Absent

*insert whining and complaining here*

I realize  that I have been absent. Adrienne continues to remind me to update my blog.
But I just can't find the motivation to do it.


In my time of absence, I have managed to lose more weight, bringing my total to about 17 pounds. I am chipping away slow and steady.
The re-entry of sugar and flour in to my diet really affected my weight loss, and I've had a hard time getting back on track.


My baby wants to be held all the time. Always. Which I'm trying to cherish because I know she'll be my last one, but sometimes a girl just wants her space. And I know that sounds horrible and selfish, and I'm really sorry. But I'm just trying to keep it real here.


I did another 5K on Sunday, and am just feeling super frustrated with my fitness level. I'm not getting any faster, and while my legs feel great while I'm running, my heart rate gets up over 200 really quickly. I'm really starting to worry that I won't be able to do my half marathon.

Reality Check

I've been feeling really good about myself.
I've lost almost 13 pounds.
I've stuck with my whole sugar free craziness.
I fit in to non maternity jeans.
I've been exercising at least three times a week (including a 4 mile run, thankyouverymuch).

And then today my three year old looks up at me with his enormous blue eyes and very innocently says "Mommy, when you sit down you look fat."


Never mind that I have no idea where he heard that.
Or that he didn't mean to hurt my feelings, because after all, he's only three.
I had the whole "that's not kind" talk with him. And the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" talk, too.
Because I think that I might be totally mortified if he said that to anyone except me.


But I got a very serious reality check that I still have so far to go. And as awesome as I feel, it was a true reflection of how other people see me. He wasn't lying.


So I guess I'll have to refrain from sitting for a while longer. You know, until I don't look fat anymore.

Coaster 5K

I did my first 5K of the season!!
Husband had signed us up for the Coaster 5K while I was still pregnant with the thought that it would motivate me to get back in to running shape after the baby was born.
Not so much.
I've had a really hard time fitting work out time in to my schedule, meaning that I was totally unprepared for this race.


The night before the 5K the three big kids spent the night with grandparents, so all we had was the baby. We enjoyed a nice quiet dinner out and then headed home because I can no longer keep my eyes open past 10pm.


That morning, we got up early, dropped the baby off at grandma's house, and headed up to the race. We got there in plenty of time and walked around a little bit to stay warm. Because, you know, 55 degrees is really cold for us So Cal natives.

We lined up in the 14 minute mile pace group and tried to make our way around all of the walkers knowing that we would be "running" for at least the first mile.


I actually ran the whole first mile. At one point, I tried to stop, but Husband wouldn't let me. (Thank you Husband!!)


The rest of the race was a mixture of walking and running, all while trying to beat a pace of a 15 minute mile. I had recently downloaded the Runkeeper app to my phone, and it updates you every 5 minutes of your pace so that you can adjust accordingly. I had set it to a goal pace of 15 minutes per mile, so it made pacing really easy.


At the finish line of the race, there were lines and lines of boysenberry pie, and if you are from around these parts, you know that Knott's Berry Farm is known for their pie. Well, because of my whole sugar free until Easter thing, I had to say no. So my piece of pie came home as payment for babysitting the kids.

The race was fun and flat, and I would do it again in the future. It also made me painfully aware of how out of shape I am and how much training I have to do in order to be ready for my half marathon in september. I'm kind of starting to freak out. Only 5 months left!!!

I did it

I refrained.
It was my birthday, and I held out on the sugar.
I did have a bun with my hamburger for dinner, so the flour thing went out the window for the night, but I didn't have any sugar.
And then, when I baked cupcakes for little man I didn't even lick my fingers. Or the beater. Or the inside of the bowl.
I proved to myself that I can totally do this.

Husband is awesome, and he found cupcakes that are sugar free and flour free, so I did have a sweet treat, but we all kind of agreed that the real thing is way better.
So I guess I'll just wait until the first birthday celebration after Easter to enjoy the real thing.
Until then, it's no sugar for me!!!

But it's my birthday

So, I gave up sugar and white flour, at least until Easter.


And so far? I've done really well. I didn't even add in alternatives to sugar until about two weeks ago. And even now, it's not like I eat them every day.


The flour? Except for a one time oopsimstarvingijustateapieceofleftoverpizza mistake, I've been right on.


But I failed to take in to consideration that my birthday will happen this week. And my little guy will turn two just one day later.
So this begs the question. 
Do I allow myself a sweet treat on my birthday?

You see, the whole reason that I did this was to prove to myself that I was the one with the control, not the food. And "they" always say that once you don't eat sugar you don't crave it anymore. Well, "they" are big fat liars. I want sugar every.single.day. I have turned down cupcakes, and cookies, and ice cream, and muffins, and breads on so many occasions over the past couple of weeks. And I have never caved in (even when those Girl Scouts shove a box of cookies in my face on every grocery store visit).


So have I proven my self control enough to indulge?


Or would you consider it cheating?

Do you want fries with that?

I've been really good about staying sugar free and laying off of the white flour. 

However, these beauties have been making a regular appearance in my diet.
I feel like I've been compensating for the lack of other junk food in my diet by splurging on french fries about 5 times a week. Yikes!!


I'm still managing to lose weight, and so far I'm down 6.8 pounds (Yay!), but I can't imaging how the scale would be moving if I could just cut these out of my diet too!


And if I were picky, then I could just avoid the places that I enjoyed the most. But unfortunately, I'm totally nondiscriminatory in my french fry eating practice.


I'm totally trying to justify it by saying "one thing at a time", but I really know that I've got to get a handle on this too.


Ugh. 

What's for dinner?

So I guess menu planning is the biggest rage around mommy land, which seems kind of like a no brainer to me. I mean, how else do you figure out what you're going to have for dinner?






There are a billion sites that offer services for you, fancy craft ways to make it all cute and fun, and tons of free printables to help you organize yourself.


But I've always just done it, more or less because I HATE going to the grocery store. Even more so now that I always have at least two littles in tow.


So here's what works for us.


We shop at Costco for things like milk, eggs, and meat. As well as things that we go through by the trough full, such as string cheese, yogurt, bread, waffles, and peanut butter.


At the beginning of the week, Husband and I sit down and brainstorm about which meals sound good for dinner for the week. He's pretty good about letting me try out new recipes that I've found on Pinterest, and we both kind of know which recipes we all enjoy and try to base our decisions on what we have in the freezer. 

After we've decided which meals we're going to have, we make the grocery list for what we need. One of us will do the grocery shopping, and usually pick up some extra staples, ( like black beans and diced tomatoes), and we always have all of the ingredients for tacos ready, just in case. (Always)


Then we look at our calendar for the week. If we have an evening engagement, I try to make something that gets put together fast, and that will make enough food for our childcare workers (read: grandparents) to enjoy a meal too.


The rest of the week, we kind of just decide in the morning which meal we will have, at which time I take the meat out of the freezer, or assemble the ingredients in the crock pot.


It's super simple and saves us so much time and money! Only making one shopping trip a week has been a life saver. And while I would love to use fancy things like this, or these printables, my handy pen and notepad work just as well.


Do you meal plan?