New Years Goals

I can't believe that January is almost here! My holidays have been a diet disaster. I keep telling myself that I'll only indulge on the holiday itself - but I've been out to eat or carb-loading pretty much every day since Thanksgiving. Ooof. So - I've given myself permission to go nuts until the New Year. It's going to happen anyway (despite my best intentions to get hot before Miami) and I'm tired of beating myself up over it. But, I've also already compiled my list of New Years goals. I call them goals because I don't like "resolutions" - when I resolve to do something, I feel like a failure the first day I stop doing it. When I set a goal, I recognize that there will be setbacks and I feel awesome when I make any progress toward the goal.

I'm hoping that this year will be the year of getting healthy. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I want to get myself organized - get my house in order, get my schedule cleaned up and really crack down on discipline. Here's my plan, in no particular order:

1) Make an effort with my appearance. I will attempt to dress presentably and wear makeup at least 5 days a week. Ideally 6 days a week. I can wear yoga pants and sweatshirts if I'm really going to be doing a lot of cleaning or yard-work, but that's it. When I feel like I look good, I feel good about myself. And when I feel good about myself, it positively impacts every other part of my life.

2) I will work out every day even if I only do 20 situps. Usually, if I get a start, I want to keep going. It's motivating myself to get my tush out of my chair to do something that's the hard part. But if I tell myself I only have to do 20 situps or 5 minutes of running, then I'll be more likely to start. I can quit after my tiny goal. But odds are, I'll want to keep going.

3) Eat a healthy diet 5 days a week. I have a HUGE sweet tooth. And I love carbs. And in winter, telling myself I have to eat healthily is like telling myself I'm going to lace up some boots and climb Mt. Everest. I'm a lot more likely to eat fruits, veggies and grains 5 days a week if I know I can bake a pie on Saturday (or have a bagel for breakfast on Sunday - or whatever). To this end, I can't keep junk in the house. If there is chocolate, I will eat 9 pieces in an afternoon. If we have bread 'on hand,' I will eat toast all day. If I've got mac'n'cheese in the cupboard 'just in case we're snowed in,' I will make it for lunch the next day. I am a weak weak person and I can't keep junk in the house. Which means I'll have to plan my menus carefully. It means I need to have healthy 'in case of snow' meals in the freezer. It means I have to have lunch pre-made in the morning so I'm not seduced by the call of Panda Express when we're all ravenous after preschool. It's doable - I just have to make myself do it.

4) Get up at 6:30. My poor kids are suffering from my own laziness. I sleep in as late as possible in the morning, dawdle with getting out of bed, putter around with email and odds and ends and then get them up in a big fat rush because I keep trying to get them all fed and dressed and out the door in 20 minutes. So, I WILL get up at 6:30 every day. I don't have to work out. I don't have to shower. But I will do a devotional (what better way to get myself prepared for the day), quickly check my email and get myself dressed (nicely - with makeup) for the day and have breakfast started and clothes laid out before I get the kids up - hopefully by 7:30. If I can do that, we should cut down on a LOT of morning angst.

5) I will make quiet-hour shorter. Quiet hour lately has drawn out to quiet-two-hours (or more). Which is fine for the younger two who nap that long. And fine for Mommy who gets done a ton of blogging and cleaning and crafting and sleeping. But it's miserable for big brother who does not nap and, though he is ingenious in his creative use of such a long chunk of time in his room by himself with a box of toys, I know he misses Mommy. We used to spend naptime together reading books and playing. Then Mommy realized she was a nicer person if she got a SMALL break in the afternoon and we instituted quiet hour. And then Mommy realized how nice quiet hour was and it has gradually gotten out of hand. Therefore, I resolve to do what I must to make quiet hour stick closer to the hour-long mark. Nap first, errands second, clean third - the rest I'll have to fit in somewhere else.

6) To that end - Spend less time on the computer. I blog a LOT. Which is ok if I plan things out in advance and do as much of it as I can before getting up for the day. But I also enter all kinds of online giveaways, play around on Pinterest and generally waste tons of time on the internet. Time that I could be spending napping, cleaning, crafting and doing all those other things that make quiet hour so long. My plan is - leave the computer downstairs. That way, I can't work on it while I'm with the kids. They (and the house) get my undivided attention, and I'll have to learn to prioritize what I do on the computer during "my" time.

7) Keep a tidier, cleaner house. By bedtime, I'm pooped and don't want to clean. In the mornings, I'm in too much of a rush. And in the afternoons I know that anything I do will just be undone again by bedtime. So it never gets done. But I'm going to work toward both a) cleaning more with my newfound time that I won't be spending on the computer or frittering away at quiet hour, and by b) re-organizing the house to make it more efficient. If there's a spot that is always dirty or always covered in piles, it needs to be re-thought. And I can learn to multi-task. Clean the bathroom while the kids bathe, wipe down the kitchen while the kids eat breakfast, use vacuuming as a discipline tactic (my kids love to vacuum). There are lots of ways to keep this nest a little more nicely feathered - if I take the time to plan. Time that I'm hoping to gain back by being more efficient in all the above ways.

So - wish me luck - it's going to be a journey and I'll have a lot of setbacks I know, but I think it will be more than worth it in the end. I'm so tired of feeling scattered and hurried and cranky and disorganized all the time. I need to rework my life and make it run a little more smoothly or I'm really going to go off the rails some day. So here goes!

And how about you, what are your goals?

Skinny Mirrors and Skinny Jeans

The good news is - today I wore skinny jeans out in public for the first time. I put on a cute (long) sweater and my chunky brown boots and actually almost felt trendy. I certainly didn't feel like the bloated freak I felt like in the mirror at the store. And they were SO comfy!

The bad news is - mirrors lie. My bedroom mirror (the only full-length mirror in the house) is, (as Elaine Benes puts it) a skinny mirror. I always look awesome in that mirror. I look tall and thin and hip. It's a great ego boost. Until I see myself in a store window, a photograph, or someone else's mirror. And then I realize just how wide my hips really are. And how tall I'm not.

The good news - I can choose only to look in the skinny mirrors. How others see me is not based on how I see myself. If I only look in that bedroom mirror, I will feel like I look awesome. And that will give me confidence. And confidence will make me look awesome. I can walk right by those shop windows and dressing room mirrors and choose not to look and continue feeling like a million bucks. I can rock the skinny jeans like I own that style. But if I never dared to try something new because I was afraid I 'might look fat,' then I'd spend all my life hiding from the world in my big ol' sweats and I'd look as terrible as I felt.

I'll be frank - I think I was meant to be a bear. Every single winter, I put on 10 lbs of 'insulation.' I can barely pull myself out of bed and just want to sleep till spring. But that's what chunky sweaters are for, right? And, honestly, I have such a hard time staying warm in winter in the first place (yes, I am currently waiting on the results of a thyroid test), that I can probably use all the extra padding I can get.

So, I'm currently saying sayonara to my "goal weight." I'm not going to make it to 110 by New Years. Duh. I'm still stuck at 122 and there's no healthy way to make it. I'm going to embrace my winter weight. I'm going to keep on dressing up my new skinny jeans with tunics and hot boots. I'm going to enjoy every last bite of those toasty bagels with cream cheese. And when spring rolls around I'm going to hit the pavement, break out the watermelon and sculpt some abs.

Sound like a plan?

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Well, the holidays are here. Which means stuffing, and cookies, and gingerbread and pumpkin pie and grilled cheese with soup and calories calories calories. I'll confess, the last few weeks have been tough tough tough. I'm up to 122.5 now, which is discouraging, since I've only got 4 weeks until my goal of being 110 again. Ain't gonna happen. But, between birthdays (mine and daughter's) and Thanksgiving and now Christmas cookies - well, it's been a very delicious November. Here's the rundown of pitfalls and triumphs lately.

Pitfalls:

1. All the pie! We seriously had 4 pumpkin pies on Thanksgiving. We ate one the first day while we were with family, and then we had 3 to eat all by ourselves. And I can't eat pie without a TON of whipped cream. So that didn't go well.
2. Leftovers. I feel like my fridge has been taken over by leftovers. It took a week to eat all the stuffing. Then I made spaghetti for dinner and that lingered for days. Plus the cookies and the gingerbread and various other treats. It seems like as quickly as we finish one rich dish, another one pops up in it's place.
3. It's cold out. Which means I want hot food. And when I think hot food, I do NOT think "big streaming bowl of vegetables." I think spaghetti, or mac'n'cheese, or hot chocolate. Comfort foods.
   
4. I keep getting sick or injured. First I had a weird bout of exhaustion. Then I got a sinus infection. The I pulled a muscle in my foot. It seems like there's always some health issue keeping me from working out.
   

Triumphs:

1. I had a reality check. Yesterday I went shopping at the mall for the first time in ages. I tried on clothes. And I almost cried. Somehow the mirror in my bedroom makes me look a LOT slimmer than the mirrors in the dressing rooms. Those were only too happy to show me where all the pudge was sticking out of the clothes I tried on. And I thought I knew my size, but boy was I wrong. And I bought skinny jeans that I'll probably never have the courage to wear in public (even with a tunic top and chunky boots). BUT it gave me the motivation to skip the fried rice in favor of a salad at lunch. And it gave me the motivation to suck it up and do my workout video at naptime (um, ow, I still hurt). My pride is wounded, but maybe it was the extra push I needed to stop being apathetic and really work toward this goal again.
2. AND I have a new goal. I don't just want to lose weight. That would be awesome and all, but what I really want (and I think I've said this before), is to gain muscle. Even at 95 lbs I still had chub. I was very 'soft.' And my complaints yesterday weren't so much how wide I was as how squishy I was. I want definition. I want Jillian Michaels muscles. I started from the top of her 30 Day Shred video again yesterday and let me tell you - I don't have a muscle that doesn't ache. Which is a really really good thing! Now we'll see if I can make it past day 5 (I keep getting sick around then). I'm hoping that by using naptime to work out instead of getting up early, I might be able to stick with it longer.

Challenges:

1. My parents are coming to town this weekend. Which is wonderful! But, it also means celebrating baby girl's birthday (again) and doing an early Christmas (plus doing the regular one on the 25) and knowing me, I'm going to want to celebrate with food. I'm going to do my darnedest to make sure that we eat really healthfully for every other meal while they're here, and I'm going to make sure that I keep working out even though I have guests. But I know it's going to be hard to keep myself motivated.
2. I can't reach my goal in time. Nothing short of a stomach flu is going to get me down 12 lbs in 4 weeks. Not without starving myself or going back on the detox diet (which I refuse to do during the holidays). So I'm going to have to readjust my expectations. Which means dealing with the idea of my friends seeing me while I'm "still really fat" - and doing some strategic wardrobe planning to make sure I pack clothes that make me feel good. I know they don't care how I look. I'm sure they think I look fine. But if I don't feel fine, I'm going to let it bum me out. So - I need to pack the cute tops and the fun boots and then slap on a smile (and lots of makeup) and just go with it.
   
3. I've been having some problems with hormones lately (seriously - like, getting tested tomorrow kinda problems). Which isn't such a big deal except that I find it really easy to get depressed. The sort where all I want to do is run and never stop. But I don't have the energy to move off the couch. I've found that working out does help. So does listening to upbeat music. I'm really going to try not to let myself get into a funk, because it's not useful for anyone.
   

So that's where I am now, and what I'm planning to do. Wish me luck!! I'm gonna need it to get through this holiday without putting on MORE weight :p