Give me my pants back!

By the end of my pregnancy with Gracie, I had gained almost 50 lbs.  I was convinced it was because I had a huge monster baby inside me, and the rest was water weight.  HA! I couldn't be more wrong.  Baby G came out only weighing 6 lbs.  When she was two weeks old, I had only lost about 16 lbs. of actual baby weight, and then I was stuck.  I would get so mad when friends of mine, who had their babies, 1, 2 or 3 months after mine would announce, very shortly after the birth of their babes, that they were already back in their pre-pregnancy pants.  yay for you guys.  When Gracie turned 2 months old, I was still wearing my maternity pants because they were all that fit.  How depressing! 
Finally I had to accept the fact that I'm not like my skinny friends.  Breastfeeding was not a weight loss key for me, and I had to start literally working my butt off if I ever wanted to take control of my body again. 
So I stopped buying pre-made cookie dough, I learned how to bake my own whole grain bread, and I registered for a half marathon.
I can't count calories, it makes me crazy and if I'm thinking about food all day, then I just want it more. 
I try to eat only whole, real foods.  I avoid processed foods as much as I can.  This has made me learn new recipe, as well as change my tastes.  I keep around plenty of fruits and veggies and I drink a lot of water.  I eat either a salad or a green smoothie for breakfast.

And finally, finally, my little girl is 7 months, and I am down 26 lbs, and 3 belt holes.  And yes, I pulled out my jeans again! 

Family Health Update

I just feel like writing this post because if I ever read back on this blog as the story of my life, I will want to know the outcome of my illness this week.  So it turns out I just had a 24 hour flu thing.  I never believed in the 24 hour flu.  Literally.  I thought it was a myth, or food poisoning. But I really was just sick for seriously 24 hours, to the minute.  I got sick around 4:00 while I was at the zoo, went from feeling great to suddenly being punched in the stomach, I felt well enough to go for my short 2.5 mile run that evening, but my crazy leg pain wasn't because of my run, it was because of the flu.  I know this because Skylar contacted the exact same thing I had the next day, he started feeling sick around 4:00, couldn't sleep all night because he was achy, spent the day throwing up, then was better by dinner the next day, around the same time he started feeling ill.
I cant' say whether or not Gracie got any form of the flu as well because she got some shots the day Skylar was sick and was acting a bit unhappy, but I couldn't tell whether it was from the shots, or the flu.  She never threw up, just acted clingy, sleepy and achy. 

oh where oh where has my she-lion gone?

I practically never get sick.  In the four years I've been married I can count on less than a whole hand how many times I've felt really down in the dumps.  Two of those times are today, and about 3 weeks ago when we all had something icky.
I didn't ever realize how healthy I was until I married my sweetheart, who, bless his heart, gets sick probably 6 times a year.  And I never do anything different around him, and I never catch whatever he's got.  In October 2009, hubby got the swine flu. I didn't even catch the sniffles.
So far, it seems that Gracie has been blessed with my she-lion immune system that catches and kills anything within arms length.  Her daddy got sick the week she was born, being a new and excited father he couldn't resist but to still hold her and love on her.  And being the admiring wife of that new daddy, I couldn't resist how cute the daddy daughter pair were, so I didn't intervene.  Gracie was fine, she didn't get sick.  Daddy got sick again a few months later.  Again we didn't do anything different, and neither of us she-lions were slowed down.
At 5 and 1/2 months Gracie picked something up from somewhere else, and much to my dismay, she got her mommy sick (and to no one's surprise mommy got daddy sick too). 
And now. I don't know where it came from, but I want it to go away.  I feel absolutely disgusting.  I ran only 2.5 miles last evening and hurt more than I ever have after much lengthier and more strenuous workouts.  Then I couldn't sleep all night either because my screaming legs woke me up or because I felt like hurling.
I'd take a bad cold over a nauseous tummy any day.
Please please she-lion, come back!
 

To regret or not to regret. That is the question.

I've come up with a new theme for my choice making. 
Regret.
As in, which would I regret more, option A or B? 
I think about this every time Skylar nudges me at 5:00am and says, are you going to get up and go to the gym?
And I think to myself:  No Thanks, I'd rather stay in my warm bed.
Then I ask myself, which will I regret more, staying in bed? or getting up and working out?  As tempting as it is to stay in bed, I know that I'll be happier if I get up. 
So I do (most days). 
I find myself in a similar situation with eating chocolate.  Nearly every hour I hear my head having this conversation:
What do you want more? The brownie, or the skinny body?
This one is a toss up.  Sometimes I want the brownie more, sometimes I want my skinny body back more.  Unfortunately, in this case, I'm really asking myself the wrong question.  I should be asking the same question as I do when I'm in bed.  Would I regret eating the brownie more than I would regret refraining from the delicious chocolatey yumminess?  In that case, I would say, although I really really really want the chocolate more than I want to meet my goal (in that very second), I do, at least, know that I would regret it promptly afterward.  Thus, I would choose not to partake. 

You see, this is how my inner devil tricks me. I need to be more consistent in thinking about which option I would regret more rather than which one I happen to want more at the moment. 
Gotta think big picture.
Or in my case, skinny picture?


P.S. I'm not like most girls who has their pregnancy weight melt away by only breathing and breastfeeding.  For me it's been a hard, grueling process, but I'm getting there. So far, I've lost 17 lbs, only 11 more to go until I'm at pre-pregnancy. (then 10 more after that to really satisfy my vanity)