Clean eating and buying a house both on track

Just a short entry to report that yesterday and today I ate very clean (all Paleo except for hummus that I enjoyed last evening) and also to report that today I put an offer in on a house that I am totally in love with. I am sure my dreams tonight will be filled with all of the things I want to do to that house. I noticed that when I wake up in the middle of the night to feed Marilyn I am often in the midst of a dream. I wish I could start jotting down what the dream content is... maybe I'll try to when her bottle is warming up. Well that's it for this entry, I am working on a presentation that I have to give on Wednesday at work. In true Hopkins fashion I have procrastinated... not unlike most psychiatry attendings I know when they are preparing their grand rounds...

Whole Life Challenge and buying a house!

The Whole Life Challenge went very well, then it ended... in the midst of me beginning a serious house search. Needless to say I have nervously/anxiously been out of my mind hungry this past week, and indulged just a little... I did not get crazy with portion sizes, but I made some choices that I'm really not proud of. I willfully admit that I enjoyed the 2 donut holes, the pretty triangle-shaped brownie with swirly chocolate frosting, the egg roll, the white rice with soy sauce, the lovely hummus topped with olive oil, the spicy home-made chili full of beans, the many tablespoons of creamy peanut butter, the small piece of an amazing cinnamon roll, and the several fig newton's and so-called 'healthy' organic oreo knock-offs... DAMN what a slob of disgusting foods! I do not believe in regret. But I do believe in guilt. The verdict is still out on shame. I mean, I am utterly opposed the the whole idea of regret, but I cannot decide on shame. Well, I have painted a pretty grim picture, when in fact I am entirely okay with myself. Mainly I am okay with these awful choices because they ended about an hour ago. NINE whole days completely off paleo is enough to make my ass start growing visibly larger AND my digestive tract to pain me in the morning, and that's enough for me to pull back on the reigns and get back to the natural state of affairs. Hence back to PALEO! Damn I am glad I do not believe in regret, cuz I'd be in some regretful pit of badness right now if I did. Okay, okay, that's guilt talking! Hahahahaha! The absolute BEST thing I did during the Whole Life Challenge was to outright refuse to weigh myself more than every 8 weeks or so for the rest of the year. Thank God for that because I would not want to see the damage the last 9 days have done represented by some number. I say the rest of the year because at some point in 2014 I will be pregnant with baby #2 and the scale will then be very helpful to keep track of myself... okay a whole other topic entirely. I'll be posting my boring food log daily, mainly to stay accountable to myself and to pat myself on the back when I do a good job. I'm a long, long way from getting back to my pre-baby #1 weight/size and my precious baby is already 5 months old. However, as of the end of the Whole Life Challenge (ahem, 9 days ago) I was 37 pounds down from where I was the day I came home from the hospital with my newborn. About 15 of those pounds came off during the 8-week challenge. Not being completely obsessed with the scale any longer, I'm not as concerned with losing another 20 pounds, though it would be nice... but I am obsessed with getting stronger. I am completely in love with weight training, though I currently only spend about an hour most days doing it... I am not training to be a competitive athlete, that will never be a goal of mine as long as I am having babies, which will be for the next 5 years or so- I am training to have fun! Once we have our house we will be setting up our garage to be able to lift at home, which is of course going to be in addition to the lifting I do at my CrossFit gym. Well, I have sufficiently managed to babble for a long time. I seriously do not know why anyone would read this whole rambling post. Which is funny because I read plenty of rambling blogs. If you are still reading please post a comment. Even just a 'what's up!' will do!!!

Who are you?

Who in the heck are the people that look at this blog I wonder?... maybe the random browser of blogs via blogger.com?... Anyhow, this will be super short. It was a wonderful day. I burned Marilyn's bottles while sterilizing them- while trying to multitask I forgot about them on the stove. But you know what, I never let things like that get to me :) There are more important things in life :) Like going to bed early! Hence the super short post... it is already 20 minutes later than I want to be in bed these days and I still have to shower. I haven't gotten back to strict paleo since the Whole Life Challenge ended last week, but I'm not going to sweat it just yet. I'm certain I will be fully back on the paleo-wagon in no time. Tonight my dessert was vanilla almond milk mixed with stevia, ground cloves, chia seeds, peanut butter, and banana slices followed by a piece of lemon-infused dark chocolate. So delicious.

To blog or not to blog. Nutrition, babies, men, Mexican, taxes.

I am sitting here in the living room while Cain stands over his top dresser drawer, which he has pulled out of his dresser and placed on the kitchen table, in search of his W2 form. It is April 13th. He is an organized and passionate man, as well as very serious about time-sensitive material. Yet, this year, with a baby on our hands, we have been less than organized. I have decided to start blogging. Not because I think what I have to say should have any weight in the world or that I am particularly interesting, but because I believe in blogging as a form of therapy. I am admittedly very concerned with the whole issue of privacy, but I think we can sensibly agree that in this world if someone wants to know more about you they will find it out one way or the other anyway. Cain has very interesting items in his dresser drawer... floss bands, catnip, a Van Halen CD, checkbooks, old credit cards, Chinese money, a library card, a sleep aid... he is announcing these findings to myself and our cats as he searches some more. Okay, so on with my therapy. 2 days ago was the last day of the Whole Life Challenge. I am very bad with figuring out what to do after the end of things like this. It was a terrific 8 weeks of weight loss and strength gains for me. It started off when I was 3 months post-partum and today Marilyn turned 5 months. I still have around 20 pounds to lose and plan to do this by eating strict paleo with a cheat day every few weeks or so. Hence this blog. I feel like I really need to be accountable to someone outside of myself. I think this is because I am completely happy with who I am and with my place in the world regardless of what the scale says or how heavy the barbell I pick up is. However, I want to live a very long and very healthy life and I think that the best way to do this is to stay light and fit. That said, and I know this sounds very vain, I believe that the greatest accessory is a hot body (well, second to a baby of course, which is the greatest accessory of all time, lol). I enjoy putting on clothes without worrying if I will feel comfortable when I sit down or bend over. I miss it! You see, I am rambling on now.... this is good! This is therapeutic! I feel sort of bad for you for reading this, but I promise this blog will offer up many goodies for your mind, heart, and body. I'm getting sleepy. Cain is still looking for his W2. I'm going to bed in a couple of minutes. I am fading fast. Okay yes, you guessed it, there is a confession in order. How did you know!? I did not eat paleo yesterday or today. I'm not ashamed or disapointed. I don't believe in regret. But I am frustrated with the realization that all of the work that I do in the next few days will only be to get me back to where I was physically a few days ago. I am FREE of weighing myself again until 6/20/13. When I do weigh myself again on 6/20/13 I want to be my pre-pregnancy weight again, but even more so I want my 1 rep ring-dip, 1 rep pull-up, 215 deadlift, and 155 back squat back. Those are not crazy goals. They aren't even big goals. I just want to be back at baseline. I may make a few more goals in the next week or two. This blog will track my journey. It will also contain seriously cute pictures of my baby girl and many other random entries. This blog is actually already boring me and I'm the writer. Oh well, like I said, you can be doing anything right now but you are reading this... Thanks... I'm falling asleep...

The third trimester is finally here! (in 2 days...)

Today I realized, being only a couple of days away from the official start of the third trimester, that this baby will be here before we know it. Then I immediately realized that I don't know if I'm more excited to actually have her finally be brought into the world OR to simply not be pregnant anymore. Obviously I am most excited to have a new baby girl, but I am happy that just as soon as that happens I get to simply no longer be pregnant. I know that sounds really weird. Being pregnant this body belongs to two people, me AND my baby. Yes, I plan to breastfeed, which means my body will still partially belong to her, but I will just be me again, versus me and a baby. I have to say though, carrying a baby has been one of the most amazing experiences imaginable. It is true that it is indescribable, that it is just odd and exceptionally incredible in a million ways to have a human growing in my belly. I have been blessed to have had a wonderful pregnancy thus far, which of course sets me up to look forward to several more pregnancies in the future. But alas, in 12 weeks (OMG!) THIS chapter of 'the first' will be closed, motherhood will begin, life will never be the same again (OMG, but in a good way!), and I will get to just be me again (and be 'mom', OMG!).

Re-united with a long-lost love!

It's been a long time since writing an entry, I suppose I have not been too inspired over the last couple of months. I did complete CrossFit Diesel's nutrition challenge, eating mostly paleo, and definitely could have written about that, but everytime I did something on the computer related to that it was filling out my food log on myfitnesspal.com. This post is inspired by my new-found love of running. Since becoming pregnant 4+ months ago I admit I sort-of gave up on my love of running. It seemed that as I would get larger it would just become more difficult to keep up with the pace and mileage. Plus I CrossFit about 5 days per week and I know that would be sufficient to keep me fit throughout my pregnancy.

Then I ran the NorthFace Endurance Challenge Relay Marathon (early June!) with friends from CrossFit and I just gotta tell ya, fate has a funny way of bringing things into your life that are really supposed to be there. I had asked about at least 4 people if they would want to take my 10K leg of the challenge and they were all unable for various very good reasons. As I could not come up with a very good reason to not do it I just figured, 'it's fate, I gotta do this'. No, being pregnant is never a good reason to not challenge yourself. Especially if it is a matter of doing something that prior to your pregnancy you could do with relative ease. The night before the relay marathon there were severe thunderstorms with tornado's in the region (rare occurance in Maryland) and our power went out. When I found out that our power went out I momentarily felt relief. Relief that I would not have to do my part in the relay marathon. I thought maybe it would not really happen or that maybe if the apartment got very hot (no power means no A/C) then I would not be able to sleep all night and THAT would be a GREAT reason to not run. But just as soon as that idea came into my mind a moment later I knew that would not be enough. I knew I could not let the other runners down. And I really didn't want to let myself down. I then asked a co-worker how the electricity going out could possibly get me out of running a 10K the next day. She said I could say my alarm never went off. I thought "I'm looking for an excuse, a really good reason, not a lie!" And I knew then that I was of course just fearing something I did not know. I did not know how my 4+ month pregnant body would deal with terrain and distance that I had not trained for. I didn't actually think it was silly that I did not train. Running 1-2 miles during various CrossFit WOD's was torture enough. I didn't train for this 10K because I did not want to put up with the repetitively disappointing running experiences I was having. I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to be forced to adapt to something as it was happening. I wanted to experience just where my comfort zone was and how malleable it might be under pressure. A couple of hours prior to my start time I secretly brainstormed some 'scaling' options and checked with the relay marathon staff to be sure one option in particular would be acceptable. You see, 2.4 miles out on the course there is a rest-stop. Beyond this rest-stop there is a 1 point something mile loop in the woods and you return to the same rest-stop and retrace your steps back to the finish line. So I figured that if I was unsure about things when I got to the rest-stop I would just skip the mile loop and head back. I was so not happy with that option however, for several reasons. Anyone who can run 5 miles can run 6.25 miles. To skip 1.25 miles and have my team's time not be an official whole marathon distance is crap. Also, when Neale said the real trail terrain was in those woods I knew I had to get out there. I signed up for this trail race because I LOVE trail runs. I wish the entire course was out in the woods. That is what a true train race is! Hence I knew I was going to do the whole distance. Another 'scaled' option that was still on the table when I started the run was to simply go as slow as I needed to. But again, I did not want my team's timed score to heavily reflect someone with a major handicap. I did not want to go out there for a jog. I could jog at home on my own time. Why should I go for a jog in the woods on three other people's time? This was about running. This was a challenge. I needed to work my body up and then push. I needed to allow myself to not hold back. As I received the transponder belt from Tyler and started moving, throwing the belt around my waist and snapping it on I knew I was going the whole distance, I knew I wasn't going to stop unless I was very uncomfortable, and I knew there would be a lot on the course that I did not expect. Of all three of these the last thing I knew suprised me the most. I did jog at a comfortable and only mildly challenging pace the first 2 miles, mostly to get my body ready for the second half which I knew I was going to push through. I was not even on the course for a tenth of a mile when my left ankle said 'HELLO I HATE THESE SNEAKERS!' Damn, I forgot about that! So for around 2 miles I had to pay attention to NOT toe striking on my left foot but always heal striking on that foot, which is of course against the natural way that I have been trained to run. Also, within the first quarter mile I got an ache in the right side of my abdomen, one of those aches like you just ate something, a cramp, but I had not eaten for about 45 minutes prior. Uh, annoying! That lasted at least a mile. There were other aches and pains here and there those first couple of miles, but then I was in the clear, I was in 'the zone'. I had a lot of doubt about how my body, with a 4-month old baby in my belly, was going to handle this, but in fact it was like my body started to scream at me 'what took you so long to get back to running!!!??' Once I was in the woods (the REAL trail!) I was then completely driven, pacing myself all the while, and so so happy! I ended up finishing in 1:09, which I think is pretty good ;) (I wrote this post within a week of the event, posting late due to being very busy.) I am still running, not as much as I'd like by any means, and now that I'm nearly 6 months pregnant I am super slow, but I never stop my slow trot when running is part of a CrossFit WOD. I plan to continue my slow jog throughout the rest of the pregnancy. Then I'll be getting back to running. (However, I do have a very annoying bunion on my left big toe... which is another story altogether.)

A Cure for Nausea... and Music

Nausea- A word I've always had trouble spelling. And I've only had to use the word a million times in medical charts. This is an 'in case I forget later' post. I've had nausea for only about 4 or 5 days now, and the ONLY thing that takes it away is CrossFit. I'm serious. There's no time to feel nausous. There is only time to stay focused and work hard. Another 'in case I forget later' thing to write is that I have found that music does far more for me these days then it ever has. I'm trying really hard to not make this sound completely corney, but instead of music just getting under my skin it now just flows right through me. This sounds absurd. Whatever :)