Same stuff different day

So as usual, yesterday didn't go as planned. I apparently wasn't feeling better yet, so I was only able to get down the first cup of shake and not even that of my water. I attempted to use my lovely Phenergen to settle things so I could eat, but that didn't happen. The worst part is that I was actually hungry. I WANTED to eat. I attempted a yogurt and got 3 bites down before throwing it away. Why can't bodies just act the way they're supposed to?

Luckily, I had an appointment with my baby doctor yesterday so I was able to bring it up. It didn't do me a whole lot of good, as he just told me to use the phenergen when I needed it to make sure I was able to eat. He also told me to get the rest I need and all that stuff. Yeah...if I could be getting any more rest...I would. If he wanted to take me away from work to be on Short Term Disability I wouldn't say no to that ;-). Until I can start that, though, I'll have to continue with my full schedule of working all day and working on stuff at home all evening. That's the only way to get even part of my list done.

So today, I'm starting out with my spinach and parmesean bagel, again, and accounting for it in my calorie count for the day. I know that the weight loss will be much slower this way, but it's safer for my sanity if I just eat what I want while staying within the calorie guidelines of the program. That doesn't mean I'll drink my shakes and can have 4 donuts to use up my calories...it just means that the meal replacements will continue to be my main focus (since that is where most of my nutrition is coming from) but I will attempt to keep up with the good for me food, too, while allowing myself an indulgence here and there for my sanity :-)

Oh! I've also decided that I cannot weigh myself anywhere except the dr's office. Our scale at home is SO off that I went from 180 (which would have been a 12 lb weight loss from my last appointment 2 weeks ago) to a 3 lb weight loss. ANY non-gain is better than nothing at the moment and loss is even better, but I need to not stress over the numbers and just focus on the concept of a healthier eating plan. That was my real reason for starting all of this.

So...here we go again. Same stuff, different day!

Day 1...Take 2...

So here I go again. After spending most of last week (and the entire weekend) sick and not wanting to eat *anything* I'm trying to get myself back in the habit. I still feel kinda dizzy, my brain goes in and out feeling kinda numb-tinglyish, and the nausea comes and goes...but I'm never going to get better if I'm not getting at least some of the good stuff in me!

I blended up my shakes this morning, and have a new plan. I poured it all into 1 bottle to keep in the fridge...and my goal is to drink 1 cup of shake and 1 cup of water every hour. We'll start there, and see how it works. That also gives me an excuse to stand up and stretch and walk a bit once an hour, which should hopefully help as well.

I got a few good for me snacks ready for the day, even. Celery, babybel cheese, yogurt, cream of wheat, and applesauce. I had to go for convenience today.

So that's it to start. We'll see how the day goes. I also have an appt with the baby dr, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the number on the scale says. I know that it shouldn't be about that for me right now...but I still can't help but hope (as long as I know that he's getting what he needs, it should be ok for me to lose a bit :-) ).

I'll check back in later!

Still going

Ok, I made it through the night last night, thanks to having such a loving and supportive husband who is *extremely* patient even when I'm bawling my eyes out about stupid things that don't matter. I messed up a little with the fries, but hopefully not *too* bad. I'm starting today off with something I want, though. Since the shakes are a little too foamy for me when I first make them and since I usually end up eating too much at night, I'm going to attempt to get my heavier calories in the morning instead of hording them all til the end of the day. For this morning, that means not passing up the spinach & paremsean bagel that I've been looking forward to for a week (we get bagels every week at work, and this is my absolute favorite kind!) I was going to attempt to be strong and not eat one, but then I decided to just have it if I want it and just count the calories. It's a lot to start with, but maybe it will help me have a happier less emotional day. Hopefully that will lead to a breakdown free night :-)

So no...I haven't completely given up yet...but I will continue to improvise and rearrange things until I find what's doable for me. I need to just continue to remind myself that I'm the only pregnant woman I know who is going through this, so there isn't anyone to tell me what's normal and what's not when my body isn't completely my own at the moment. All I can do is do my best, and realize that my situation isn't like anyone else's.

For now I'll just keep on keepin' on. We'll see what the rest of the day brings!

Insane

A couple of days before I found out I was pregnant, I cried because I wanted a smoothie so bad. All I had to do was go to the store and buy frozen fruit and I would have been set...but I couldn't bring myself to go. Instead, I sat there thinking about the smoothie that I wanted and I just cried because I couldn't have it. Fortunately for me, my parents were at the store and I called to see if they had left yet. They were in the parking lot, but my dad went back in to buy me my frozen fruit so that I could make myself a smoothie. I was a happy girl (although then I felt guilty that he went back inside just for me...but that's a whole different issue). A few days later I found out I was pregnant (VERY shocked) but I was able to look at the smoothie crying incident and laugh because at least it made sense. Well it still didn't...but at least it felt like there was a "reason" I was being so dumb.

I feel like I did when I cried over the smoothie. Now I know I'm pregnant...but I feel like I should be handling this eating plan better. I should be able to see logically that this is better for me and for the baby, and my cravings and random obsession with food should just be non-existent or I should be able to just get over it. Saturday it was cookies, today it is ice cream (which makes me sick, btw, I have to eat VERY limited portions anyway). Today it was also pancakes, myzithra pasta, pizza, and pie. Ice cream is what had me standing in the aisle at Smith's for 10 minutes checking labels to try to find something that I would be "ok" with. I couldn't make myself feel good about any of them, so I went back to the car with yogurt and cottage cheese and almost in tears.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to start this plan while pregnant. I feel like I'm driving myself insane. Half the time I feel really great and motivated like I can do this and the other half I feel so completely out of control that I just hate myself for feeling like I can't do it. I know that if I were "allowed" these other foods, they wouldn't appeal so much. If I could have just made myself a pancake with buttermilk syrup, I wouldn't have even given ice cream a second thought. I'm just not sure where to draw the line at the moment. Instead, I bought my husband dinner at McDonald's (because he hasn't had it in FOREVER and I was going to eat my "good for me" stuff). I ended up finishing his fries and crying.

Not sure what else to think at the moment. My sister and her friend who are doing this plan are doing SO well and they tell me that if I just push through a couple of weeks then the cravings will go away. The question becomes...how do I make it through the few weeks with my emotions a complete wreck...and what if the cravings don't stop because I have all the added pregnancy hormones on top of my usual food obsessions?

I hate feeling like a failure, and I hate feeling like I'm out of control. That just adds to the emotion and causes a spiral. I'll keep up the blogging regardless, because the accountability is still good...I just need to figure out how much I can really push myself with an eating plan when I'm already pushing myself in so many other ways.

Yeah, not sure how to finish this post because my brain is spinning (there's my ADD again). I guess I'll post more when I can figure out more to say.

Iron deficiency during pregnancy

So this morning as I'm sitting here at work DEAD tired, it dawns on me that "Oh yeah! I have an iron deficiency...before the new eating plan I had been making sure that I was eating Cream of Wheat at least once a day. I looked up the calories for my yummy Instant packet of goodness and realized that it's 130 calories. Not *too* bad but I would love to conserve those calories for something I might really want later (yes, I'm a calorie hoarder...I realized this long ago...and that's why I always end up with so many calories to still eat at the end of the night!) So anyway, Cream of Wheat for my iron. I started to think about the meal replacement shakes, and thought "Well this is supposed to be a pretty complete supplement...I wonder how much iron this has...". I looked it up, and this lovely information to your left is what I found. YAY!! Now I love Cream of Wheat anyway, but now I don't feel like I HAVE to use my calories towards it unless I want to. 83% in just the one shake, and I'm having two a day. I'm set!

Day 4 - Sunday August 29

I'm not sure I should really be calling yesterday and today days 3 and 4, because I haven't followed the plans either day. After Saturday night, I thought about waking up at my normal time Sunday morning which is literally about an hour before church. This doesn't give me time to drink a shake, let alone grab anything "good" for breakfast. Yup, this is another excuse. I hate "making excuses" for things. I really should be strong enough and disciplined enough to set things up better for myself. Maybe over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, my mom suggested that I follow the plan during the week then give myself the weekends off if that would help me. It really would, but I don't want to spend the weekend undoing everything that I've done to better my health over the week. I do have to admit it's a good start, at least.

So for now...the shakes and counting are a weekday thing. I need to be more careful on the weekends than I was this weekend. Not following the plan or counting calories over the weekend should NOT mean that I can eat all the cookies my body will allow me to before getting sick, or gorging myself on rolls, or cutting fruits and vegetables out of my life almost completely. I will be more lenient with myself, but I need to at least show that I'm still trying *some*.

In the meantime...I (because I'm dumb) stepped on the scale again tonight. 182. Hrm. My husband keeps telling me that the scale is wrong...but it wasn't going down before, only up. I told him that I'll try not to get *too* excited (again, try) and I'll use the weigh ins at the dr's office every 2 weeks for my "official" weigh in.

Needless to say, I didn't keep track of the food that I ate today. A few leftover cookies from last night, roast, potatoes, lots of rolls, a little bag of Funyuns (like the 3/$1 kind), and I think that's about it. I didn't get much water in, and didn't get my exercise. I need to start making that a priority. Maybe I'll fire up the Wii Fit tomorrow. We'll see how much ambition I have after a full Monday of work :-)

Day 3 - Saturday August 28

So here's where the accountability comes in. This is why I have this blog. I made it through my first cheat, made my shakes, and ended up sleeping most of the day. Stupid emotions. I blame the pregnancy for the story I'm about to tell (well...because I can...and I only have 2 more months of the blaming pregnancy thing, hehe).

So yesterday ended up being a "stop keeping track" day. After sleeping all day and my extremely emotional week (I won't go into too much detail...but both work and home had worn me out completely) I decided that I just wanted to go to my sister's house, play games, and eat pumpkin chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies. I even texted my supervisor to find out where she had gotten them for the meeting yesterday, hehe.

I felt guilty at first, then I realized that even with an off day here and there...I'm doing my best at any given time. I still have 2 days of being really good behind me, and my home scale now says 185. Again, I know that I wasn't going to get on more than once a week, but it was going to be Saturday night or Sunday mornings, so it's perfect timing anyway. I'm not counting on the 5 lbs staying off (and again that wasn't necessarily my goal *while* pregnant anyway) but it's good to see that the work did have results even with me being dumb today.

So...picking myself up and dusting myself off from my immediate fall...and starting again.