids go to bed at night, I am in no condition to exercise.  That is my time to either 1.) get things done that I didn't get done during the day or 2.) decompress by blogging or reading or screwing around on Facebook.

When G does nap, if I don't end up napping with him (because of the interrupted nights and early mornings), I use that time to make phone calls and do things that simply cannot be done when he and M are awake.  

But I need and want to exercise more than just 1 day a week in my boot-camp session.  (And at that boot-camp the boys are with me in the same room, so I often have to stop what I am doing to tend to them in some fashion.  I can't tell you how often I have M climbing on my back as I do push-ups or tackling my abdomen as I'm doing crunches or yanking on my shorts as I'm doing monster walks.)

Since I started this boot-camp, my legs have gotten more muscular and I am much more fit, and I like the way that makes me feel.  I want to continue feeling that way mostly because this summer I have really started feeling my age.  Feeling tight upon getting out of bed, needing to stretch. Hearing things creak as I make my way out of the bedroom into the dawn.  At one boot-camp session, I did something to my knee and it has never quite gotten back to "normal."  

Finally, I have reached a point where I am simply tired of feeling like a martyr to my children and my life as a full-time mom.  Life just continues to get busier.....planning things for N's Girl Scout troop, taking G to speech therapy, running my normal errands.  I rarely make it to book club or bunco, so these aren't outlets I can rely on every week or even every month to relax, find myself, decompress, socialize with other people.  

While blogging helps keep me sane, I am still in the confines of my house when I write.  With sleeping children upstairs or children in the other room.  The walls of my house that needs to be cleaned about to cave in on me as I type.  

I need a regular, healthy reprieve from my children and my house that allows me to take care of myself and possibly have a conversation with another grown-up.  I am tired of feeling guilty about needing and wanting this.  

After 7.5 years of mothering children without regularly-scheduled "Take care of mom time," a change is in order.  

19.4% body feels like an accomplishment, but not really

Since around April 2010, I have been taking a fitness class with a personal trainer one day a week.  There have been occasions when I've gone twice a week and occasions when I haven't gone at all (due to illness, mine or the kids).  But more or less, I have been consistent.

I have been hit or miss about exercising at home.  If time and energy allows, I walk on the treadmill.  If I get a notion, I lift weights a bit or do some abdominal work.  Before the boys were consistently sleeping through the night (which has only been just recently), I was too concerned with conserving my energy to make it through the day to even consider expending energy by working out.

My most consistent form of exercise is chasing the boys and lugging their butts somewhere....like one under each arm out of the library for running around like Tasmanian devils and disturbing other patrons.

It had been awhile since I'd checked my body fat with my trainer so after last Thursday's session, I used the little do-flicky that measures body fat and came in at 19.4%, which for my age puts me in the "excellent" category.  And I have to admit I am excited about that.  My arms and legs are way more toned than they have been in years and I feel a certain amount of pride in how my body looks, especially considering I am pushing 40 and have popped out 3 babies.

In my fit of excitement, I posted about it on Facebook.   Some friends said, "Wow.  That's great!" and some friends said, "I hate skinny women," which was a joke, of course.  But it sorta rankles me that if a thin woman gets toned and builds her strength and stamina via working out, increasing her health even though her weight hasn't changed, people say "Where was the fat before?" but if someone overweight loses weight and tones up and exercises regularly, they get hurrahs and standing ovations.  I mean, it is certainly well deserved and I always say kudos to friends who have lost weight and gotten fit,  but shouldn't all fitness and healthy choices be applauded, not just when it is done by heavy folks?

In truth, when I originally started working out my body fat was 22%, which was very good considering I had a 6-month-old baby and 2 other kids.  My dad is 6'4, my mom is 5'7, and both are naturally thin, so genetics does play a role in my size.  Plus, I don't eat a lot of junk food.  I have one hell of a sweet tooth, but I don't drink soft drinks or eat fast food very often or snack on chips and cookies.  In general, my diet is healthy.

Still, I am impressed with myself that due to working out my body fat has decreased by over 2 percentage points.  A positive change is a positive change.

The eternal quest to be healthy and fit

Today at the grocery, I noticed that the dad in front of me bought like 8 boxes of Capri-Sun juice cartons for his son, whom he had in tow in the checkout line.  Most of the time what I put on the conveyor belt is fairly healthy although it didn't really look like it today since  I did have 4 containers of ice cream/popsicle/sherbet in the mix in preparation for N's tonsillectomy tomorrow.

I certainly don't deny the kids goodies but I do have certain rules about what I will and won't purchase for our home and how often.

I don't buy sugary cereals like Cookie Crisp and Fruity Pebbles and Fruit Loops.
I don't buy Toaster Strudels or Pop-Tarts or anything that pretends to be a breakfast food but is really dessert.
I don't buy yogurt that comes out of a tube and is neon-colored.
I don't buy Oreos except once a year when we take a trip (be it a small overnighter or a week-long stint at Disney).
I occasionally buy juice boxes but they must be 100% juice.
I don't buy Kool-Aid type drinks except once a year when we take a trip.
(The once a year thing also generally applies to Doritos.)
I only buy organic skim milk.
I don't buy soft drinks.  
I never buy things like Little Debbie snack cakes or Twinkies or Ding-Dongs or anything like that.

My reasons for doing these things are not so that we will be thin, although this is a great side effect of not purchasing junk food.  It is because I think my kids have plenty of opportunities to each sugary treats and junk (when we are out or they are at their grandparents' homes) so I don't feel like I need to have it in my house.  D already has high triglycerides, so we don't need to make that situation any worse.  Plus, having dealt with gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with N, I would prefer that no one in my family have to deal with monitoring their blood sugar and all the headaches that go with it.

In recent months, I have stopped making sweetened tea.  I had eliminated sugar a long time ago, switching to Splenda, but I decided that I was going to forego all sweeteners in our tea (which we tend to drink a lot of).  I stopped putting sweetener in my coffee, although I cannot give up my peppermint mocha creamer.  Life is for living, after all.

I have also cut our consumption of red meat by about 95%.  I used to make a lot of meals using beef, but I have been seeking out more vegetarian fare or favoring recipes that use chicken or turkey.

Still, even with my attempts to buy relatively healthy-ish food, my body simply ain't what it used to be when I was younger and prior to having carried and delivered 3 babies.  I will be 38 in a couple months, and daggonit if I'm not already feeling my metabolism slow down.

My antidepressant also plays a role in how my body looks because prior to meds, when I worried (which was quite often), I wouldn't eat.  And not eating is a very good way to lose weight.  Since I don't worry excessively or even that often now, I find that I continue to eat normally (except for that week of the month before Aunt Flo when I must eat chocolate every 2 hours or I will cut off someone's head with a butter knife.)

In April 2010, I began taking a fitness class 1 day a week with a personal trainer and some friends, and I really enjoy it.  I can tell that I am way more fit than I used to be.  When I first began, I could barely do a plank for 30 seconds.  Now I can just hang out in that position, even having the boys climb on me and sit (or fall off as M often does).  My arms and legs are more shapely.  When I see a friend that I haven't seen in a while, I often hear, "You look great!  What are you doing?"

If only my abdominal pooch would disappear.  I'm afraid there is only so much that crunches can do for a thrice stretched out and twice c-sectioned abdomen.

I had said that by the time I turned 40, I wanted to have "six-pack abs," but I am uncertain whether this is 1. do-able and/or 2. worthy of doing.  I want to eat healthy and be fit but I don't want to deny myself and be miserable just to have a tighter mid-section.

The truth is that right now, with 3 young children, it is simply impossible for me to devote, in a consistent fashion, the time to exercise.  I think I am doing pretty well to make it to an exercise class once a week and lift weights/walk on the treadmill at home a couple other times a week.

On my deathbed, when my life flashes before my eyes on my way outta here, I doubt that a toned butt is going to be one of the things I am so, so glad I managed to have.  

Things we're trying around here (again or for the first time)

I.  Exercise Redux
D has high triglycerides and his good cholesterol is too low so I harangued him into visiting the doctor.  The Rx was for D to exercise.  Being the supportive wife I am, I told him I would exercise with him.  If I'm putting the kids to bed, he walks on the treadmill.  If he's putting the kids to bed, I walk on the treadmill.  Whomever is putting the kids to bed walks on the treadmill after he/she has marched G back to bed for the 11th time.

On the weekends, our goal is to walk for a longer stretch.  Yesterday we took the boys to the park in the morning since N had a sleepover with her Mamaw so when we got home last night after a busy day, I asked D if he was gonna walk on the treadmill.  He said, "Nah.  On the weekends, I have to walk in the morning because being with the kids all day wears me out."

And I replied, "Yeah, I don't know anything about that."

II. Meal-Planning....finally
Desperation has finally forced me to make a monthly meal plan because I am sick to death of trying to figure out what to eat every night at 4:45 p.m.  Oh hell, who am I kidding---it's totally 5:30 p.m. before I think about dinner most nights.  And we eat around 6:10.

I printed out a calendar-like chart and planned meals for 5 days of the week.  I figure the other two days will be leftover days or eating at the grandparents' homes or ordering takeout pizza.  There are four weeks scheduled.  But I'm being very loosey-goosey about it because I don't like to feel committed to making meatloaf on a Thursday if I don't want to.  So what I'm doing is making sure I have ingredients to make 80% of the meals and then picking the ones I want to fix given my mood on that particular day.  Once I've made it, I cross it out.  If I think of another meal I can fix, I add it at the end of the month (moving into week 5).  If I have to purchase any perishables, then those meals that I've tentatively scheduled will definitely be fixed that week.

At the top of the calendar, I've got about 4 side dishes planned that I can pick from for the month---side dishes made from scratch....not like pre-packaged mac & cheese.  The remainder of our meal will include veggies (canned or frozen) or salad.

This is only week two of the "plan," but I feel much less stress about what to fix.  Just having the meals written in front of me takes a lot of the work out of making dinner.  Half the battle is just deciding what the eff to prepare.

III. A New Shopping List
I googled grocery-shopping list templates, found one I liked and reworked it so that my new grocery list is one that categorizes items (dairy, produce, canned goods, etc) and lists the items I tend to purchase the most (like balsamic vinaigrette and steel cut oats).  I printed off some on the backs of old paper and now when I need something I can just check it off on the list.  And since everything is lumped together based on where it is in the grocery, I will hopefully avoid circling back multiple times to get coconut, and then nuts and then dried mint.

I am hoping some of this efficiency will enhance my motivation to clean out and re-order the garage and my craft closet.
But I doubt it.