Re-fit to Pregnancy: Update 3

Well, I'm back around this week for my check-in. In review, this week hasn't been as good as it could have been. I did more snacking than I should have and ate a few more cookies than necessary. Another week, another chance to get better. I've been exercising pretty well though, and I think that is helping a lot.

Arms: 14 inches (lost half an inch)

Bust: 43 (another half inch gone)

Waist: 37.5 (down one inch)

Hips: 46 (down half an inch)

Thigh: 27.5 (lost 1.5 inches)

Weight: 92.5 kg

The winner this week are my thigh measurements. When I started out it was at 29 inches. Last week I lost nothing on my thigh, but this week it took a plunge! I bet it's because I've been doing running 3x a week.

Overall, not a great week, but not a terrible one either. I just need to work a little bit harder.

I started reading a book from the library this weekend. I'm going to review it once I've finished it, but it's called Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads. It's a really good read, actually, and I'm learning a lot about what I should be doing regarding my food and will be implementing it once I've finished the book.

What have you found this week to be inspirational?

On Body Image

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be one of those people who looks in the mirror and sees something completely different to the reflection? Well, I'm one of them. It's weird. It has been a problem for me for a number of years, and not in the way you expect.

This is the normal body image issue.

I look in a mirror and don't see myself fatter than I am. I see myself better than I am. I know I am curvy and have giant boobs and have too much weight around my stomach. I know it because I feel it. I feel the way my jeans cut in and the way my underwear rolls down because my stomach is too big. I know it because every few months I have to shop for a few things because my clothes don't fit anymore. I know because I choose to wear sweatpants and yoga pants more often than I do a dress. But I look in the mirror and I don't see that.

How weird is this?

I see it in pictures of myself that others take. I see what I should see when I look in the mirror. Sometimes I almost get a glimpse of myself, my real self in the mirror when I'm not concentrating, but that's all I get. A glimpse.

So this means I have been in denial for years about my weight.

When I moved to New Zealand in 2010, I had been living quite a healthy lifestyle. Yoga, gluten-free, lots of walking/biking. At that point I was at 82 kg and pretty happy with the route I was going. My goal then was 75 kg and I knew I could get there.

And here I am 93 kg almost four years later and I never got closer to that 75 then when I first landed here. Oops.

Today I came across a website called Model My Diet and it creates an image of you based on your measurements and body type. It also can create a model for your goal weight. Pretty cool for someone who can't imagine her current body image.

So here I am, as the program projects me. It's probably pretty close to reality.

I don't look too bad here.

Oh wait, there's the problem.

Seeing this shows me where I know I'm carrying my weight. But now I can see it. I mean, I can feel it too, but pictures help. I'm not brave enough to take pictures of myself in any state of undress for weight loss (besides, it didn't help anyway).

So that is at my current weight.

Here is my goal weight model.

Yep, still curvy.

Much more reasonable.

This was a fun little exercise to do while drinking my water today. (I was out for a bbq lunch and realized on my way home that I've not had any of my 2 liters of water today...I had a 6 ounce glass of tea and 1 pint of cider...oops again). I'm drinking a lot of water to get rid of my headache that I have got since I haven't had enough water today.

Just for giggles I plugged in what I would look like at 54 kg.

The last time I was this small was when I hit puberty. 17 years ago.

Trying to find a healthy body image of myself is hard work. Especially when the mirror doesn't match up to reality. What have you done to change your self image?

What's Helping Me

For the first time in my life (basically), I've been following a workout and diet regime without dropping it in the first week. I'm now at a week and a half into this lifestyle change and I've noticed a few things that have been helping me stay strong with it.

1- Being able to truthfully check off the daily workout on the printout on the fridge. I love checking things off lists (and making them).

Gotta love The Office

2- Having a partner to keep cheering me on. I can get all the derogatory remarks from other people, but I need a cheerleader. Ginger has been great in asking if I've done my workout for the day and supporting me in this. This has been a huge help so far. I even got Ginger to go running with me tonight! Woohoo!

Funny story, Ginger actually does fire-stick twirling. It's super cool. Not like this.

3- This blog is helping too. I feel like I don't want to lie to you guys either, so I'm pushing myself so I can make a good honest report on Mondays.

4- I do the majority of the grocery shopping for us and I'm getting better about resisting my sugar fizzy drinks and chocolate biscuits from the supermarket (not that I don't wish I could have them, because man, the craving gets bad). I had to pick up some items today for us and I resisted getting anything not on the list. I feel better walking out of the supermarket knowing I didn't fall to temptation. It doesn't always happen, but that feeling is nice. I'm cheering myself on when I make a good food choice.

So as I'm sitting here, reflecting on my progress so far, and feeling the quiver in my legs telling me I worked out effectively today, I can smile a little bit.

What have you found to help keep you on the lean and healthy track?

Re-fit to Pregnancy: Monday Weigh In, Part 2

Well, it's been a week since I got semi-serious about my health. Actually, it's been a pretty good week. I managed to complete all of my daily exercises and decided to start training for a 5K. First run is tonight.

So today's weigh-in:

I managed to lose a few inches in this week, I wonder if it's due to losing water weight and eating better. I'll take it though!

Arms: 14.5 (no change)

Bust: 43.5 (lost half an inch)

Waist: 38.5 (lost 2.5 inches!)

Hips: 46.5 (lost 1 inch)

Thigh: 29 (didn't change)

Weight: 93 kg (down 1 kilo!)

I have gotten better about drinking 2 litres of water every day and working more vegetables into my diet, but it's still hard some days. I had a bad day on Saturday- got a freezer pizza for lunch from the shop and downed that baby like it was going out of style. Oops.

I didn't get any yoga in this week. It was a frantic week of gardening before the cyclone hit on the weekend, so I blame that. But really, it's just that I didn't want to make time for it. I'm hoping I can work in a little bit of yoga in the morning when I get up with Ginger. He goes to work an hour before I do, so I was thinking that if I actually got up at the same time as him, then I could get my Good Morning Yoga Sequence in.

I don't feel any lighter or better, but taking these measurements proves that what I'm doing is making a difference. Here's to week 2!

A New Challenge

I have to admit that I particularly hate running. Not mildly, but severely. I really hate running.

This is true.

I ran cross country for one season when I was in 7th grade. That was bad. I was bad. The mascots for the other schools still beat me (they were kids who were too young to be on the team, but who apparently LOVED running). So what does my tirade on running have to do with anything?

Well, I'm 30 years old and I have decided to run my first (and probably last) race as an adult. I'm going to run in a 5K the first weekend in May. I might be crazy. I'm probably crazy, but it's a good challenge. I tried to do the Couch to 5K program a couple of years ago, but dropped it because I didn't like it. So I'm brushing it off and starting it tomorrow (can't today as there's a cyclone here). I'm going to do this. Maybe I'm choosing this because I feel like blogging will keep me accountable and because a challenge might be good for me.

I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that my health and weight may be stopping us from conceiving, so I'm determined to finally do something about it. If this isn't enough motivation, then I don't know what is.

So when the time comes, I'm going to be running a 5K race. I'll probably look like this:

I asked Ginger if he would do it with me, but he was a bit evasive about it. He hurt his back about 10 years ago and hasn't really done any running since then. He may just be waiting for me at the finish line instead. I might see if he will train with me at least a couple times a week and see how he does from there. But how amazing would it be to do this together?

PS-I'm the slowest runner in the world. But if I can finish this, then I'll be happy with that.

Re-Fit to Pregnancy: Monday Weigh In

One thing I feel that has been holding me back on getting pregnant is my health. Let me be honest here, I love food and I hate exercise. Really hate it. I've pretty much always hated it. I go through spurts of healthy living where I practice yoga, go for walks and eat better, but then I fall back into my old habits of salty, sweet and sugary drinks. It's a vicious cycle and I spend a lot of time beating myself up over it. Which leads me back to those sweets and drinks.

I am an emotional eater.

image via Change Your Mind Body Health

100%, without a doubt, an emotional eater.

I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm angry. And when I'm upset because I didn't exercise or the number on the scale went up instead of down? You guessed it, I eat. I do this to feel better, which it doesn't do, so then I feel bad and .... yeah, I think you get it.

How in the world can I break this cycle of emotional eating?

I've tried purging the house of all bad foods. I've taken pictures of me overweight and plastered them on the walls to encourage myself to stick with it. I've done meal preps and exercised a lot and still here I am, 20 kgs overweight.

But this time I have something more tangible waiting for me. I really want to be a mom and have a baby. My health (or current lack thereof) is quite possibly the roadblock standing in my way. I won't know until I do something about it. So I'm trying, again. Little goals to start out with though, I can't do big changes without crashing and burning.

I'm drinking 2 liters of water a day.

I'm starting a 30 day challenge to plank in addition to a 30 day Squat challenge.

I'm riding my bike to work once a week (that's about 6km total for the day).

I'm going to do 45 minutes of yoga twice a week.

I'm changing my breakfast to smoothies made at home (I'm going to post about that soon).

And that's what I'm starting with. If I do more, then that's great, but I have to start somewhere and this is where I start.

This is me, two weeks ago. All 94 kg. of me.

So today's weigh in and measurements:

Weight: 94 kg.

Bust: 44 inches

Waist: 41 inches

Hips: 47.5 inches

Upper arms: 14.5 inches

Upper thigh: 29 inches

Height: 5 feet 4 inches (I don't expect that to change).

Goal: 74 kg.

What suggestions do you have to making healthier lifestyle choices?

Anniversary

Last week was our one year anniversary for our wedding. I can't believe it's been a whole year. We've been busy. Working at home, travelling to the USA, working, gardening, getting chickens (and learning how to raise them), having a mental breakdown when the work got to be too much.

Yeah, you get the idea.

Time flies so fast the older we get. It's scary, man. Really terrifying. I'm 30 years old, my husband, Ginger, is 32. I still forget quite often that I'm no longer in my 20s and allowed to act the way I do sometimes. Other days, I feel like I'm in my 50s. I guess that's just how it goes.

So on our anniversary, we had a nice dinner, listened to the music from our wedding reception, watched our wedding video on the computer while snuggling in bed. I am so glad we found a student to do our video for us. I love that we can watch that video and see and hear our vows once again. I loved all the pictures we got of the wedding and the memories, but man, that video kills it all.

Also, year old wedding cake? Pretty tasty.

the table set for dinner. Wild pork and veggies came later.

The slice of cake we saved. Dark chocolate cake with
chocolate ganache and peppermint frosting.

These coloured bottles? I saved them from our wedding and use them often.

Taking Charge

Six months ago, when we decided to start TTC, I never thought I'd be here. I never thought I'd struggle to conceive. I figured I'd get pregnant pretty quickly. Don't we all though?

I said I would just see what would happen for six months before trying any at-home helpers. Haha. I went one month before I started charting.

Charting has opened my eyes. I can't believe this is something that I wasn't told about as a younger woman. Sure, I took sex education in school, but that basically just scared you into thinking that it took only one sexual encounter to end up pregnant. I mean, seriously. That was the fear as a 16 year old. So I was a virgin until I was 24. Disclaimer, that's not the only reason I wasn't having sex until that age...just probably a big portion of it.

Charting is a tool that gives me the knowledge and thus the power to understand my own body. This body that I was taught was a mysterious turncoat of a residence. Willing and able to deceive me at a moment's notice. But little did I know that by taking my temperature every morning and using a free app on my phone, I would be able to understand, for the first time in 16 years, what my body was doing and why. Mind blown.

Sherlock image via tumblr

So what is the charting thing? Easy. I have an alarm set for 5:30 am on my phone. Every day I wake up, turn off the alarm, pop in my thermometer, doze for a minute until it beeps at me, take it out and go back to bed. When I really wake up, I check the temp and enter it into the Fertility Friend (FF) app on my phone. The app takes care of making the chart and predicting (pretty accurately) when I'm going to ovulate and expect my dear old Aunt Flo to show up. There are a lot of options with FF to aid with TTC, but all I do is the temperature input. I'll not go into how amazing I think it is that our resting body temperature changes due to the hormones in our body and is the only way to confirm ovulation (apart from blood draws). The human body is an amazing thing and I am so glad to know even a little bit more about myself now since I started temping, as it's called.

So we're at six months trying and I still haven't got it right, obviously, but at least I know myself better and can take some of the anxiety and wondering "Am I pregnant? Am I pregnant?" mantra out of my head for the most part. Here's hoping it doesn't take another six months to get a positive test.

A Hello and a Hug

I'm not quite sure how to start this post, and this blog.

It has been on my mind for awhile to blog about our journey towards making a family, this ongoing journey that consumes a lot of my waking hours (and my sleeping ones as well).

Just bullet point it then...I say to myself, to get the information out there. Sigh.

~ I'm 30 years old and thought I'd be a mother by now.
~ I've always known I wanted to be a mother.
~ I thought it would be an easy path since my mother had 10 kids in 10 years and my sister got pregnant pretty easily too.
~ I have no idea if I can have children.
~ I am trying to change my lifestyle to help us conceive (Coca Cola be damned.)
~ I am a nanny to two rambunctious boys and auntie to two boys and two girls, whom I love dearly.
~ I live in the country in New Zealand with my husband (Ginger), a dog (Puppy), a moody cat (Miss Glares a lot, MG for short) and three chickens (Boo, Tilly and Pearl).
~ Originally I'm from the USA.

I'm not sure how to end this introduction.

Once this post is finished, I plan on tackling the issues of fertility, TTC (trying to conceive), country life in New Zealand and (hopefully) having a baby and raising a family in NZ.

I hope you stick along for the ride and feel free to comment and dialogue about the posts as I put them up. Ending this with a hug, the only thing that makes me feel better after another unsuccessful cycle.