Uhh... Is it really November already??!

I can't believe it's November already! I last posted at the beginning of September.... oops. I guess time just kind of got away from me. Life happens, time flies, and memories are made; especially when you have a baby. Speaking of my little Miss. Sunshine, she is going to be 7 months old tomorrow! Seriously guys, where did the time go?

True to what I said a couple post ago, we have been so busy entertaining people or traveling. Right now we see my in-laws at least once a month and my parents once a month. That leaves 2 weekends to run into town for our Sam's run, and another to visit with friends. It has been hectic and I have absolutely hated being so busy during our free time. The holidays are coming up and our schedule is definitely packed. It's especially hard when J and I have birthdays in December.

Lately I have been on the struggle bus when it comes to staying with my job. I love most of the people I work with, and my job is alright. I just really, really, really miss living in Fort Wayne. We haven't made any friends and it has just been so disheartening having to spend so much time traveling.

Right now we have our noses to the grindstone so that we can pay off my student loans. Right now, with our current budget, we should have the student loans paid off by March 2017. It seems like it is so far away, especially when I am so anxious to return home. I think we can trim more from our budget, but I have a pretty big grocery budget so we can make the point of eating healthy most of the time.

Speaking of eating healthy; I am down over 50 pounds from my highest of when I was pregnant! I am also out of the 200's and sitting at around 197. I am so happy to be out of the 200s, but let's be honest; there is still a lot of work to do. I am currently half way through my first Transformers dietbet, and have thankfully made it each of the 3 rounds so far. It has been close, and at times I thought there was no way I was going to make it, but I somehow did. Now we are heading into the holiday season with each round ending at the end of the month. No pressure right? :) That's okay. I need the pressure. Especially when I get home from a long day of work and the last thing I want to do is workout. I am torn between heading out to the gym for an hour or waiting until we put our little one down.

Life is busy, but it won't always be this way. I can only hope we get ourselves together soon.

Take it on back....

I have been really trying to think about how I turned out like I am. All of Junior/most of Senior year of college I was a healthy, happy person. I had a strong relationship with God, I was very outgoing and sociable, and I was very health conscious. Both before and after that point I’ve found myself to be very unhealthy and a miserable person. I am quickly angered over the dumbest things, constantly worry about the what ifs and stress over every little decision. I know what happened to bring me to the point of where I am. But how did it all start to begin with?

 

I mulled this question over many days, particularly asking myself how I first developed such an unhealthy relationship with food. It finally hit me one night as I was taking a shower (don’t all of our bright ideas come from the shower?). When I was a little girl, somewhere around the age of 7 or 8, I remember my dad telling me that my grandma had cancer and wasn’t going to be around for very much longer. I remember watching him leave out the window, with a box of tissues in my hand. I just kept telling my mom that I didn’t want my grandma to die. The next memory I have is of my dad and I at the visitation. It was a couple hours from home, and I remember it just being him and I there for that night, surrounded by extended family and friends of my grandma. When we left it was dark out, probably pretty late. We hadn’t yet ate and my dad swung through a McDonald’s drive through so we could grab something to eat on the way home. We split a 50-piece chicken nugget box. I remember eating my pain away, unaware at such a young age just what I was doing.

That moment started it all. I ate junk food (and still do at times) after any major stressor/heartache. It was comfort, it tasted good. I didn’t know that what I was doing was ultimately hurting myself. I wrangled this addiction in for a while as I found myself getting to know more about God. I developed healthy habits and as a results, became a healthy person. That is, until I experienced heartache at the hands of a boy. I started eating for comfort again, struggling to balance that while a healthy lifestyle. I even managed to shut it down for a brief while.

Fast forward through a major knee surgery (that I thought ended my favorite pastime of running), a wedding, leaving everyone we knew behind to move for my husband’s job, searching for my own job for many months, driving over an hour each way for work, moving into our first home, and having a child. There’s a lot of stuff that happened and here I am on the other side, trying to banish that emotional crutch, rely on my Lord, and develop healthy stress relievers. I am not a perfect person at all, and I never will be. One of the hardest things for me has been trying to find a good balance for all of these new responsibilities. I’m a mom and a breadwinner, with a house and a list of chores a mile long. My time is so limited.

Sometimes all it takes is admitting that there is an issue and how it started. Other times…. It takes a lot of work.

Weekly Weigh-In

I am so relieved to finally have a day of not having to entertain/travel to see someone. It seems like since my daughter was born it has been one or the other. We have had few weekends to enjoy just as a family.

First I want to start off with some exciting news!

I won the first round of the Transformer Dietbet I am doing! Woohoo! The goal was to hit 206.1.... I weighed in at 204.9! It is such a great feeling to do this. Last year, I started working out at 213 pounds. I got down to 206 before we found out we were pregnant, but stopped working out because I was afraid I was going to do something to cause me to miscarry. By the time I gave birth to her I weighed 247 pounds. It would have been a lot more, but near the end I was diagnosed as a Gestational Diabetic. That strict diet kept my weight in check.

This weigh-in also really made me realize just how close I am to finally being out of the 200's. It has been a long and miserable journey full of failures, but I am finally putting myself first. It won't happen overnight, but this transition is very important if I want to be a good example to my daughter. 

After weighing in I headed out to do our grocery shopping. We are trying something new in order to keep in check with our budgeting we set forth this month. We are now buying most of our groceries for the month at the end of the previous month and will pick up the perishables (fruits, veggies, etc) on a weekly basis. This should also help cut down my time at the store on Saturdays. 

I stayed up way later than usual Friday night scouring the coupon sites and sales ads to come up with the best sales possible. After hitting up Walmart and Kroger, we drove into Indianapolis and finished up at Meijer and Sam's Club. Our total was $183 with a savings (from coupons and rebates) of over $20! We set a pretty high budget goal of $500, but that also includes diapers, wipes, and non-regular items. I am confident that we will stay in budget for the month of September.

Speaking of September, can you believe it's almost the 1st? What happened to August? My days are a blur right now and it's just so hard to remember to stop what I'm doing. I try my best to soak up the time I have with my daughter because I know she's going to be grown and gone before I know it. It's such a struggle going to work each day knowing I only get a couple hours with her each day. I would gladly work as a SAHM if we could. 

Well that's all I have for tonight! I'll post again later this week!

Choosing Your Time Wisely

I have been up since 4:20 this morning...after waking up a couple times to take care of our daughter. Sometimes she sleeps great...other times she is up every couple hours. I'd say 3 times a night is average. Instead of going back to bed, I figured I'd get ready and get started on the day. Even as I type this I can see her on the monitor beginning to stir again.

I had a less than stellar weekend in terms of eating choices and have gained back about 4 pounds. Unfortunately, my first stage of the Transformer Dietbet ends this coming Friday and I have to weigh in on Saturday. I really need to get focused and not eat so much junk. It seems like things will go really well and then I'll have a whole weekend where we'll just eat like crap.

I haven't run since my 5K a couple of weekends back. I am just so pressed for time these days that exercise takes a back seat. We did go on a couple walks though, so it wasn't like I didn't do any exercise all week. This week should actually be great for being out -- it will be in the mid 70s until the weekend. Can anyone say fall?

I love the beginning of each new season,especially fall. I have such vivid memories pertaining to fall that are triggered by simple things-- September by Chris Daughtry, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, a Saturday morning run through a bunch of leaves.

I know that this week is supposed to be cool, while the following weeks will border the 90s, so I am trying to enjoy it as much as possible. We took a walk on Monday instead of using the elliptical, and I at least plan on taking Clara for a walk down to the grocery store to pick up some steamer bags today. 

I have been thinking more about how wisely we are using our time each day now that it has become such an important asset. I can’t believe we used to waste so much time in front of the TV (don’t get me wrong, we still watch an episode of Criminal Minds every night). It’s hard now with a child. I only get a very limited amount of time with her each day. I just want to hold her, snuggle with her and give her a million kisses. We get home each day around 5 and she goes down at 7:30. That’s 2.5 hours with my baby the whole day that I get to enjoy her sweet smiles. It just seems so unfair to me. So here I am, reluctant to do anything because I just want to be present in my time with her. My health is very important, but so is my time with my daughter.

Usually the day goes like this:

Work 7:30-4:00

Pick up DD 4:30

Home 5:00

Play with DD 5:00-5:45

DH home @ 5:45

Workout 6:00-6:30

Dinner 6:30-7:30 (cuddle with DD)

DD bedtime/Prep for next day 7:30

Shower 8:00

Bed 9:00

So how can I be better appreciating my time? Maybe not working out until after DD goes to sleep? And going to bed later? I should get used to less sleep anyway now that I’m a mom. Or I should get up earlier and work out and shower, that way it’s done and over with (if I do that I would have to use the elliptical because I am not running outside in the dark). We could have dinner after DD has gone to bed also, instead of before. 

I don’t want to get stuck in some repetitive cycle of life only to wake up one day and my daughter be an adult. I need to enjoy this time, because it is fleeting. I also need to be healthy so I can live long enough to watch her grow. And I need time to be a wife as well. I need to be present in my marriage.

Well Hello There!

Wow…. I can’t believe how much time has gone by. I was just creating this blog in anticipation of the birth of my little girl yesterday. I blinked and she’s now [almost] four months old! Time is running faster than it used to.

My name is Brenna and I am the author behind this blog. I love coffee, cardio [okay, only sometimes] and kids. I’m an engineer at a big company, sitting behind a desk 8 hours a day. I’m married to an engineer as well. I can only hope our little girl grows up to pursue whatever her passion is, because sometimes I question whether I chose the right career path. I suppose that if I didn’t, I would have never met my husband or had my beautiful baby girl. God has a way of drawing the best out of each situation.

This blog is really just a way to keep myself accountable. I have really gained weight since meeting my husband three years ago. To be fair, I had a major knee surgery shortly after we started dating and have since been unable to run.

I love running. Seriously. Though I have never been any good at it, it has always been a passion of mine. I have run countless 5ks throughout high school and college, one 10k, and a half marathon. The most amazing thing happened to me this past weekend. I jogged/walked my first 5K in 4 years! I didn’t put basically any practice in it, assuming that it would result in the same disappointment. To my amazement I was able to do it with minimal, if any, pain to my knee. I can only assume that giving birth somehow made me able to run [probably because my hips are now wider]. I have been looking for races to do since. My goal is to next year run a half again, and continue to use exercise as my vent.

Hunt for a cure CJD

Right now however, the struggle is real. I struggle daily to resist the urge to just eat whatever I want, whenever I want. During those years of frustration and a very sedentary lifestyle, I ate my feelings away. Now I am on the road to recovery. I know that the road is long and my pace is slow, but I will lose the weight and learn to enjoy to working out again.

My new challenge is fitting this all in each day, and I have failed miserably at. Between work and life, exercise takes a back seat. My days consist of getting myself and my daughter ready and out the door so I can drop her off at daycare and be to work by 7:30. From there I work until 4, pick her up, and arrive home around 5. I unload the car, take care of things that need addressing, and wait for my husband to get home around 6. From there we still have to have dinner, and we try to unwind and spend time together as a family before we put her down for bed at 7:30. Exercise is limited because I love my daughter and I don’t get to spend much time with her at all during the week. Throw in the fact that everyone always wants to do something on the weekend, and we barely have time together. It’s one of the reasons I hate working so much. She will grow up before I know it and I will have missed everything.

At the same time, I need to make room for exercise. I am worth the effort to be a healthier person. My husband is worth it. My daughter is worth it. Right there is three very big reasons to make exercise a priority in my life.



So there you are, there’s a bit about me and the journey I am on.