Fresh Start

Saturday was my last first day at Weight Watchers--the last time I will walk in for the first time & feel that twinge of guiltshamenausea that comes with feeling like I failed. Even though I know that's a load of hog wash--the failure part--it still gets me.  I firmly believe that weight issues are not a reflection of character & yet here I am feeling ridiculously ashamed at where I'm at (226.8 lbs & completely out of shape, in the interest of full disclosure).  As I've been chewing on the negativity & moving into my fresh start, I realized that I'm in a very different place than I was when I first start therapizing myself with the blog.  Not only do I have a fresh start for my tush, I have a fresh start for my online diary...& of course a fresh start fridge picture!

When I first started writing about my process, I had already lost 80 of my eventual 120 lbs.  I had done most of the heavy lifting--made good habits, built positive thought patterns, educated myself about my choices.  Fast forward.  The heavy lifting is right at my doorstep.  While I waxed poetic the first time around about the things that I had done, now I get to process in real time.  It's exciting & nerve wracking.  There's more on the line when there's a possibility of fully exposed failure.

But the flip side: now I get to be pragmatic.  I get to remind myself in the thick of things about what works & doesn't work.  To get the ball rolling I'm focusing on one key behavior & one mini-goal at a time.

Behavior:  Plan Ahead 

I spent my free time last week planning dinner menus out through the middle of March & prepping food.  I put dinner plans on my calender, along with alarms set for when I need to start cooking & "to-dos" the night before if I need to get something out of the freezer to defrost.  

Because I try to eat a largely "real" food diet, it takes a little work to make sure I have the things I need to be successful.  I scheduled time each day last week to make: 

• bread
• chicken stock
• cream of mushroom soup
• cream of chicken soup
• yogurt
• black beans
• refried beans
• northern beans
• ranch dressing

This week's scheduled prep plans include:

• zucchini muffins
• pumpkin muffins
• whole wheat bread crumbs
• chicken nuggets
• cream of celery soup

And here's the point that I want to remember in all of this flurry of planning & cooking & prepping:  this is how I prefer to do things...it is by no means the only way to do things.  The key is in the planning ahead, in knowing when I have time to make things & when I need to rely on the grocery store. There will be times when my freezer is empty & I don't have all of my homemade staples...but I must still have a plan.  Running to McDonald's does not constitute a plan.

Mini-Goal: No More Maternity Undies  

In the next two weeks I would like to rid my drawers of maternity drawers.  Beside the obvious reason being they are hideous & the granniest of granny panties, they have also seen me through three pregnancies.  They are straight up falling apart.  We're not talking minor holes--we're talking massive holes & swaths where elastic is separated from the fabric & other problems too unmentionable for the world wide web (but if you've had a baby, you probably get the gist of it).  Anyhoo...I want them gone forever.  In two weeks.  I don't care what the scale says, I'm not getting bent out of shape about not working out.  I just want to wear real underwear that couldn't also double as the tattered & torn sails of The Nina, The Pinta or The Santa Maria.

A Quick Reminder

In case I needed a real-life reminder that I've changed the trajectory of my life & my kids' lives despite how I may feel about the state of my state right now...

The Scene: wandering the grocery store with Coraline & Etta

Coraline (pointing down the cookie/chip/junk aisle): "Mom, treat foods don't have any nutrients, do they?"

Old Sara's kids wouldn't have even known the word "nutrients," let alone used it in conversation.  Score.  All is not lost.  Let's celebrate with Dr Coraline & the Avenger Monkeys (& if I ever start a band that is officially its name).

Maybe It's the Pregnancy

When I was a kindergartner, I wanted to be a professional cheerleader for the Iowa State Cyclones.  When I got a little older I wanted to be a lawyer because my parents watched "LA Law."  Now I just want to let my dog out to pee without putting on a peep show while simultaneously nursing the baby.

That's right, the baby is here &...it's a GIRL!  Interwebs, allow me to introduce the newest piece of my heart, the final installment of our Trilogy, Etta Emmeline.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  When last I word vomited on the blog I looked (& felt) like this:

Dewey eyed, optimistic, rounding the bend on the worst "morning" sickness I had experienced with any of my three kids.  This was August.

Then came September.  If this were a read aloud blog (a concept I likely just made up), I would use Ralph Fiennes' "Voldemort" voice to say September in the most despicable  skin-crawlingly awful manner imaginable.  September is when the poo hit the fan.  It started with a sore ankle on a Tuesday.  By Friday both ankles & both knees were in searing pain.  By the next week I was an absolute disaster.  I'll spare the cornucopia of seemingly unrelated symptoms (because I don't want to bother to list them & I'm not looking for armchair diagnoses) but by month end I had seen seven different doctors & been to the ER twice & it all boiled down to this, "Maybe it's the pregnancy, maybe it's a one-time fluke, maybe it's the first signs of something chronic .  We'll have to wait until the baby comes to figure this one out."  

"Maybe it's the pregnancy"--four words I could have done without hearing given that I was, in fact, the pregnant one.  By the end of November the symptoms started to settle down enough that I was feeling cautiously "better," but blood tests were still irritatingly uncooperative & at the same time inconclusive.  I missed my blissful second trimester (to say nothing of missing so much of my big kids' lives in those three months!), I felt lousy, and worst of all, the pregnancy that was to have been a healthy & fun romp through procreation, unfettered by excess weight, was marred by the unbelievable terror of worrying that my body wasn't taking care of my baby...& the stress eating that came with it.

From September through February 4th, I was utterly convinced that my body, that had previously sailed through two pregnancies while being obese, was not up to the task.  I knew that every minute my baby was in me was more damage being done.  At 28 weeks I wanted to have an immediate c-section because if I could just see the baby & hold the baby & get it on the outside I could take such better care of it (proviso: I was coked up on stress & pregnancy hormones & I am fully aware that this is one of the world's worst ideas).  Was my baby in the pain that I was in?  Was my baby being disfigured or impaired by the drugs I was taking?  Was my baby going to make it to this side of my uterus or was this all some elaborate precursor to the most horrible outcome possible?  

The kicker was that I had worked so hard to be HEALTHY.  Through the last few years, everything I did was to make my body strong.  I hadn't been preoccupied with being thin or pretty...I was eating well & working out so that I would have health.  I spent the better part of the last six months feeling that it had all been a waste.  I tossed away all ideas of maintaining my health through my pregnancy--fat lot of good it had done us to begin with.  I joked that I was the anti-poster child for healthy living & weight loss, but as with most jokes, it was only out there to obscure the truth that I was terrified I that my body was betraying me & my unborn child.  

This story doesn't really have an ending per se.  In the delivery room, I cried (a first for me) & my first words  after her arrival were something to the effect of "Thank God!  I didn't kill our baby!"  Not only did I not kill her, but she is utterly perfect.  On this side of pregnancy, I still don't know what happened to my body or if it will happen again, but I do know that whatever it is, I need to be as strong as possible for as long as possible regardless of my ultimate diagnosis or lack thereof.  Once again, with the birth of a daughter, I am reminded that my body is, not only my vehicle for caring for my children, but the greatest object lesson I can ever give to my girls.  They will know what it is to be strong, healthy, women who love their bodies as the vehicles to propel them to all of their dreams--not because I told them, but because I showed them.  

I can't control my body chemistry or my hormones or my genetics but I can control what I put in my mouth & what I do with my feet.  Maybe it was the pregnancy, maybe it was a fluke, maybe I'll deal with this crap again.  I don't know.  What I do know: Saturday I go back to Weight Watchers.  On March 16th I'll restart C25K. At the end of March I have the first of my post-baby appointments with some of the doctors that kept me from going crazy through "the dark months."  I'll control what I can control.  I can't choose my diagnosis, but I can certainly choose how I respond to it & now I look like this:

Now, since I don't like to leave things heavy (bahaha), I'll leave with this: a meager THREE days after Etta was born, Coraline says this to me at the dinner table, "Your baby is out now...you need to go for a run."  While perhaps a slightly unrealistic expectation, it did serve to remind me that maybe the last few years weren't a complete waste after all.