Back to the drawing board

A couple of the blogs I read had similar posts this week. "When life hands you lemons...". I could chime in with that feeling because this week life handed me a big pile of something, though I'm not sure it was lemons. LOL.

I know we all have busy lives. Spouses and kids and work and things to do at home can really make it hard to find time for ourselves. I've let my schedule get out of control and it's time to reign it in. I've got to get back to the place where I had time to exercise. I like to do it. I don't think of it as a chore. I actually think of it as a luxury. It's something I do for me and nobody else. I was doing so well a couple of months ago and when I tried to get back to it this week, I tried to jump back in where I left off. Unfortunately, I can't find the window of time that I seemed to have before. I think I'm going to have to ease back into it. Start out with a 30 minute walk every day and add on from there. I may have to skip the gym for a while and do some strength training at home. It's easier for me to find 15-20 minutes here and there rather than trying to find 60 or 90 minutes to drive to the gym, do the workout and get back.

Hopefully tomorrow morning I will be able to get my walk in. I miss it. :)

Change in plans already? It's only day 2.

I made a plan Sunday night before I went to bed for what I wanted to do this week as far as my workouts. Each day was based on whether or not I had to take my son to school at 6:00am for his weight lifting. If I do have to take him, I can go to the gym after I drop him off and get my workout done before I have to wake up my youngest son at 7:30ish. If I don't have to take him, I have to wait until they are both gone (around 8:45am) and that means very little time to exercise before I have to get to work. I asked him Sunday what days he had to be there at 6 and he said every day except Wednesday. Great, I can make my plan. So last night hubby tells me that the lifting schedule has changed. Now he is only going Mon, Wed and Fri. UGH! That changes my whole workout schedule. I guess I better come up with a new plan because if I don't, my work schedule will go crazy and I will be sitting at the computer at 10:00pm wondering why I didn't get a chance to exercise that day.

Is it just me or are there times when it is just very hard to make time for yourself when you are a parent? :)

Just start with the first step

Monday is the perfect day to "start over", right? That's my theory today. I've been off of my plan for several weeks now and it's beginning to show. It's time to get back to it. We leave for vacation in 8 weeks, so I'm using that as my new goal date. We all have different strengths, right? Well, in my little weight loss world, I am better at exercising than counting calories, so that is where I decided to start today.

I started last night with a calendar for this week of what I wanted to do each day (specific workouts, etc.) and a list of things to do every day (remember to drink more water, etc.). Today's goal was to do 20-30 minutes on the elliptical, take a 30 minute walk with my neighbor and do a short ab workout. I am happy to report that all 3 had been accomplished before 8:30 this morning. Now I remember why I like to workout in the morning so much. I feel great! Doing this first thing in the morning makes me more aware of what I am eating through the day and usually helps me stay on track.

So let's see if I can get there. 8 weeks to lose about 8 pounds and get this old body toned back up. I'm looking forward to the challenge. :)

Rough week

I am so glad that it's Friday. Unfortunately, I still have to work this weekend, but not as much as I did this week. I had a not-so-great week. We had great weather for most of the week. Sounds like a good thing, right? It was, except I don't have anything to wear for warm weather. My spring/summer clothes are way too big and I struggled to find a couple of decent outfits this week. Going shopping for new clothes was on my list of things to do this week, but I got sidetracked. By what, you ask.

First it was the toilets that needed to be fixed. Yes, you read that right. We didn't have 1 toilet break, we had 2 break. OK, fine. No huge deal. We get the parts to fix them and hubby gets them fixed. Then the car needed tires. Again, not a huge deal but of course it's never just one thing. The repair shop found something else wrong when they were replacing the tires, so 4 hours and $1,000 later I finally had my car back. Then the washing machine broke. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I am the camel in this story just in case you wondered. I had way too much work this week to keep adding time to deal with everything in my house deciding to break in the same week. So basically I have a house full of dirty clothes because hubby refused to buy a washing machine without me and I just didn't have time to deal with it until tonight. Shopping for a washing machine is not my idea of a fun Friday night, but I guess you do what you gotta do, right? LOL!

So anyway, there is my pity party for today. I managed to walk a couple days this week, but that's it. I was hoping for a couple of free hours tomorrow to get in a nice workout, but my oldest son gets to go to his first invitational track meet tomorrow, so I can't miss that. I'm hoping to get some exercise in, but I will also have to be somewhere doing laundry because my new washer & dryer won't be ready until Monday and I don't know if we can make it that long. :)

Have a wonderful Easter!

Getting back to it

I tell people that the hardest part of starting a workout program is the first day. Getting yourself to do it when you are't used to it is very hard. Now I think the hardest part is getting back into it once you've stopped. UGH! I am really struggling with working out right now and that has always been the easy part for me. I have let my schedule get so full that I can't find the time to get in really good workouts. I did manage to get a 30 minute walk in this morning, but as I was looking at my calendar for the weekend, I can't quite figure out when I'm going to fit in my workouts.

The kids go back to school on Monday, so hopefully I will be able to get back into the habit of doing a 30 minute walk in the morning every day. At least then I know I've done something even if the rest of the day gets too crazy for more.

Happy Good Friday!

"Are you sick?"

So there are people in your family that you only see at weddings, funerals and showers, right? I got to see some of them a few weeks ago at my grandfather's funeral. Some of the reactions I got were pretty funny. My brother's girlfriend told me that several people had made comments about my weight loss and at least one wanted to know if I was sick. My grandmother decided that the cemetery was the place to tell me that I was getting too thin (really, she couldn't even wait for us to get back to the church?). My former step-mother confirmed that she had heard people wondering if I was doing some crazy diet but since she is one of my workout buddies, she let them know that I was doing everything in a healthy way - eating less and exercising more.

I did get quite a few nice compliments, but it was hard to enjoy them because there are only so many times you can hear that people think you are anorexic before it ruins your day. LOL! I think a few people were watching me eat at the dinner after the service (seriously). One of my uncles started to say something and I think he could tell that I wasn't in the mood, so he decided to leave it at "You look good, just don't lose any more." HA! HA!

However, I did decide to re-evaluate my goal weight. Even though it is on the high side of what every chart/website says someone my height should weigh, maybe it's too low for me personally. My husband actually told me the other day that he thought I should stop trying to lose more weight and just focus on maintaining and getting toned. I'm not sure yet. I do know that I have to get back to my workout schedule and I need to get focused on the strength training, so I guess that is what I will try to do for at least the next month and see what happens.

I'm back...did you miss me? LOL!

It has been almost a month since I posted. No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth. LOL! I have been working almost non-stop for the past month. I am self-employed, so I don't have normal hours or any real "days off". I just work when I have work to do and for the past month or two, there has been a lot to do. I just finished my list of what I have to do tomorrow and I finally stopped when I got to item #20.

Since my last post, I've had some good things happen. I turned 39 on March 5th and had a wonderful birthday celebration with my family. I've also had some bad things happen. My grandfather had been sick for several months and he died on March 12th. For the first few days after he died, I did really well. I was able to focus on all of the wonderful things we did as a family and I felt truly blessed that he was able to be a part of so many major events in my life (my wedding, the birth of my children, etc.). I can honestly say that I don't have one bad memory of my grandfather, so every time I thought of him, I smiled. But at his funeral, I really fell apart. I know that we were all lucky to have had him with us for 80+ years that we had him, but that day was so sad for me. I was really in a fog for the next few days. I managed to work, but if I had to tell you what I actually did during those days, I'm not sure I could. Luckily I am feeling much better now and I keep hearing that each day will get a little easier, so I'm holding on to that.

So how has my diet been? HA! HA! Well, I wish I could say that I have been working out like crazy and sticking to my diet. I guess I could say it, but I'd be lying. I've been lucky to get more than a couple of walks in each week and the 5 pounds I lost when I was sick is all back. I actually have some funny stories to share about my family's reaction to my weight loss (some of the people I saw at the funeral hadn't seen me in quite some time), but I will save that for tomorrow post.

I hope all of you have been doing great while I've been "away" and I can't wait to catch up on all of your blogs!