Six Pounds Down...9 to go!!!

Three weeks ago I had a little heart to heart with myself.  I was tired of feeling so down about holding on to my "baby" fat and then gaining a little more on top of that because I continued to feed that depression with loads of cookies and sweets...a vicious circle.  Yes, I know I just had a baby 6 1/2 months ago, but I didn't feel healthy and I was so tired all the time.

Since I am still breast feeding I shouldn't technically go on a diet because that wouldn't be good for Harrison.  So I went online to get ideas on how to lose the weight safely.  They said that it is safe to lose 1-2 pounds a week and you could do this by using up 3500 extra calories each week that was only 500 calories a day.  And to get the 500 calories you could do a little bit of exercise...walking 30 minutes a day, walking up and down stairs, house work...and/or reducing the calories you took in so I could technically stop second servings at dinner, not grab that extra couple of cookies, stop baking sweets to tempt myself to eat them, etc. 

So I sat down and wrote out a plan on simple things I could do and put down a realistic goal.  Since we are going back to the States for my cousin's wedding in July I thought that getting down to my pre-preggie weight by then was a must...because it will be bloody hot in July in Iowa and I don't have any "fat" summer clothes to wear to be blunt!  At that point I had 15 weeks to lose 15 pounds.  

Here are the rules I set for myself:

• Walk 3-4 times a week - doesn't matter how much time or distance
  
• Jog 1-2 times a week - at least 10 - 20 minutes each time
  
• Do 20 reps up and down the stairs
  
• Do 100 sit ups everyday
  
• Drink 8 glasses of water a day
  
• No snacking after dinner
  
• Eat a big breakfast
  
• Limit myself to eating dessert 1x a week (on average)
  
• Focus on eating as many fruits and veggies I can during meals
  
• Mark down every time I eat a "bad" food - sweets, soft drinks, etc. - to remind me that I need to do extra exercise to burn that off
  

I am not really set up to be able to join a gym right now so I have been trying to find creative ways to get meaningful exercise.  I started out with some long walks.  The kids and I walked all the way to Tesco in Werrington which is a 3 mile round trip.  It was a great workout, but gosh that was such a long ways and the kids get a bit antzy sitting that long in the stroller.  So I thought doing a little jog to our village park would be good since our stroller was set up for that.  It was only about 1 1/2 miles round trip with our stop to swing for 20 minutes.  Well after doing that a couple of times, I came to find that somewhere on my route that I was running over some thorns that were big enough to puncture holes in the stroller wheels, so I tried finding a different route.  Then the weather has be completely "English" the past week so it's been hard to bring the kids out when they both started getting runny noses.   I've been relying now on some short walks up to the park when the sun comes out for an hour or so.  Also I have been able to get out on Saturday mornings to run on my own, but I find that I really enjoy running with the kids because they keep me company.

I've done the situps twice now and the 20 reps of stairs in a row once and stopped because it about killed me and then I was sore for three days (pretty pathetic I know).  I will start focusing on just doing the situps soon though because there's a lot of extra skin to tighten up.  I really no excuse for not doing those because after the kids go to bed and I'm just lying there watching TV anyway.  The stairs I will save for rainy days.

The sweets thing was really hard, but honestly after two weeks of tough will power I don't have the craving for them as bad.  When I do get hungry in the afternoon I go for a banana, cheese and crackers, a handful of peanuts or just a big glass of water.  When I do have a sweet it's just one or one bite (it doesn't help when Min makes this AMAZING lime tart and gives me two whole pieces to take home - I had to spread it out over a few days).  I did also pig out on goodies Tuesday night as Min, Sarah and I watched The Bridget Jones' Diary which was quite fitting since she gained enough weight for the movie to be my current weight and complained how hard it was to gain...how horrible for her!

Well this morning I stepped on the scale and I have dropped 6 pounds and I can really tell it.  I have been feeling better and there is something about seeing the little numbers go down that builds up your morale.  The "fat" pants that I bought at Christmas time are now loose and I tried on a pair of my pre-preggie fitting pants (trousers) and I could actually get them buttoned, but they were really tight.

I've got 3 more months to drop at least to my first goal weight to fit back in the summer clothes.  After that my goal is to get back to my pre-preggie weight with Addison (another 10 lbs)  which right before I got pregnant with her I had dropped down to my "high school" weight....ahh the high school or wedding dress weight...I know it is do-able and it just takes time!