Dieting Tips & Tricks

Apparently, God was laughing at me when I was trying to make an outside running plan (and stick to it!)... he does that ya know?! All of this cold weather and rain. ARGH! Just another test of learning how to be flexible, I suppose!

This past week I was clearly unable to take our LO out in the jogger because of the weather (lots of rain and cold) and because he had his first cold. I'm pretty sure doctors frown upon taking your sick kid out on the cold weather. LOL.

However, I did get in another circuit workout followed by a 1 mile jog on Wednesday. Friday was also cold and rainy so I just walk/jogged 2.5 miles on the treadmill. My circuit did get me a bit sore. Holy moly! I haven't done a push up in about 2 years. So that was great fun. We've also been trying to transition P from three naps to two naps per day. That's a story for another day. Sigh. If only the act of parenting could qualify for physical activity or make you gain muscle :) ... my husband and I would be ripped!

Get It Started Circuit

• 50 Jumping Jacks
•  50 Crunches
•  45 Jumping Jacks
•  45 Squats
•  40 Jumping Jacks
• 40 Push Ups
•  35 Jumping Jacks
• 35 Crunches
• 30 Jumping Jacks
• 30 Squats
• 25 Jumping Jacks
• 25 Push Ups
• 20 Jumping Jacks 
• 20 Crunches
• 15 Jumping Jacks
•  15 Squats
• 10 Jumping Jacks
•  10 Push Ups
•  5 Jumping Jacks
•  5 Crunches
• 5 Squats
• 5 Push Ups

I also decided that since I met my goal weight, I needed a new fitness goal. My husbands work retains 2 personal trainers in their on campus gym. They do physical fitness assessments for free! So I had the hubby ask if I could get one done. The concept of this physical assessment is different than just weighing. They track body composition (weight, % body fat, circumference of arms, thighs, waist and hips). I'm going to go in quarterly to get this checked out and see my progress! My goal is to tone up a little more, rather than weight loss. I'd like to see some of my circumferences go down. I was quite proud of my accomplishments since January. I apparently qualify in the "athletes" body fat range. Ha! Long are the days I considered myself an athlete. Oh well, I'll take it! This momma needs it.

Now for the diet! This part of my post stemmed from a work weight loss/biggest loser competition that just got started. All my co-worker gals have been talking about the diets they are going to do, etc etc. Something that gets me every time is how people talk about how they did "this" or "that" and lost a bunch of weight, only to gain it back when they stopped the program. I've been asked a lot about how I lost all the baby weight and then some. I wouldn't say that I have done anything excessive or drastic. I don't spend hours per day at the gym slaving on various machines. I don't do anything crazy with my diet such as eliminating sugars completely. I PERSONALLY think that the best means to weight loss is something that will be sustainable for the rest of your life.

Sure various no/low carb diets, calorie restricting on alternate days (i.e. 500kcal/day), etc., will help you lose weight fast. But they are diets that don't allow you to eat the food that you actually like and want. How realistic is it that you are going to spend the rest of your life never eating pasta again? Never having beer again? Most people end up off the bandwagon because they allow themselves to eat something like pizza while on the diet, realize how much they miss it, binge, and then fall off the bandwagon for months or years. They regain weight, and then realize they need to get back on their diet again.

What if it wasn't that complicated? What if all it entailed was eating moderately, incorporating foods you like, having a cheat meal every once in a while, and moderate exercise?

The way I utilize my diet to lose weight is by calorie counting. I have determined how many calories I need to eat per day to maintain my weight and also the amount I need to lose weight. During the week (Sunday through Saturday afternoon) I keep track of every calorie I consume, not including fresh fruits and veggies. I give myself Saturday night to have a cheat meal.

I hardly deny myself something that I want. If I want a McDonalds cheeseburger, I eat a cheeseburger. I just make sure to look up the nutritional information, calculate the calories and adjust what I eat the rest of the day. Some days just looking up the nutritional information averts me from actually eating said desired food. Ha! is a 800 kcal chocolate shake really worth it? Am I going to feel full after that?

I also cook dinner for my husband and I on the nights I don't work. I never force "diet" things on him. We have things such as cavatini, spaghetti, pork tenderloins, tacos, etc. Normal dinner foods basically. I allow myself to eat those things. I just make sure to keep track of everything I put into the entire meal and then separate everything into servings so I know how many calories are in each serving.

For example, the other night I made burgers. I separated the meat out into patties and calculated the calories per patty. I added how many calories the bun and slice of cheese were and that was all! Maybe a little time consuming when you first get started, but nothing more than a few minutes.

Some may think it's tedious, which, at first it can be. But it actually becomes second nature. As human beings, we tend to eat the same few things every day. For example, my breakfast consists of either oatmeal or eggs with an english muffin. I use an app on my phone to keep track of all my calories consumed vs burned. It just becomes a matter of logging into the app and clicking the oatmeal item I have saved.

I personally use the Fitbit app to log my foods and exercise. However, you can also use other apps such as My Fitness Pal.

Also, Calorieking.com has pretty much every food you could think of and the nutritional information. Most restaurants have information for nutrition also. The fitbit app also allows you to save your foods, which makes it super fast and convenient the next time that food needs to be logged.

Little Man helping me blog! Cheat meal is in the oven!

Stay tuned for a future blog on figuring out the appropriate amount of calories you should be eating to lose weight or maintain it! There is such a thing as too little calories per day, which becomes unhealthy!

I'd love to hear your comments about what works for you in regards to dieting, exercise, and weight loss/maintenance! Lets hear it in the comment section!

Couch to 5k - Run #3

Well, after 5 days of the flu/strep throat, this momma is back in action, however, little man is not. :( poor kiddo. We have a pediatrician appointment today.

Today marked run number three of my couch to 5k journey with jogger and baby in tow. It's getting much easier to push that little dude around! I do need to look into an "elements protector" for the jogger and baby. It was super windy this morning. I doubt that helped the babe with his cold. Eek! Worst mom award goes to me today! I think they make clear, plastic covers to block the wind. I might need to check those out.

I'm also loving the C25K app that I've been using. A few features on the app that I just stumbled across are the distance graph along with the pace graph. The distance graph plots out the distance you've ran for each run, and shows the goal of 5k along the top. The pace graph shows the average minutes/mile for each run. Theoretically, if I'm improving as I hope to be, the distance graph should trend upwards and the pace should trend downwards.

So, one thing I wanted to talk about on here that I have been seeing a lot about on the mom blogs I follow, are comparisons of other moms. One mom posts about her messy house and how to keep it clean. Another mom posts a picture of her ultra clean house. I think as moms we all need to stop comparing ourselves and trying to "one up" other moms! We are all in this crazy mess together! Everyone has a different situation and just because one house is clean compared to another doesn't make that mom "better!" I think we all forget sometimes that at the end of the day, the most important thing is that we have a happy healthy child/children/family. Are our kids growing strong? Are they learning and developing? Are they having fun? If so, I say you are doing a great job at being a momma! Who cares about the mess? In 30 years when your kids are grown, they won't remember or care that the house was a mess. They will remember, however, you being too busy to play because you were constantly cleaning or organizing! So to all you mom's out there, I say grab that coffee mug, take a deep breath, and go sit on the floor and play with your baby... or play outside with your gradeschooler, or whatever!! That's a SuperMom to me!

Rain Rain Go Away

I think one of the hardest parts of becoming a mom (for me) is not the sleeplessness, the dirty diapers, managing schedules, having a dependent, etc. I would say the biggest challenge for me was learning FLEXIBILITY. Oh my gosh. Is it ever a challenge.

Prior to becoming a mom, I was your average type A, OCD, life.planned.to.a.t gal. (Okay lets be honest, I still am) Everything was planned out, schedules made, etc. Every morning I would get up, work out then eat breakfast (because who can workout on a full stomach?), do some housework, get ready for the day, run some errands, etc.

Life definitely changed when P came along.  The first few weeks I spent enjoying our new guy, dealing with postpartum "things." P grew, and so did I. We thought life was superb after 4 weeks. We had him on a schedule, he was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks, things were looking good. I  was getting a new routine down (because as I said before you can't work out with a full belly, and you can't workout with full boobs, but you have to eat constantly to maintain your supply - oh the conundrum). Then hit the 4 month sleep regression.

To all you new moms and mom's to be, JUST WAIT. It was rough. P went through teething, developmental leap, growth spurt, and sleep regression ALL at the same time. Nap times went from an hour and a half to 25 minutes at best, unless being held of course. Some days it took 20 minutes of rocking in the bathroom with the water running just to get him to actually fall asleep. Awake times were filled with a tad bit a lot more fussiness. Who was this child? Surely not the happy little child robot I programmed to fit into my perfect little routine? I was spinning out of control.

Trying to stay healthy and active was my priority (after the more important things like family and faith). This meant finding a new rhythm. Pumping and eating was done while the babe was awake. Workouts were now completed on a full (or partially full) stomach. After P would finally get to sleep. I'd run to the treadmill, hop on and go until lil' man woke up. Some days I would get 20 minutes of running in, some days maybe 40 (if I was lucky). Some days I would workout for 20 minutes, and then finish my run a few hours later during P's next nap. It may not have been ideal, but at least I was getting my workout in!

We are hopefully (knock on wood), getting to a point where teething is slowing (we have two already!), the developmental leap is leveling, the growth spurt has stopped and naps are maybe trending back to normal (we have had two days of hour and a half naps).

Tuesday marked the first day of my 5k training with P and the jogger. Of course, I was up, rearing and ready to go on Wednesday. I took a peek outside and pure down pour. Of course. I looked sadly at the workout calendar I posted on my door and realized again, flexibility. It rained and rained with no hopes of getting P out in the jogger for a run. I modified my day and did an "at home" circuit instead. I decided I would move a few days around and do my other two runs for the week Friday and Saturday. All will be okay. I'm typing to you now from the comfort of my couch with a raging Strep Throat infection and no hopes of running Friday or Saturday. The (recently) old me would have had a tizzy. The fairly new, attempting to be flexible, mom says ITS OKAY.

Life is funny like that always throwing curve balls. Flexibility is key to surviving this new mom thing. I'm sure all you moms with 2+ kids are laughing at my realizations :) Do the best you can moms! Just keep momma-ing on. It will all work itself out. You are awesome!

Here's the rain day workout I did:

100m run (equates to .06 miles on the treadmill) ***
10 burpees
10 push ups
10 mountain climbers
10 full situps
10 sumo squats

Repeat whole workout 5 times.  Afterwards, I walked on the treadmill for a bit until I got bored ;)

*** If you don't have a treadmill, you could always jog in place, high knees, jog up and down the stairs, etc. The 100 m run took me about 35-40 seconds, therefore just jog in place for that amount of time.

C25K - Jogger Mom Style

So today marks day number 1 of my quest to complete a 5k with baby/jogger in tow.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am using the Couch to 5k app on my phone to help guide me. It is pretty awesome. The app gives you the workout and you simply press start. Lets be honest, all of us mommas need a little simplicity in our lives, and this my friends, does the trick.

The first workout consisted of jogging for 1 minute straight and brisk walking for 90 seconds; alternating those for 20 minutes. I'll be honest, for a gal who can run 5 miles, I thought this was going to be a little too easy. However, with the jogger and my 16 pound, 6 month old, it was definitely appropriate. I was shocked at how hard it was to run up hill while pushing the babe. Through the 30 minute workout, I ended up going only 2.11 miles. I felt like I had a lot more energy to give, and wanted to go more. However, I decided that it would be best to stick to the program so I don't get overly sore, develop shin splints, etc. I want to do this right so I can actually make my goal.

So reviewing the app afterwards, it has some pretty cool features. Like I mentioned in my last post, you can listen to your music and the app will still give you the "commands" over your music. Also, afterwards it gives you a nice little summary. The distance the app calculated vs what my Garmin said, were identical!

For those of you who are real AR like me, and LOVE checklists, this app also gives a little "checklist" for progress. 

Overall, I'd say day one went fairly well. I have a feeling it's going to be a bit of a struggle trying to coordinate runs between naps, bottles, solids, and pumping (it's way more fun to run when the tata's are NOT full!). I don't know how moms with more than one child do it! I feel like my head is constantly spinning! Some days it's a constant struggle of trying to prioritize my faith, friends, family, and health/fitness. Hopefully I can stick with it!! I think the biggest lesson I have learned (so far) to help me cope is being okay with saying "no" to people. I have this odd sense of guilt that everyone will be mad at me for not putting them first. I don't know why I am surprised when people totally get it and are okay with me being MIA for the time being. I have a (fairly) new baby! Duh! I think all of us moms (new and experienced) need to realize it's okay if we aren't perfect and we don't have to do it all! We are all just doing the best we can and that's gotta be good enough.

When Daddy's In Charge

I spend 3 days (12 hour shifts) a week working as an ICU nurse, and the other 4 days home with our LO. I think being a nurse is the best job in the world (other than being a mommy). Don't get me wrong, it has its moments. The days I work are long. I leave at 5:30 am. It's a 25 minute drive, when there isn't traffic. I have to go early so I can start pumping at 6am before my shift starts. I work from 7am-745pm. By the time I get home at 8:20pm, my LO is already asleep. It's super hard to not see him during the day. BUT, those days I have the ENTIRE day off, are SO worth it! I feel like a pseudo-SAHM... which I mean... don't we all just wish we could make our salary but not actually have to go to work????

Of my three shifts, I try to work one weekend one. My mom watches our LO the other two days of the week when I'm at work so we don't have to have day care. We are SUPER lucky and so blessed. The thing that gets me through the weekend shifts, are being able to Skype with my husband while I am pumping (sorry to all you other pumping mommas... I'm sure I have the WORST lactation room etiquette).

Today, as I sat down in my little lactation room "booth," I gave the hubs and our little stinker a quick Skype call. I was greeted with "ohhhhh babe." Somebody had a blowout.... not just your regular blow out. We are talking MASSIVE blow out. Everywhere. The look on my husbands face was priceless. The look on my LOs face was even more priceless. If only I would have screen shot it! They were both on the struggle bus, I'd say. What makes it better is that I don't think my husband knows the trick of "just stick em in the tub!" Haha! Too funny. Can I get an AMEN for when dad's have to do the dirty work. I secretly love it. :)

Because I was cut short due to said blowout, I had some time to check out various running apps for my 5k training that I am going to start this week! I found a great app called Couch to 5k... or rather C25K. It's a little cheesy, but I think it's going to be great. It has 3 workouts per week. The workouts start out VERY beginner, for those of you who are considering starting but need to east into it! I think this is just what I'm looking for since I am going to be starting from practically scratch with this hefty jogger stroller.

Each workout is different, all lasting approximately 25-30 minutes (including warm up). For example the first one starts out with a mixture of walking and jogging. The app tells you when to switch. You can even listen to regular music with the app and when it's time to switch, the app will talk over your playing music! This is great. The workouts eventually progress from a walk/jog to running the entire 5 k (9 weeks later). I'm hoping tomorrow, while I am pumping at work, I will have time to plan out my next 9 weeks worth of workouts to post on my bathroom door! Gotta keep myself accountable!

And for a finishing touch... what my husband probably looked like today when changing LOs blowout:

Have a great week Mommas! Keep on momma-ing on! You can do it!

Welcome To My Blog

As you may have seen in my "about me" section. I'm starting to write about life as a new mom, getting back into my pre-pregnant bod, working full time and all of the fun in between!

Back in October of 2015, my husband (B) and I welcomed our amazing little guy, P, into our lives. It has been such an incredible journey thus far. It has also been quite the learning curve. I swear I learn something new every day.

Prior to having our LO, I had quite a rough pregnancy. I battled hyperemesis gravidarum along with a nasty GI bug that left me in the hospital for a week with 104 degree temperatures. By the grace of God, both P and I made it through. However, my whole life felt like it had been turned over. I hardly had any strength afterwards. Getting up off the couch was hard enough, let alone going back to my hour or so long workouts. Ya, it wasn't happening. It's crazy what one week of severe illness and hospitalization can do to your strength. I made it my mission to try and eat healthy and walk every day. Little baby steps.

After P came along in October, I was fortunate to have lost my 28 pounds of pregnancy weight within the first 4-5 weeks. I didn't really "do" anything special other than breastfeed, eat healthier choices and walk occasionally. I gave myself 2 months of being a new mom, lots of baby snuggles, and all that jazz before really committing myself back to a workout plan. Ironically, January 1st and resolutions came about, and I decided that it was time to get back on the band wagon.

I made my goals small. I would chart my weight every Monday and Friday. I would also keep a calendar and give myself a star for the days I hit 10k steps on my fitbit. (Okay, so stars aren't just for first graders! LOL) My first weight goal was just 5 pounds. Nothing too drastic. Soon that came and went and with each small goal met I would make another goal. My goals consisted of things such as 3 days per week having greater than 15k steps, or weekly weight goals. If I met my weekly goal, I allowed myself to have a cheat day on Saturday!

weight log/tracker

hung it on the bathroom door to keep me reminded!

Today I am down 20 pounds from my pre-pregnant weight. Feeling so great! But as you momma's know (or maybe it's just me... hopefully not!), post-baby bod, even with weight loss, is still not the same as pre-baby bod. It's so weird! Things just SHIFT. I don't even know how to describe it! Ha! I decided with my husband it was time for a new "goal!" Enough with the treadmill running and getting my steps in. I need to up the ante.

I decided that I was going to run a half marathon... WITH BABY AND JOGGER! I know I know. Crazy talk. My husband, B, and I decided to take P out for a walk/jog with the jogger. I don't know what I was getting myself into with that half marathon talk. Jogging with baby is HARD work. Even on flat surfaces! Ha! Who am I kidding. I couldn't train for a half nearly yet, and surely not with a baby.

I decided it would be more reasonable to start from scratch, so I don't get burnt out, and train for a 5k with the baby/jogger. (long term I would still like to do a half with jogger in tow.) I think this will be much more manageable, and I'll stick with it longer. I have a few new "gadgets" (thank you tax refund) and a new phone app that I'm super excited to talk about on here!

However, my boobs are done pumping (the only time I really get to myself) and I have to be up at 430am when MOMBIE mode begins.... aka work.

Xoxo! Amanda