Pushups 2 Pin ups Boot camp- Day 1

Today I sweat sugar, as they say at Push Ups 2 Pin Ups.

I did it!

This morning I rolled out of bed and instead of heading to my gym to do my standard workout, I begrudgingly fearfully excitedly rolled on over to Concord's local boot camp for women.

When I say that I was scared, I mean that I had to talk myself into going over and over and over and over and over until the moment the doors opened and I walked inside with about a dozen other women.  I hushed the voices that said, "you're tired today, just start on Wednesday.  Don't worry about it.  You know you'll do it eventually, when you're ready.  What's one day? It's going to be so hard.  You'll be the worst one there.  You won't be able to keep up."    I just bit the bullet and I started moving.

I am so proud of myself.

And I was totally the worst one there, but I didn't care and I don't think that anyone else did either.

Even though I work out every day, I'm just not fit.  I work out for lots of reasons, my number one reason being to relieve stress and work through emotions.  I'm not really one to push myself.  Though, I do workout hard from time to time, I usually stay within my comfort zone.

Today, I was so far out of my comfort zone that I forgot it even existed.  I was presented with the hardest workout that I've ever had, and though I had to modify some aspects of it to my own fitness level, I stuck it out and my body feels like jelly.

Again, I am so proud of myself.

The trainer LaTasha, was A-MAZ-ING.  She was the perfect combination of caring and unforgiving.  I felt motivated, understood and inspired the whole time I was there, and I am really excited to return.  I am really excited to push myself.  And I am really excited to get in the best shape of my life.

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, so I am just going to go back to my gym afterward and try to get in a nice strengthening workout, but on Wednesday I am back to Pushups 2 Pinups for my second boot camp.

As I wrote previously, this is a bikini boot camp for me.  I am pairing these difficult workouts with a very clean and healthy diet for the next two weeks.

After my shower today, I put on my first bikini ever and took my "before" pictures.  Friends, this was a really difficult task for me. I have anxiety just thinking about them.  I even considered posting them now so that they don't haunt me like some sort of dirty secret, but I think that I'll wait until the end of the two weeks so that I can post them with the confidence that I have improved.

My friend Amber texted me this yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since.  It's really resonating with me, making me feel strong and capable- which all I ever really want to be.  :)

I feel like today was a turning point for me.  Something really good is about to happen.

I'm Becoming a Doula, Doncha Know!

After reestablishing this blog, it occurred to me that I should mention what I'm doing professionally!  Those who know me understand that until recently there has been nothing that I've wanted to do professionally for more than 5 minutes.  I have lots of likes and interests and I have given 1 million percent of myself to my children, but I have never been particularly career driven, until now!

Please visit the Doula Diaries to read about my journey in becoming a Postpartum Doula!  www.douladiaries.com

Coincidentally, two great friends of mine have chosen to join the doula movement recently as well!  Together we are journaling our experiences and sharing our knowledge and community.  I have been friends with Tali since 1993 and I have been friends with Mandie since 2001.  I find so much joy in sharing my education through our blog, but I find even more joy in reading about THEIR experiences.  Both of these women make me take pause each and every day.  They help me to see things from a new perspective and I learn as much from them as I do our Childbirth And Postpartum Association curriculum!

Truthfully, I am delighted and pleased by how easily things are falling into place! As friends have always said, "when it is meant to be, it happens."  Families are eagerly needing the services that I am offering and I am already having to ask families to wait until I have completed my training process before I can feel totally confident in offering them the best care imaginable.  By October I hope to have completed my certification and to have received accreditation from the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association. 

In the mea

ntime I am practicing my education on my own family, working hard and enjoying my education.

A Little Mold on a Sunny Day (Day 2)

A Little Mold on a Sunny Day (day 1)

Today we attended the Young Author's Book Faire, where Lila Holler received a first place award for the book of poetry that she submitted to the contest.  At the Faire they had a Scholastic Book sale.  Bunny, in true form, bought a booked called Gross Science by Paul Beck.

This book is full of creepy, crawly, stomach turning experiments like creating a bacteria farm, balloons of stink, garbage smoothies, fake snot,  maggot roundups, slimy putty and a worm ranch!

It's pretty nasty.

We've only been home for a few minutes and Bunny is already pleading to make some stinky stuff.  Some things require a trip to the grocery store, but fortunately we have many of the ingredients that it takes to create several of the projects in our kitchen.  And oddly, I have never thought of them as projects, so much as things to avoid because they could likely poison us all.

But, that's just me...

Today, much to the delight of my 9 year old daughter, we grow mold!

Bunny filled a mason jar with strawberries, cheese, bread and lettuce.  Now we will take picture of it each day for two weeks, or until the whole entire thing is full of green and blue fuzz!

And lucky you, I'll be taking a picture every day so that you can see our progress!  :)

You're welcome.

A New Challenge!

I am super-excited ya'll!  I have won two free weeks at a fitness boot camp called Push-ups to Pinups!  

If you've ever read my blog, you know that last year I lost about 70 pounds in under 6 months time.  Statistically, because of the quick rate of my weight loss, I am damned to regain these pounds (and 25 more) within two years time, and trust me, it's not my first time at the rodeo.  Call me Kirstie Alley.   

The good news, I have kept the 70 lbs that I lost off of my body for 8 months now.  

The bad news, I've gotten a little bit lazy.

I promised myself that after maintaining my weight for six months I would reevaluate my body and decide if I wanted to make any changes.  As planned, a couple of months ago I reevaluated and decided that I'd like to really tone up and lose about 20 more pounds.  Something really needs to click for me when making these changes and I just couldn't get in the right head-space to make it happen at that time.  Motivation was no where to be found.  In the past couple of months I have seen my work-outs become lazier and my diet become sloppier.  I am usually pretty shocked when I get on the scale and see that my weight hasn't fluctuated at all.  

And last week at 8:26.15 on Wednesday morning while the sky was overcast and the sun set low some point, I got back to harder workouts at the gym and someone triggered my motivation button and I began to feel excited about fitness again.

... so I went swimsuit shopping at the TJ Maxx (I can't bring myself to spend $100 on a swimsuit).  While shopping for a trusty tankini, I found a bikini that I LOVED.  And better yet, it was marked from $112 to $29.99.  And despite the fact that I couldn't bring myself to so much as leave the dressing room to look in the vanity mirrors, I swallowed the pill and bought the bikini.  

Isn't it just beautiful? 

The following day I learned that I won this mini-membership to the boot camp.  Because I need a huge change in my exercise routine, this could not have come at a better time.  I feel like I've been sitting at the bottom of a rut and someone just threw me a climbing rope to shimmy up.  

I have decided that beginning on Monday, I will begin both a diet and exercise boot camp.  My challenge will be to see how much I can transform my body in two weeks time.  I will eat 1500 calories per day, mostly in raw vegetables and lean proteins and go to the boot camp or the gym every, single day.  I will drink only water (buh-bye wine) and I will eat no grains (which I'm not supposed to anyway).  

My goal is to feel confident in my new bikini!  At the end of this two week period, I hope that my transformation is enough to post before and after pictures in it! 

Here is what I look like now.  This photograph was taken yesterday.  

I am going to rock this challenge.  

Appointment with the Doctor

I finally had my doctor's appointment in San Francisco yesterday.  It was such a relief to address the problems that I've been having, as they become more aggravated by the day.

Luckily, it seemed to him that my issues are pretty straight forward.  My previous doctor forwarded all of my past blood work and he was able to review that along with my history.  He ordered a pretty insane amount of new blood work, and I won't have the results until December 7th.  That said, it's his suspicion that I need an adjustment on my thyroid medication.  Also, a hormone test that I took back in 2007 indicated that I had some adrenal exhaustion that was never addressed.  It's very common to experience this with Hashimotos, I guess.  He did a simple test for it in his office that was pretty interesting.  He took my blood pressure sitting down.  And he took my blood pressure standing up.  A normal person's blood pressure will rise slightly when they stand.  Someone with an adrenal issue's blood pressure will dip slightly when they stand.  Mine went down 12 points!!!  This was enough of a dip to warrant a hardy reaction from him.  I don't why, but there's something really satisfying about seeing a doctor look a little bit thrown off by a test that they've given you.  On the other hand, the fact that my blood pressure went down is pretty bad, so I'm trying not to feel too satisfied by it.  My physical examination showed signs of anemia.  I didn't quite understand the problem, but it was something about my eyes.

We discussed my diet a bit and as suspected he believes that it's really important for me to be gluten free.  No more cheating.  No more fresh baked bread or grilled cheese sandwiches.  He didn't seem to think that I needed to go vegan.  Lean proteins are great and I should eat them.

One thing that he did mention was making some lifestyle changes in order to reduce my stress.  It's likely my stress level that has depleted my adrenal glands.  When he asked me what I do I told him I'm a stay at home mom, which has been my standard answer for the past 8 1/2 years.  My girls are in school all day, so most people think that I am a professional soap opera watcher.  He asked me to take him through a day in my life... so I did.  He said, "You said that you didn't have a job!  You have 3 jobs!!!!" And I suppose that's true.  I am stretched too thin all the time, to the point that at night I have no patience for my children and no love for my husband.  This is not a healthy way to live my life.   This week has been particularly bad.  I deal with stress by going to the gym.  I only go to the gym on days when the kids are in school.  If they aren't in school and I want to go, Jay has to be home.  He's usually asleep when he's home, so I'll get up at 5 or 6 in the morning and go for a 60 minute session or something easy like that.  When we were in Denver, I was able to go to the gym at the hotel the first day but I wasn't able to go the second day (I had been out until nearly 4 AM, and up by 7).  The following day Jay went back to work and he wasn't awake for me to go.  On Monday the kids didn't have school.  On Tuesday I went back to the gym.  On Wednesday I went, I had to be at the school to make pies with the third graders and was only able to stay for 1/2 an hour.  On Thursday I went but I got really stressed  by all the things that had to happen that day and about the state I had left my house in that morning (I hadn't even made the beds).  Jay was away on Buddy weekend and texted me about when they wanted to come back to the house.  And I just got really overwhelmed by what a mess it was, how I hadn't done my grocery shopping or even folded the mountains of clean laundry in my bedroom... and I had to leave the gym and deal with some of my real life stuff.  I got in 40 minutes on the elliptical and that was all.  Then,  yesterday I had to skip it because we left for San Francisco at 7 AM and when we got back to Concord, Jay had Buddy weekend and the girls were about to get out of school.  I had no real way of dealing with my stress.  I guess the worst thing to do is to become so stressed out and stretched thin that you can't make time for yourself in any respect.  Between my work for the school and the work I'm doing for my father and the general duties of a mom, I have these moments where I feel I'm going to snap.  I get totally overwhelmed and have trouble putting it all in order.  I also helped to organize a parent driven program at the school called Motor Perception and because I completely forgot about it this week, no volunteers showed up and it had to be canceled.  This was very embarrassing and upsetting.  I think that I need to buy one of those old school calendars to carry with me.  I really hate the idea of keeping a calendar electronically and I need a way to keep track of everything that I have going on.  It's too much to remember, particularly with the kids getting older, having their own lives and hobbies and activities and friends and play dates and parties and needing to keep track of all of their stuff as well.

I am going to start knitting again.  In order to take my stress down a notch I like to drink wine at night.  It really helps me.  I feel my whole body just melt into a state of relaxation when I have a glass of wine.  But alcohol  depletes that adrenals and I need to heal mine.  I feel like knitting would help a lot with this.

The Mathew's Wedding

We headed out to Denver last week.  Not only was it my dear friend Mathew's wedding, but it was also the first time that my girls were able to spend any true time with Matthew and Mathew or Siet and Jenny. After hearing so much about them for so many years, Bunny and Lila couldn't wait to get to know them.  Adding to the anticipation was the fact that the Mathew's asked Bunny and Lila to present the rings during their ceremony.  As part of the wedding party, Bunny and Lila felt like superstars (as seen through the lens of their photographer very soon, fo' sure).  Both of my girls are counting the days until we return to Denver for Christmas.  And this makes me really think that sometimes family isn't blood related.  The support that I've had from these friends, for 20+ years, really makes me feel grateful to them.  I don't know how to emphasize this emotion enough, so I have to state it simply.  I love my friends deeply.  Not only was I able to spend a good amount of time with Siet and Mathew, but I was also able to see my friend Talissa and my friend Jennifer and to catch up with my friend Brian, who I had lost touch with.  All over the boards, I returned home feeling like a million bucks!  I can not wait to return!

Enjoy a few pictures from our trip to Denver for Mathew's wedding!