Insanity Day 1!

Well, it's been a little over a year since I wrote in this blog. So here we go again!
Lot's has happened in this past year. I found out that I was pregnant again in August of last year and I just delivered our second baby boy in March. I started out the pregnancy at an unfortunate 230 pounds (yikes!) and lost twenty pounds over the duration of my pregnancy and gained 19 back. So the day I delivered I was 229. At my six week check up today I weighed 222- definitely not a number I'm proud of, but it's only 12 pounds off of where I was when I delivered my first son and so as much as I hate it, it's my starting number.
Today, I started Insanity. Getting to the gym with an almost two year old and a newborn is freakishly difficult. So I'm going to cancel my gym membership and do at home workouts that I can do in between breastfeeding sessions. My two year old goes to bed at 8:00 pm and so today I fed the baby and then went and did the first dvd of Insanity. The Fit Test.



I'm not very fit.



But I already knew that. But if you were to imagine a drunken/sedated penguin, that's probably what I looked like. And I'm ok with that. You have to start somewhere.

I had to modify about three of the workouts in the fit plan because I am just not in a place to be able to do everything. I would do it at least once and then after that I would modify it. I'm quite sore after just the first day, but I'm excited to get more into it. Terrified beyond belief, but excited.

Why is my body punishing me for NOT being Pregnant?

Periods suck! Especially when your period starts without warning at 5:30 in the morning.... but you know what else sucks? When you are on your period and you want to do your work out for the day. It's down right hard! But as soon as Liam takes his nap I am totally going to be doing today's work out! 


MAY 2, 2013
Day 2!
20 lunges
50 jumping jacks
25 sec plank
Rest day for squats

originally the jumping jacks were called star jumps. And I didn't know what those were. I thought it was jumping in the shape of a star, but then I youTubed them and they are jumping jacks. I can already tell today is going to be a long day...

May Mania Challenge!!

Ok! So when I was pregnant I got this iphone app called 'Baby Bump'. It was awesome because there were lots of women who were funny, there was lots of really nifty info and it was a great app. After Liam was born I kept the app and there was a forum called Postpartum Fitness. In this forum these ladies had posted their success stories and it is really fun to read about what different things have worked for them. They have really good ideas and for the month of May there is this challenge called the Muscle Mania May Challenge! It's great for beginners like me, and it's nice to have a list of things to do everyday. So along with my thirty day squat challenge I'm doing this May Mania. Today is my day three of my squat challenge, so I'm up to 60 squats! Woot! Tomorrow is rest day and then Friday I'll start up again with 70 squats.

May Mania Challenge:
Day 1:
10 pushups
20 crunches
20 sec planks
along with my 60 squats

Catch up!

I have not been able to get to the gym for quite awhile and I'm kicking myself for that, but what I have managed to do is do ab exercises every morning while Liam is drinking his morning milk, and then I've started doing the squat challenge. What is the squat challenge? It is a month long squat regimen that starts at 50 squats a day and then escalates to about 250 a day. I started it a month ago, but I ended up getting really sick and couldn't even get up out of bed for about four days and so I had to stop. But I'm starting up again!

Also, my mom and I went and got those Smart One dishes, and these Romaine Lettuces, so that's what my diet has been lately!

For my Romaine Lettuce salad, I usually just chop up one of the heads of Romaine, cut up some chicken breast over it, put a little bit of the Newman's Light Caesar Dressing (not the creamy one, and barely enough to give it some taste) and then I've put some parmesan cheese on top. It tastes really good and makes a wonderful salad. So I have either a salad or a dish for breakfast and then the other for lunch. My break day comes on Tuesday though when I go to dinner with my sister at Garcia's. The chips and salsa ALONE are 900 calories! YIKES! But I do really good eating wise on Tuesdays so that I can eat them and not feel bad about it. Although yesterday, I didn't eat nearly as much as I used to. I'm proud of that!

Yummy yummy salad!! This is my first one so there is no chicken and my cheese is different.

I'm already starting to feel better!! My water consumption has gone up dramatically and I think that I'm doing a lot better in trying to be healthier. Hopefully it starts to show soon!

My Mirena Story

So when I was about eight months pregnant my OB said that I should start looking into different forms of birth control for after I had Liam. So I started my research; I had no idea just how many forms of birth control there was! There is the pill, patch, ring, shot, implant rod, and IUD’s, as well as condoms, foam, sponge, spermicides…. And the list goes on and on I can only assume.

A couple months before Jon and I got married I went to my family doctor and we discussed the most popular forms of birth control and then I decided that I would start taking the pill. I took it religiously every night at 9 pm. I even had an alarm set lovingly named “Sperm Stopper” on my phone. Well, after we got married I slowly started getting a little down about myself and was super irritable and angry all the time. I would constantly get after Jon for little tiny things that really didn’t even matter. When we would go to bed at night, I would wait for him to fall asleep and then I would just cry because I had these horrible outbursts. I knew that I was being hormonal, but I couldn’t stop. It was awful! One night, Jon woke up during one of my emotional nights and was really concerned. After we had figured the only thing that had changed was my being put on birth control he told me to stop taking the pills. I stopped the next day and within the week felt much better. But we were in a dilemma, we now didn’t have birth control! Jon and I wanted to wait til he was done with school before having a baby so we knew that birth control really was a must. So back to my family doctor I went, and we discussed my options, I thought maybe getting the shot would work, but my doc said that if I had had a bad reaction to the birth control pill that the shot would probably be about the same if not worse, because the hormones were being put into my bloodstream and would affect me for months. Then he gave the suggestion to use the NuvaRing. It is a ring that is placed by the cervix for three weeks and then taken out for a period and then replaced again for three weeks. Very localized hormones and I could easily take it out. Doc gave me some samples for me to try it out, and it was amazing! I loved them! They were super awkward to get in and out but apart from that it was wonderful. I didn’t feel like crap and I wasn’t crazy! I used those for about four months, and it was awesome! The one problem that I had with the Ring was that just for one months prescription (ONE ring), the cheapest I found for an uninsured patient was about 80-100 dollars! So we were trying to figure out how to put that into the budget when Jon and I went camping to Lake Powell with his family. We were going over the week that should have been my period week and so since I wanted to be able to have fun in the water and what not I called Doc and asked if I could keep it in for another week to hold off my period and then just put a new one in. Doc said that that would be ok. So that’s what I did. That was in September. Jon and I got home and I took out my ring and waited for my period to start…. I waited one week, it didn’t come. I waited two weeks, it didn’t come. I waited three weeks, it didn’t come but I was having some really bad cramps. I thought that since I had held off my period for that week, the next period was going to be a doozy! The fourth week, I had about a day of bleeding, but only when I wiped. I didn’t need a pad or a tampon at all. Which I thought was odd because my cramping had been so incredibly bad, I was sure that my period was going to be at least a full seven days of heaviness. I was bloated, like period week and I was still having some cramping, but not nearly as bad as the week before, which had left me in the fetal position popping Pamprin after Pamprin just to get through the day. Then on October 30^th, Jon said that we should take a pregnancy test just to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. My mother had been making little comments here and there about how I was pregnant but she always seemed to be joking, and I would laugh at her and tell her that I wasn’t pregnant. Then on October 30^th Jon said that we should pick up a pregnancy test just to be sure and so I laughed at him and said ok. Well, we got home and I took the pregnancy test, fully expecting it to be negative. When I looked at it and it had a cute little positive sign on it, I was extremely shocked.

So those are my experiences with birth control so far. One made me crazy, and the other I got pregnant on. Although, granted, it was most likely human error on our part for the Nuva Ring mess up. So in my research of birth controls I read everything I could when OB said to look. Most of the people on the topics of Mirena had a wonderful experience and were totally in love with how easy it is. There were very few that hated it, on the forums.

At my six week check up I told OB that I wanted to get the Mirena placed and we set up an appointment to get it placed. Placement was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I had heard horror stories about that! For me, it was a little cramping, but overall pretty fast and relatively painless. My OB is really awesome and was fantastic at keeping me calm and relaxed (he seriously is the best OB and I want him to deliver all my babies!). After it was in, I was a little lightheaded but not bad enough to cause a problem. I went home and everything was fine.

I started my school schedule up again, and I planned my classes around Liam’s feeding schedule. Liam is an awesome first child! I don’t know how I got so lucky! He slept through the night since coming home and would wake up at about six am to eat, then fall asleep again until about nine or ten in the morning, wake up, eat. Fall asleep until about two, wake up and eat. He was really good on a three to four hour schedule. I loved breastfeeding him! It is probably one of the best feelings in the world, and it made me feel so connected to him and it made me feel so good about myself, because I had the greatest purpose in the world! Feeding my child. When you think of it, it really is amazing how perfect our bodies are, to know what to do with our children! Occasionally it would hurt and I was silly and didn’t work past the hurt, my let down was also painful once he started feeding, but after it was fine. Like I said earlier, I started up my school schedule again when he was about three months, and I planned it around him eating. So I would go to school at about nine and come home at two. I would feed him when we woke up at six, then again at eight when my mother would come and watch him and then as soon as I got to my mum’s house to pick him up, I would feed him again. Then about two weeks after we set up this schedule Liam started going through a growth spurt and was wanting to eat every hour to two hours. I tried to pump when I got home from school so that I could send milk to my mothers house, but my milk couldn’t keep up with how much he wanted to eat because I wasn’t the one feeding him every time he wanted to eat. His hunger went up while my supply went down. Finally, he wasn’t satisfied when I would feed him and I couldn’t keep up with the pumping, so after discussing it with my mom, we decided that we would switch to formula. I thought that I would be ok with it, and for the first little bit I was. But then every time he was hungry and I needed to make him a bottle started making me feel really bad, and I felt so bad trying to make him his bottle. And I would constantly apologize to him and tell him how sorry I was that I couldn’t feed him right away and that he had to wait. Soon, my feelings of depression deepened and I could tell that I was starting to go farther and farther into my sorrow. I felt completely hopeless, I felt like I was a horrible mother because I couldn’t breastfeed my baby anymore. I felt like I was a horrible wife because I started to gain weight because I stopped caring about myself or my body, and I didn’t care what I ate and food became an emotional crutch and I would eat when I was hungry, sad, or bored; which was all the time. I felt like I was a bad daughter because all of my failed attempts at school and knowing how important it is to my dad that I had an education. I was losing interest in my schoolwork, and I wasn’t able to stay focused in class. Toward the end of my semester, it became more and more difficult to get up out of bed and go to my morning classes, so soon I was only going to one class. I was going to bed at a low point every night and waking up at a low point every morning. I would wake up and was sad that I had awakened. I had lost my will to live, I had lost my purpose. It was so bad! I would constantly push Jon away because I didn’t feel attractive and I didn’t feel good enough for him, and it was putting a real strain on our young marriage. I was also starting to have cramping all the time. At first it was inconsistent, but soon it was becoming a pain that I was dealing with every day for hours on end.

Jon and I eventually had a fight that made us both realize that something was wrong. I knew that I had been depressed for months, but I didn’t know how to fix it, and I felt ashamed that I was feeling like I was because I thought of all the single mothers that don’t have help and don’t have support who are wonderful mothers and do so well at being moms. And I felt like I didn’t have an excuse to be depressed because I had a wonderful mother and a wonderful husband and the best friends that I could hope for, and a wonderful ward full of people that I knew cared about me. But amongst all of these people I felt like I was alone in the universe. I finally broke down and knew that if I was going to get out of this that I needed help greater than my own conviction. So I went to Doc, and we had a long talk about everything that had been going on and how I was feeling and he prescribed me Zoloft. I started taking my anti-depressants and it made a huge difference! Finally I started to not wake up depressed and angry, I was finding it easier to not get mad at Jon for every little annoying thing that he did. I would feel those feelings of doubt and worry creep up on me and I just stopped caring about all the little negative things in my life and tried to focus on the good. I felt better than I had in a long time. This was also the time that I got my gym membership because I wanted to lose my baby/post baby weight and start being healthy again.

My weight was being super stubborn and wouldn’t come off, even though I was trying my hardest to get it off. Finally I stopped going to the gym because it wasn’t working. My cramping had also gotten to an all time high. I was in labour for 38 hours with Liam and I did 27 hours unmedicated, and those contractions were bad, but the cramping that I was experiencing was so much worse than my contractions. It was every day, constantly. It was very tiring and wore me out just to do small things while cramping. I realized that my cramping had started AFTER I had gotten my Mirena. So I started doing some researching again, only this time looked at the bad side effects of Mirena. And I realized that most of what had been happening with me from September to about February from the depression to the cramping to the heavy periods had all started AFTER I got Mirena. So I called OB’s office and talked to a sweet nurse there and I made an appointment to get my Mirena taken out the following Monday.

February 18, 2013 I went in to see OB and he took maybe ten minutes to get the Mirena out. I had light cramping for the rest of the day, and I had some bleeding that lasted about three days but only when I wiped, but the feeling was amazing! For the first time in five months I wasn’t cramping for hours every day. I felt so much better! Suddenly I realized that I was becoming more and more apathetic about everything, so I decided to try stopping my anti-depressants and within that week I felt like I had purpose again, everything in my life seemed lighter and brighter!

Overall, Mirena is a wonderful concept, and it works well for some people but I just can’t handle hormones in my body for extended periods of time. It just doesn’t work for me. But I am feeling good about life again, I’m not cramping, even with my first post-Mirena period, no cramping and one day of heavy bleeding. It has been a huge turnaround in just a month and a half! I still feel some feelings of sadness when I think about Liam not breastfeeding anymore but the feelings are not nearly as bad as when they were during my Mirena induced depression. I am almost positive that if I had not had the Mirena placed my depression would have not been as long or as bad as it was. I am so sure that it would have been a simple case of baby blues and then I would have been fine.

Today, I went to the gym for about forty five minutes and I did three minutes on the elliptical to warm up and then I did three sets of fifteen on the leg lifts(weighted at thirty pounds) and squats (not weighted with anything! I’m not that strong yet!) as well as doing my fifteen arm raises forward and side with four pound weights in between each set of leg workouts. Then for fun (ha) I added fifteen crunches with 70 pounds at the end, and then finished out with a three minute cool down on the stationary bike. I have also had some cream of wheat today and a dry salad (so…. Lettuce) and I’ve had two bottles of water so far. I need to drink more water to be done for the day.

Soda!

Ok, so I've been bad and had a half a size of a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper today! I know, I know! Bad Britt! But I stopped myself before drinking all of it! Now I'm back onto water. Ok.... so I'm going to show you some of the research that I've done on soda pop, and diet soda pop.

Sugar: Ok, so most people know that soda contains sugar. One can of coke has up to NINE teaspoon fulls! NINE! That doesn't seem like a ton if someone is going to only have one can... but seriously; how many people stop at just one can of soda. Especially at restaurants, they bring you a glass and then fill it up how many times? But I know what you are thinking! You are thinking that diet soda's do not have sugar therefore they are healthier think again. Diet Drinks have a sugar substitute called Aspartame, and in my research in this I have found it to be just as bad if not worse than real sugar. Aspartame has been found to cause headaches/migraines, dizziness, and craving more sugar. It awakens the same pathway of pleasure that sugar does only it doesn't satiate the craving for it.
The next big thing in most soda's is Caffeine- Caffeine is a substance that is found in many drinks such as coffee, tea and soda. Since I don't drink coffee or tea my source of caffeine is from soda. Caffeine is a stimulant and gives your central nervous system a boost causing a burst of energy; too much caffeine can make you restless, anxious and irritable. Because it is a stimulant it can also cause sleep problems, it's also slightly dangerous because if you have been dependent on caffeine for awhile and suddenly stop your body will go through withdrawal symptoms.
Some of the other problems with soda is how acidic it is. It causes teeth problems and who wants to see the dentist more than they have to? Even if your dentist is a good guy like mine, I really don't want to see him more than my six month checkups! It also has been shown to weaken bones, especially in children who are still growing!

This is why I need to cut down to one can of soda a week. Hopefully I'll be able to cut it out completely!

Alright: 4/6/13
I went on a half hour walk around my neighbourhood with my son
I mowed the lawn which also took about a half hour

Yesterday I went to the gym and did cardio, arms, and abs. Then Jon and I went on a walk and walked to the local grocery store. He and I are going to try and walk every night except Monday's because he doesn't come home from school til really late. I love that the weather is starting to warm up! It's fun because Liam and I can hang out outside now too!

Next post: Mirena IUD and its side effects on me!

The Beginning

Hey! I'm Britt, and this is where I've decided to discuss my Road to Fitness/Healthy Lifestyle Changes. I have tried so many times to start doing something to try and lose weight and I am now at my all time high weight and I know that if the pounds don't stop now they will just keep going. I am going to be super brutally honest in this blog. So much so that it might get uncomfortable, but I know that I can be healthier and I WANT to be healthier, and if unlocking emotional baggage and dropping it off along the way is part of that then I need to be honest. I know that I'm hiding a ton of emotional weight on me that is just bearing down on me as well, and hopefully this will help in aiding my journey so that I can be better emotionally, physically and spiritually.

A little bit about me!
I am the youngest of six kids. Four brothers and one sister, we have a huge range of diversity in my family. Everybody can do a little bit of everything, but everybody has a specialty branch, so to say. I am the daughter of a Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force and a wonderful homemaker/friend/confidante who is my mother. In September of 2009 I met my eternal sweetheart and best friend Jon and in March of 2011 we were married in the Ogden Utah LDS Temple. In July of 2012 we welcomed our beloved son, Liam, into the world.
Before I had my baby I was 180 lbs, give or take a couple pounds. During my pregnancy I gained 40 pounds and was 220lbs the day I delivered; at my six week check up I had lost 10 pounds (210)! But giving birth to a 7 pound baby/placenta will do that for you. I opted to get the Mirena IUD (that will be its very own blog post about the side effects of that on my body and mind) and because of that I gained nearly 30 pounds; partly because my body just wouldn't lose the weight and I was not taking care of myself. So here I am now nine months after my baby was born sitting on 240 pounds. UGH! Just writing it makes cringe. I had a bout with postpartum depression which I tried to hide for months (you can read that story at my family blog here) and so after I finally came out of my PPD funk I knew that I needed to make a change. So here I am! It is so hard to admit just how much you weigh! There are two numbers that you should never ask a woman: her age and her weight. Are you uncomfortable yet? That was a lot of honesty just now.... HA! 

Ok, so here is my lists of goals, and how I will achieve them, or attempt to at least!

SHORT TERM GOALS

1. Only one soda a week- ok, so I know that drinking soda is sooooo bad for you but it just tastes so good! So I can't cut it out completely cold turkey just yet. So my short term goal for the month of April is just have ONE soda a week. The rest of the time drink water, which funnily enough leads us to.......
2. Drink more water!- yeah.... enough said. I think the rule is drink half your body weight in ounces? I'll have to look that up later....
3. Go to the gym AT LEAST three times a week for a half hour- my brother is the fitness guru! He is seriously awesome at this whole being healthy thing. He gave me a workout plan that I need to follow religiously! (That will be another blog post! His workout plan for me)
4. Stop putting myself down- this is mental workout that I need to start exercising. For months I battled feelings of doubt, low self worth, low self esteem and a constant badgering of how I was just not good enough. Every day is a battle in my mind about who I am and how important I am. Seriously, it's like in Emperor's New Groove where the angel and devil Kronk are arguing with one another. I'm getting better but it's still hard, and I still have episodes of crying because my little she-devil won      

Ok now for my LONG TERM GOALS!

1. Get to my pre-pregnancy weight: I would honestly give anything to be able to fit into my old pants again. I have a limited wardrobe selection because my old clothes just don't fit. I want so badly to just wear all of my clothes again! I don't have the funds to buy new clothes, so I need to get back into my old clothes. Pre-pregnancy weight was 180lbs and a size 10/12, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never get a much smaller waist size than that because I have child bearing hips that actually really came in handy nine months ago. 
2. Be able to get on the ground and play with Liam: Honestly, he is one of the main reasons I have chosen now to start this so heavily. I want to be able to play with my baby without feeling out of breath so easily. He is nine months old now and he is so close to walking, he can crawl super fast and I just want to keep up with him and his seemingly endless energy.
3. Be able to fit into an adult medium shirt and it not be too tight- this might be difficult as well, because to accompany my child bearing hips is rather large baby feeders. So this one is iffy...
4. To not feel guilt or shame when I think about stopping breastfeeding- this was a big one during my PPD, and it was a common reason for crying for many months, and even now I still feel guilty for having to stop. Again, that will be its own blog post.

Alright so those are my goals! I really am excited to start this journey! And now it'll be easier for me to keep up if I know people are reading..... or at least I will pretend they are! As they say, it takes nine months for the pounds to come on, it'll take nine months to get them off. Since I have a late start it'll be nine months from now! Hopefully by Christmas or New Year I'll be a little lighter in body and spirit!