Eating out?

I wrote before about eating out on the 21 Day Fix and much of that still holds true, even for the 21 Day Fix Extreme.  Here are a few extra tips!

You CAN do this, stick to your plan and enjoy yourself.  It’s okay!  On the Extreme version, it is a bit more difficult (no wine! no chocolate!) but for 3 weeks, you can do this.

My video yesterday wasn’t as upbeat as usual, and my day kind of tumbled, but I held to my eating plans.  I didn’t have my typical schedule of some me time before bed and the 4am wakeup to workout though.  My daughter ended up sleeping in my bed (a rare occurrence because it seems no one sleeps well!) so it was to bed with her and up with her.  I got some extra time today at her naptime (see us not sleeping well!) and did my 21 Day Fix Extreme Yoga Fix workout (we tried to do it together, but my daughter got sick of it after about 10 minutes), had my Shakeology and studied a bit…then I had time for some relaxing and video making!  About 5 minutes later, I heard “mommy”…excellent timing!

Are you getting some me time today?

My sick day

Today I took a sick day. I slept a bit extra, lounged a bit, took a walk (fresh air!) and picked the baby up a little early. I hadn’t taken a sick day in over 4 years because I can work from home, but a debilitating headache plus no sleep leaves me a bit out of commission.

Now it’s back to bed. Goodnight!

Send sleep!

Sorry to not post for so long!  Not much here to say other than talking about sleep regressions (baby) and lack of sleep (mommy).  I have been cutting my to do list daily to try to get to sleep earlier.  So homemade food for baby, but piecing things together for me.  Some food shopping, but no Trader Joes.  Post Office cut.  Some messages I should send wait.  It goes on.

I hear (from the world of internet moms) that a sleep regression is normal right now.  We have a baby who pulls herself up and can sit back down but forgets that part a lot.  Hopefully as she builds confidence, she can stand up and look around…and then sit back down and sleep.  Right now she gets stuck up and it upsets her.  I think there’s also some teething happening…still no teeth yet!

It’s amazing how quickly I got used to sleeping all night (or one wake up).  We did this from about 4-7 months old, so I’ve been getting decent sleep for a little over 2 months.  And it was lovely.  But we’ll get through this and I get extra baby time at night for now.  Things will slide, but this is how life goes!

How is your sleep?  Is there someone keeping you up at night?

Big Gym, Little Gym

We have had some fun over here.  Some sarcastic, most not but all still good.  There have been hikes and walks and visits and naps.  Smiles aplenty.

We went to an Arbor Day festival where we saw Zoe’s first band (since being born, she “saw” a few in the womb), Peat Moss and the Fertilizers.  They were our wedding band and are a lot of fun.  Zoe was more into pulling up the grass.

There was also the night spent on the floor in the baby’s room.   And the back pain to show for it.   Luckily, that was so far just the one night.  And the smiles make it all okay.

Today, we checked out a class at The Little Gym.  It was free and on a weekend, so sign us up!  It is tough to find mommy and me type classes on the weekends, so that was even better.  Zoe was the youngest there, but held her own through some songs, parachute time and “climbing” around…really just touching some things while being held.  They don’t have a weekend class during the summer, but it is something I may revisit in fall.  Right now, our Sundays are pretty booked so I don’t think the rest of this session would work well.  But fun.  If they offer a free introductory class by you, take it.  They didn’t even try to sell me before I left.  And worked with me when I needed to reschedule.

The big gym is for our hike.  Using the world to workout.  We didn’t really plan where to go and ended up on a park trail that was much more hiking than walking.  Lots of hills, made even more fun holding a 13+ lb baby.  One of the downhills was a little too steep for my comfort but we made it still standing.  And I got a better workout than planned.  Nothing wrong with that.

I wish every day was the weekend!

Not a review…yet

I had all intentions of writing a review of Les Mills Pump this weekend but it hasn’t happened.  I could rush one out now just to do it, but I really like the program and want to tell why.  I want to write about each video and give it the focus it is worth.

But life got in the way, mostly in the way of a not sleeping baby.  She wakes up every 3 hours most nights, but last night was every two.  She’s taking longer to fall asleep.  A lot of the time I’m up is restful for her as I hold her until I think she’ll go down.  And she has taken a good nap both today and yesterday.  So tonight, instead of writing all about the workouts, I still had bottles to make, breastmilk to freeze, laundry to start/move to dryer…and a screaming baby.

So now, after a busy day of playing, hot yoga, a birthday party, and more playing, I’m going to sleep.  I will say that my first time back at hot yoga went better than expected.  I never felt the need to bolt out of the room and was able to do all of the postures in some form.  I’m so glad I finally made it to a class!

Tropical Strawberry recipe

We have been sick, not sleeping, and a bit busy! But we have a very happy baby so it’s all good.

I think this is the least happy I’ve seen her other than when I’m trying to suck snot out of her nose.

I know posting here has been rare, but I am trying to get to bed early to handle the extra awake time at night. I’ve been needing a boost, both in energy and some immunity so I came up with a new (to me) Shakeology recipe that uses the vegan Tropical Strawberry and it was delicious. I truly don’t know how I would be able to be awake, workout, work and parent without Shakeology. I’ve been having two some days!

Looking a little green is it? In there is Tropical Strawberry Shakeology, 1/2 cup orange juice, a handful of spinach and water. I try to add spinach when I remember because it is true what everyone says…you can’t taste it! So good.

Sleeeep

Blah blah blah…new moms don’t have time to sleep. You’ve heard it, maybe lived it, so I don’t need to talk about that. What I didn’t expect was how the quality of my actual sleep times would change. Luckily for the better!

I have not been a good sleeper since I was about 7, though I hear that I slept most of the time until then. I’m a light sleeper, waking up easily, but not falling asleep very quickly. I need a lot of wind down time. The time it takes me to fall asleep now hasn’t been consistently better, but I am sleeping more soundly. We used to joke that my husband would never be awoken by the baby crying, only by me waking him. But some nights he hears her first. And where I would normally wake up at any time of the night with little problem, some of these middle of the night wake ups have me scrambling for what’s going on for a bit.

I’m not complaining. I usually have the baby monitor next to my head so even if my husband is waking first, I wouldn’t be long after. It is nice to be waking only because of the baby – not 50 other times for no good reason like I used to (even before pregnancy).

Next week, I start setting the alarm again. I go back to work on Friday and Zoe is starting day care on Monday so that I’m less worried come Friday. I know day care is a good thing for her. She’ll socialize, pick up some germs and get ready for school later on. But not being with her all the time after 4 months together is going to be so odd. She is getting better at the gym child care center though I still try to not take the full two hours she is usually scheduled. But that is a little while with me in the same building! My husband will be doing the dropping off and picking up most days so I’m hoping to be able to workout once they go and not need to do it so late.

Other things going on…I made chocolate chia pudding last night. It was good, but I may tweak it a little. I used dark cocoa powder and stevia in the raw, so I’ll need to find a good ratio. I’m also thinking it would be good to put some protein powder in. I’ll play and share what I did.

Another great picture!

Also, I’m really enjoying Les Mills Pump so far! This week is a bit of a learning week, with Pump Challenge – a short workout that mostly prepares you for future workouts. I like that it has a choose your own cardio component because I also want to run and do Turbo workouts. It gives me the freedom to do those without feeling that I’m taking away from the program as written.

It’s snowing here so we’ll see what happens with today’s planned run. I will not be running outside, that’s for sure. Have a great Friday!

Workout Wednesday – Pump Challenge, Couch to 5K, plank
Workout Thursday – Pump Flow, TurboKick practice and plank

 

Morning versus night

Lots of people want to know the best time to workout.  Like the best workout ever, that differs by person.  So this is all about me…

When I first was cleared to workout, I was exercising at night once the baby went to bed. I knew my husband was on baby duty if she woke up and that I would mostly not be interrupted at that time. But there are a lot of issues for me working out at that time. First, being not full but not hungry for my workout. Another, also food related, is knowing my calories for the day if I don’t know how many I’ll burn at night. Add in some downtime and a shower after the workout and I’m going to bed pretty late.  Plus face it, I’m tired.  It takes a lot of motivation to exercise at night!

I have been able to exercise a bunch of mornings recently.  The baby wakes up for her “middle of the night” feeding between 2 and 6am (so sometimes it really isn’t the middle of the night) and then goes back to sleep for another three hours.  If she gets up late enough for that feeding, I just get up and start my day.  Once she’s back to sleep, I can workout and shower and still have some time.  This is much better for me and I tend to be more productive these days.

Today, she woke up about 3am, so I exercised at night.  Now I still have things to do and I’m sleepy.  I don’t really get back that morning time to myself, so all of my productive time is pushed to evening.  I am so happy to have some productive time in addition to the baby smiles and giggles.  Priceless!

Maybe a picture tomorrow.  For now, I will finish my to do list and get to bed.

When do you exercise?  Is it the same time as when you would like to workout?

Workout yesterday – Practiced TurboKick round 49
Workout today – TurboFire HIIT15 and Tone30

I guess this is a new mom thing?

I am continually amazed with what I can accomplish with a little baby free time!  A few days ago, I had about an hour solid of my husband holding the baby.  I checked so many things off of my to do list that day.  Today, Zoe actually went to sleep off of both of us at about 8:30. I have accomplished so much that I have an abundance of energy.  Must relax soon!  She will probably wake up shortly to eat which always makes me sleepy.

We had her one month check up today and she is thriving.  The doctor was very happy with her (only fueled by breastmilk) weight gain.  I’m so happy that it has gone well.  We have started to give her a middle of the night bottle of breastmilk.  We are hoping that this will make it easier to get her back to sleep and reduce the total awake time.  I have to pump then, but it still should make it a little less sleep disturbing.

Now I will take this still-sleeping-baby time to update my to do list like  should daily.  Items to add include Christmas wrapping and learning how to install a car seat so I can transfer it to my Christmas day ride.  Exciting stuff over here!  Actually, the exciting things are already on my lists (yes, I have several).  All smiles over at our house!

Back for now

I didn’t mean to disappear! So sorry. I have had at least one hand occupied at most times for the past 11 days, making typing a bit difficult. I have become a “liker” on Facebook because it’s easier. And I just update with photos.

We have a weight check doctor’s appointment today and I think my champion eater will be back to her birth weight easily. I went to a breastfeeding support group last Wednesday and it was super helpful, if not for technique, for confidence. It was also nice to speak to other mothers who can tell me that everything we are experiencing is normal.

And what are we experiencing? A lot of sleepless nights! When they say to sleep when the baby sleeps, no one mentions that the baby will only want to sleep on you. So she will sleep, but if I try to put her down she wakes up and cries. But we are learning what works and what doesn’t for us. And that’s all you can do!

Well, one of us needs to eat now so that’s all. Except for some pictures because who doesn’t want pictures!