Back on the wagon!

Hello old friends and new!

Boy has a lot changed since I last logged on. I vowed to myself that as soon as I got back on the health wagon, I would log back in and keep up with telling our tale. Well I got a little (or a lot) off track in the last six months after having our wonderful SON but I have so much to look forward to now that I had to share. 

First of all, we have been in Georgia for over a year and welcomed our little boy to the world in April. He was just shy of a week overdue and I was induced. The labor was awful, my epidural(s) did not work, and he came in to the world like superman, aka, arm in the air by his head like he was already able to fly. Long story short, there were some complications with a fever and tearing, a little hemorrhaging, but nothing a longer stay and some antibiotics couldn't fix. 

So here's our Conrad: 8 lbs 13 oz, 21.25 inches long! Big guy like his daddy!

And now he's six months old! I can't even believe how big he's gotten! This guy is already blowing through his nine month clothes and mostly wearing twelve month. The plan had been to breastfeed for a year, it is awesome for the baby and helps you get back in shape better. Well he had really bad reflux and at his two month doctor visit, he was only in the 30%. I know that's fine but I was worried. He was put on medication but the feedings were still really hard to get through, with the baby screaming at me when I tried to get him to latch, especially in the evenings. When he was three months old we went on a trip home and to the beach and I decided to feed him in the mornings and evenings and pump the rest of his feedings. Well, it only lasted a few weeks. With his feeding so frequently before and then it really slacking off, I dried up really quickly and by the time he was four months old, I could only produce enough for one feeding no matter what I did, so we switched him to formula and he's been doing great! It's also helped his relationship with daddy, getting to leave them alone more often and not having to stop to pump wherever I went. I'm still proud of the fact that he was exclusively breastfed for three months though! We do what we can. 

The problem that came up though was that with the breastfeeding I was hungry all the time and it didn't seem to matter what I ate, I wasn't gaining anything. So after I stopped, I had become addicted to sugar and grains again, I was able to drink again, which I very much overindulged in, and the weight came back on with spades. I also got back on birth control after I stopped breastfeeding so we wouldn't have another one so quickly. The birth control added to the weight gain and last week I was up to just three pounds under my weight on the day I gave birth. I was devastated. 

Now, even though I'd been eating horribly, I had joined a gym with a daycare for the baby. I even started couch to 5k again and am now on week 5 where the real distance running begins. But I'm bigger than I've ever been and the running is excruciating. The baby has also gotten sick about every other week being in a daycare type environment. We had to take off for a week for him to get over his first ear infection not long ago. So I have been exercising, but if you're eating badly, it doesn't matter the exercising you're doing, nothing will come off. 

I looked at myself in the mirror on Friday and decided it was the day things were going to change. I gave myself a short term goal of losing ten pounds before leaving on a trip down south for a bridal shower and a baby shower. Overall I need to get down fifty pounds before I want to have another baby, but I also want that to happen very soon. Cap and I had talked about trying again at the new year, but we decided that the hormones in my pills were too much for my body so I got off of it this weekend as well. When the doctor put me on the pills, he did blood work on me for my hormone and glucose levels. It turns out that pregnancy has pretty much cured me of PCOS and I'm no longer close to being diabetic. All my levels were normal and that was even at an elevated weight. But I still know that the only way I can get in shape and lose weight is eating a healthy whole foods diet. 

This time though, Cap is joining me in eating exclusively paleo diet ways. I spent way too much at the grocery store getting the necessities like coconut oil, almond meal, almond milk, many nut butters, dried fruit, fresh produce and meat, but I know that's just how the first shopping trip goes. His lunches for the week will consist of low carb wraps with turkey cheese and tomato, peaches, cucumber slices, string cheese and protein shakes.

This morning, the fourth morning of my decision to change my ways, I am down six pounds! I've been gorging on apple slices, bananas, grilled chicken, salads, and my newest obsession: paleo breakfast cookies. I got the recipe here: http://butterinmycoffee.blogspot.com/2013/01/breakfast-cookies.html

In my recipe I added dried cranberries, dark chocolate morsels, and almond slices and I quadrupled the recipe and got about five dozen cookies. I froze four of them for later. They are AMAZING! 

So here we go again. I am admitting defeat! I am now a warrior for healthy ways and getting back in shape to be the best mom to my little boy I can be and for any future miracles God gives me. 

Tonight we are grilling up some NY strip steaks that have been dry rubbed and sitting all afternoon with some baked sweet potatoes. YUMMY!

So here we are now:

We are all human, we all get lost, but there is never a time where you've gone too far away, you can always get back to where you were. This is my mantra. Be healthy, be there for your loved ones. 

So, the numbers. At the birth of my son I was 243. I gained 52 lbs during my pregnancy. After the first month I was down to 212 lbs. Friday morning I was 240. I am now 234. First goal is 230. Goal for my 32nd birthday: 200 lbs (3 months from now). Goal before getting pregnant again 190 lbs. Happy place goal: 170 lbs. Extremely happy goal 150 lbs. Hey, anything is possible!

Oh and I'm running in a 5k in remembrance of my grandmother on Thanksgiving with my family and I hope to PR at that race and get under 36 minutes. Right now I'm at a 40 min 5k. Here's to running!