Recovering.

As usual, I doubt there are any guys left in my blogging audience, but just be warned if there are, I am trying to be really honest on here. It may take me a day to admit it, but here it is. I had a terrible eating night yesterday. Brynn took about 2 hours, 4 bathroom trips, 3 meltdowns, 1 dose of medicine, and a thousand hugs and kisses to get to sleep last night. So my running time was down the toilet. So was my composure. I lost it once she had been quiet for a few minutes. I mean curled up in Erick's lap in the fetal position lost it. (Hormones probably had something to do with it to, but that doesn't make it less real.)
So what did I do to recover? I self-medicated. With frozen Greek yogurt and pita crackers. (Apparently was really into the Greek theme.) The stupid thing was the crackers weren't even very good. They needed some hummus. Or peanut butter. Or something. Then, as if that weren't enough, I had a couple of cookies that for some sabotaging reason I made a couple of days ago. Did that make me feel better? Well, it made me feel nothing. Which was exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to feel anything anymore for a little while.
But this morning I felt GUILTY. I mean I didn't even sleep well last night, and I think that's why. As I covered in an earlier entry, why isn't this enough reason to keep from binging the next time? I DON'T KNOW. It makes me so ashamed! It's embarrassing to lose control like that.
So my steps I've taken today to recover and get back on track:

• Pray for forgiveness for my gluttony. 
• Forgive myself and try to move on. (I'm still working on this one.)
• Get up and go for a run. (I do believe this is the first time in my LIFE I've started exercising before 7 a.m.)
• Have a good breakfast and plan what I'll eat the rest of today.

I  made the mistake of getting on the scale this morning and it did not say what I wanted it to. (After last night, duh.) But I've got to let that go. (And maybe smash my scale and forget about it.)
 That's all I can do. I can't change last night. I can control today.

Breathe in, breathe out....

This post isn't about running.
It isn't about being in labor.
It's about living. Day to day. Why is it so hard sometimes to remember to breathe? I just read an interesting article that says all people with anxiety have shallow breathing, which actually leads to having too much air in your body, even though it feels like not enough. This is what leads to hyperventilating when you're super stressed or scared. That's not really related to my topic, just made me go "hmm."
Today has been one of those obnoxious days when I have been too preoccupied with worry to enjoy what is going on around me. I'm assuming I'm not the only teacher that understands this--getting paid all at once at the beginning of the summer ends up being reeeeally tough once August is about to roll around. To be blunt, it feels really sucky to work pretty much a whole month before we finally get a paycheck again. I really stink at budgeting. I am too ADD to keep bills organized and tracked well especially when there isn't a lot of income to work with. Somehow I can get it to work on paper but in real life something doesn't jive. Erick shows up faithfully to my "budget meetings" but his eyes glaze over if anyone says more than two numbers in a sentence.

SO, my ruminating today has been on how are we going to make it until August 25? How are we going to pay for two kids in daycare? What can we sell? How are we going to buy Christmas presents for everyone? How much savings can we take out and still be "safe"? What would Dave Ramsey do?

None of these questions were actually answered during the 14 hours I've been mulling them over. However, this did pop up in my Bible app today.

^{Matthew 6
25} “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?
²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Breathe in.......breathe out......breathe in.......breathe out........

EsCApaaayy...Hey, isn't that spelled just like Escape? --Dory

3:37 a.m. Brynn calls me in her room. Asks me to tell her a story. Can't think of ANYTHING to say. She tells me about a bad dream about the evil purple minions from Despicable Me 2 being in her room. I give her imaginary jelly gun. (If you've seen the movie you understand.) Go back to bed.
 
5:02 a.m. Max wakes up rip roaring ready to go. Suck snot out of his nose. Give him a bottle. Put him back to bed. 

6:08 a.m. Read Royal Baby gossip whilst saying to myself go back to bed dum-dum. Go back to bed.

7:19 a.m. Moooommmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.....

7:20 a.m.-8:16 p.m. Feed, change diaper, suck snot, repeat. 

Ok, first of all, in amongst this we did make some pretty awesome pompom superheroes, pretended to go to the beach, played ball, and did some more laundry with my spaceship machines. There truly is no better job than being a mother, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Really.
But today was long, tough, and at times smelly. (How many more teeth could Max have?! This kid is the worst teether in the history of babies!)



On days like this, my history would show that there is no freakin' way I would have exercised. After all I earned a night off, right? But guess what I started thinking about around 6:30 p.mm? I can't wait to run.

It is my escape! While I'm running is the only time my brain isn't constantly scanning, evaluating, ruminating, planning, fixing, etc. All I can think of is breathe...breathe....breathe. (I'm getting better at shutting up those demons. I think since I called them out they're a little less persistent.)

I know there will be days I don't feel so excited to get my feet hitting the pavement out the door. My couch is reeeeeally comfortable. But it is so exciting to be excited about this. I'm running for longer stretches at a time. I took my dog, Fiona with me tonight. It was a little disconcerting to look down as I'm huffing and puffing and see that she's comfortably trotting (or maybe just walking) beside me. Oh well, she has 4 legs and I only have two.

After all day of being Mommy though, in all honesty, it's really nice just to be Lacy for a mile or so. That in turn, makes me a better Mommy.

Demons

I believe in demons. Or bad Juju. Or evil shoulder angels.


 Mine tell me things like, "Who are you kidding? You look silly running. You didn't run today, so you're done. I knew it wouldn't last long. Eat that pizza, Fatty, eat it!"

I wish my inner voice was nicer. If it were my employee I'd fire it. I try to now, but it won't leave.
I'm doing my best to ignore that voice. Yesterday morning it was so freaking loud it took an hour and a half nap an hour and a half early from everyone in my house to make it shut up. (Apparently my children could hear it yesterday too because NOBODY was being nice.)

Do you have a demon inside your head too that likes to sabotage you? I'm just doing my best to push through it and talk back.
I'm doing great. I'm making good choices. It doesn't matter what I look like running, who is watching me anyway? It's ok to miss a day. It's ok to eat pizza now and then.
Brynn told me I was pretty and funny last night. I like that voice better.

Getting stronger!

My mom made my day today. She passed a runner on her way home from the mountains and smiled because she thought about me. No matter how old you are, there's nothing like your mama being proud of you.
Tonight I ran with a friend from high school that I haven't talked to in probably 10 years or so. My first reaction when she asked me about running together tonight was, "Oh man, there is no way I'm ready to try to keep up with someone else!" But honestly it made the run go so much faster and less ugly with her keeping me company! (And she was nice enough not to skunk me completely.) It was absolutely fabulous to not realize until waaaay past the post that was my goal to run to that I had gone so far without switching to walking. Then I made it even farther than that! I'm so thankful to her for unwittingly showing me that I can make it much farther than I think when my brain games are turned off. (See, Jessi, I didn't say you tried to kill me. :)) I'm so excited that I can already tell I'm getting stronger.
I decided my goal is to run a full official 5K in honor of my 30th birthday in May. Maybe one day I'll even be decent enough for my time to count for something. I see hope!
By the way, although this, as I've said, is with the intention of losing some weight, it is so much more fun to have a goal to finish a race than to make a goal of losing ___lbs. It's just so much more exciting!

Mama said there'd be days like this...

Nothing to brag about in the Grant athletic department today. My eating has still been on track, at least. I even have enough points left to have a slice of my blackberry pie that just came out of the oven. The four of us had a great time picking the berries in our woods the other night. In the rain, of course, but that kind of made it more fun. Brynn made tidal waves in the ponds--I mean puddles. I know the blackberries are healthy and 0 points by themselves, but I make ONE fresh blackberry pie a year, so I'm not missing it! I even make the crust from scratch. I use my wedding edition Betty Crocker cook book my favorite aunt got me as a wedding gift. The whole tradition just makes the summer feel more complete.
Max had a rough night last night, hence I had a rough night last night. He's generally a good sleeper now except when he's getting teeth in. They give him fits. Anyway, after church, I fell asleep on the couch waiting for nap time for the kids to start.  I had a yucky headache and was just exhausted. I got them in bed, got myself in bed...for about 10 minutes.
Now I love my son dearly, but the only sound he seems to make when he is upset is, "mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmmm..." In the absolute most annoying tone in the universe. It makes me want to gouge my ears out. If that's possible. I plan to use this against him when he's a teenager somehow.
So needless to say, I was not a happy mommy. After many failed attempts to get him back to sleep, I gave up and let him play. Then he pooped. Ah. That was the problem. Then Brynn woke up early from her nap because she had to poop. Yes, when you're a mother, poop controls your happiness.
I was still trying to be positive, saying I would exercise in some capacity today. Then I was getting hot. I thought it was because I was grumpy, but the mismatched temperatures on the thermostat told me otherwise. No air running. Forget it. I cannot make myself exercise when I'm already hot and short of sticking my head in the fridge there is no hope of cooling down afterward.
So I made my pie. I knew the oven would potentially make it hotter, but I needed something positive to end my day. Blackberry pie it is.

Encouragement

The first time I started running today, I felt like I had just dragged myself out of a swimming pool. My legs weighed approximately 100 lbs. each. The next run rotation I made it farther and longer than I have yet. It was the distance of an obscure Michael Jackson song, is all I know. Ooh in the middle of this run though it got ugly! Grunting, spitting, you name it. But I did it. I'm hurting like the devil tonight but I did it!
I appreciate all of your encouragement, as I am unabashedly looking for it! I was going to apologize for that, but you know what? That's what we need! I teach my kids at school to congratulate the winner so that when they win, the same people will congratulate them. So you bet I'm going to work on improving my level of encouragement giving (or bucket-filling for my elementary friends). Because we all deserve it! So go, you, for the awesome thing you did today.

Why I'm running...

So proud of my run last night. I broke through my fear of running near civilization and passed two people out of vehicles. I tried to smile, but I'm not sure if it ended up looking like a smile or not. A lady taking a stroll with her beautiful cocker spaniel gave me what I interpreted as a "Are you alright?" smile back so I began doubting that I looked as friendly as I was trying to.
I amused myself afterward reflecting on the things that were going through my mind that helped me keep going as I ran more at one time than I ever have. (Attention: The 4th one is a little personal.)

• I'm going to die. No you're not, Lacy. But I could. But you're not.
• I can't breathe. Yes you can, slow down. No I can't. Yes you can. Focus.
• I'm going to pass out and no one is going to know who I am or where I came from. No you're not. Breathe.
• I'm going to pee on myself. So what else is new? You do every time you sneeze. Get over it.
• My house is a billion miles away. That's ridiculous. You couldn't see it if it were a billion miles away. 
• I can't believe I'm doing this. Am I crazy? I'm not an athlete and never claimed to be. Well, it's about time. 

I'm really proud of myself for purple voice winning. When I got back almost immediately Brynn started calling me. I had Erick go to her room since I couldn't speak at the time, but after her potty trip I came to her. 
Are you sweaty? She asked.
Yes, very. I was exercising.
Were you running, Mommy?
Yes I was.
Why?
So I can be healthy and play with you and Max and take good care of you.

The look she gave me when I said was priceless.  That's what I'll think of next time I run. Forget trying to get my pre-baby body back (which wasn't that great anyway, except for the missing tiger stripes and tighter stomach skin). What I told Brynn is true, and I hope she'll remember that for a long while, especially when the inevitable day comes when she realizes the importance of being thin in this society. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not being high and mighty. Lord knows I want to be thin. I want my clothes to look and feel better. But the bottom line is taking care of my babies is my life's work. And I need a body that will let me carry that out without popping buttons and huffing and puffing. 
So, I'm running. 

 

Still truckin'

Last night I got to see my very good friend who just happens to be my cousin-in-law, Heather. So good for me, I worked out with my other good friend Leslie Sansone earlier since my usual workout time was going to be replaced with girl time. Same deal today, we're taking the Princess to see Despicable Me 2 (though we would totally be going even if we didn't have a kid to take.) So Leslie and I took a really dorky sweaty walkish type thing together.

I kid, but I really love her workouts. They are very doable and she's so encouraging. Plus she has at least 4 kids of her own, so I'm like, man....surely there's hope for me! When I lost weight the first time around (scarily like 10 years ago) I worked with Leslie until I was fit enough to graduate to Billy Blanks. I loved him too. I was so excited when I could get through the instructional Tae Bo video without having to quit (it wasn't even supposed to be a workout!). 

I sure hope I'm encouraging someone with my rambling. I'm happy I have this motivation right now. If only I could bottle it up and save it for the day when it goes away. Because we all know it will! My goal is just when that day comes to fake it til I make it. 

Side note: there is a fly that got stuck under my stove right when I started writing this, and has not quit buzzing trying to get out. That's endurance! I can't see him or lift the stove, otherwise I'd have mercy on the thing. Okay. Blogging about flies. Cue exit.

Two days! Yahoo!

Walk 2 minutes
Run 1 minute
Walk 2 minutes
Run 1 minute
Walk 2 minutes
Run 1 minute 35 seconds
Walk 2 minutes/stretch







This may not sound like a lot to you, but that's more than I've run since....ever.
I don't know why I want to run. (By the way when I used the word "run" up there, it was more like a turtle waddling through mud, but it was more movement than the walking!) But I always have wanted to, in spite of numerous failed attempts at trying to do so without my vision blurring from lack of oxygen.

Part of me was worried about if someone saw me running, and they might think, "Look at that fat girl trying to run, how precious." Instead of what they should be saying, "Good for her!" But I read someone else's blog last night and she made a good point that if people are going to be cruel, they're just going to be cruel whether you're eating a Twinkie or a rice cake. So whatev.

I tracked all my points today. Even the chicken salad croissant and sweet tea I decided was totally worth the points at Delightful Dishes for lunch today. (Thanks, Ginger!) I almost blew it when I was fixing Brynn baby corn dogs tonight for supper and I was STARVING.


I stopped at two though and had a turkey spinach wrap instead. A little less 4-year-oldish supper, if I say so.
So yay for me, I moved my hiney today more than I have and wrote this blog instead of eating the Pringles that were calling my name. 
 

Starting over...for like the millionth time.

On my kitchen table with me right now:

•  a sweet, not very bright cat who I probably shouldn't let sit on the table, but oh well
• Max's high chair tray that has veggie lasagna residue and banana puffs strewn about
• An empty Capri Sun
• 2 lb weights
• a glass of water I've been trying to finish since about 4:00 (it's 7:30)
• two cans of cream of mushroom soup I've been meaning to put in the pantry since...(I guess we ate supper with them on the table, but I didn't even notice.)

Here I am with gobs to do, but I really really wanted to blog tonight. Writing has always been very cathartic to me since I can remember. I used to write stories about Barbie and Ken.
 *intermission to put Brynn to bed*


"Today I did good eating." I can say that today. What does that mean? To me it means I tracked my food and points on my Weight Watcher app. I made good choices, I didn't get too hungry, and I didn't binge.
Yet.

This is the hardest part of the day. Night. Kiddos are in bed *sigh* and no one is looking at me or following me around. I reward myself by not putting my ice cream in a bowl and just diving in. Fewer things make me happier.
And at the same time, really, really sad.
Why is food, meant by God to fuel and sustain us, my favorite pastime and my worst enemy.
This is what food is to me:

I feel the best about myself when I eat right and exercise (as I did today, hence the weights on my table).
I feel the worst about myself when I eat a sleeve of Oreos followed by whatever else I find.
So why do I do it? Why don't I just stop?

The same reason people smoke. Do drugs. Look at porn. Cut themselves. It feels better right then than whatever the abstract negative outcome is.
Somewhere someone said being overweight is like having your deepest, darkest secret out for everyone to see. (If you said it, let me know, I can't find/remember the source.) You can look at me and know I have an eating problem and probably don't make exercise a priority.
This is my thorn. My biggest one anyway. And today I started over. Again. After a sabbatical of stressful IEP season that ran into stressful end of school year that ran into yay! vacation....I'm starting over again.
You know what? I'm going to decide that's ok. Because today was good. That's all I can do right now.