Foiled Again

My plan to jump start my working out and eating right has blown up in my face.  Last weekend I had a great race which got me all pumped up to get back to the gym.  The day before the race I wasn't feeling my best.  After the race I felt worse. I brushed it off as allergies.  I did the Shakeology 3 day cleanse to get my body ready for healthy eating.  I felt bad the whole time.  I figured it was lack of calories and caffeine.  After the cleanse, I still felt bad.  I also had friends come into town this weekend.  I went from eating/drinking nothing but healthy stuff for 3 days, to drinking beer and eating burgers, in less than a day.

So, my jump start into healthy living turned into a weekend of drinking, eating junk, having a sinus infection and the beginning of bronchitis.  It has led me to gain back at least a few of the pounds I lost and has landed me in bed, not the gym.

I could let this get me down, but I'm not going to.  I'm not letting this ruin my jump start.  It's just a little hiccup.  Jump start part 2 begins tomorrow...if I can workout without coughing up a lung.

Shakeology Cleanse

I decided to give the 3 day Shakeology Cleanse a try.  I've wanted to do a cleanse for awhile, I've just been scared.  You can actually eat while doing this one so I figured I'd give it a try.  It is a 3 day "cleanse" but you eat 3 Shakeology shakes a day, some fruit and a salad with chicken of fish.  It limits your calories but not a ridiculous amount, like a typical cleanse.  I am most nervous about not having coffee or wine. I realize it's only 3 days but it will still be hard.

Here's how went:

Day 1

I woke up still unsure if I was really going to do this.  The fact that I ran out of sugar for my morning coffee made the decision easier.

7:30- Glass of green tea and a shake made with water and a banana. (213 calories)

10:30- hand full of blackberries.  Thankfully I have a blackberry bush on my street.  I grabbed some on our walk back from the park :) (20ish calories)

11:00-  Freaking out a little. Not that I was starving but the ham and cheese I made for the kids looked really good.

12:30-Shake with water and ice. (160 calories) Glass of green tea.

2:30-I feel like crap.  Not sure if it's the lack of food or lack of caffeine or my cold.

5:30-I was dying.  Killer headache and couldn't concentrate on anything.  Also had a very short fuse. Realize I should have had my snack shake this afternoon around 3 or 4.  I'll know better tomorrow.

6:00-Salad with 4oz(ish) of chicken, olive oil and vinegar.  (350ish calories)

7:30- Shake with water (160 calories)

I'm feeling much better after dinner and the final shake.  I should add that I'm drinking a ridiculous amount of water.  Not sure how much but I'm peeing all the time.  I'm estimating some of these calories but at the end of Day 1 I had around 900 calories.  WAY less than a normal day This explains why I was feeling sluggish and run down for most of the day.  I'm not sure I can live on 900 calories for 2 more days. We will see.

Now if I can get through the night without being tempted by that bottle of wine on the counter....


Day 2:


I had a great sleep last night.  Still have an annoying cough and itchy throat but I slept way better than the previous night.  I woke up feeling rested and my headache, while it's still there, is much less noticeable.  I got on the scale when I woke up and I lost 2 pounds yesterday.  I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that.  Nice that I lost 2 pounds but I'm guessing most of that is water and not eating enough calories.  I'm not sure that 2 pounds will stay off when I start eating real food.


6:50-Green tea

7:00-Shake with water and 1/2 a banana (213 calories)

9:15-1/2 banana (53 calories)

11:30-tired and cranky.  Snapping at the kids. Not sure this is worth it.

12:15- Shake with water and a handful of blackberries.  Feeling better. (180 calories)

1:30-Took a little nap while the kids were resting.  I have no energy.

2:45-Shake with water, ice and a tbls of almond butter.  The almond butter might be cheating but, I don't care. (260 calories)

3:30-Feeling pretty good. Just had a glass of green tea.  Might make it through the day.

5:45- Salad with 4 oz chicken, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (350 calories)

7:45-All in all feeling pretty good.  My stomach is less bloated and my energy is coming back, a little.  I'm still not sure if I will do Day 3. I'm going to see how I feel when I wake up.

I'm estimating a lot of these calories.  Today is somewhere around 1056.


Day 3.

I woke up unsure if I was going to stick with it for the last day.   My head hurt and I'm still groggy.  I decided to take the kids to a coffee shop for breakfast.  I ended up with green tea.  So...I guess I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet but I'm still on the fence about today.  I wouldn't be surprised if I stopped half way through.

I got on the scale this morning and I'd lost a little more than a pound.  That's around 3 pounds so far.  My stomach is way less bloated and my love handles seem smaller.  This could be my calorie deprived brain playing tricks on me.  Who knows.

7:30-Green tea

8:00-Shake with water and frozen peaches (185 calories)

10:15- Half of banana.  I'm feeling pretty good so far. (53 calories)

12:15- Shake with water, 1/2 banana and 1 tbls almond butter (313 calories)

1:00- I'm feeling really good so far.  I think I'm going to make it the whole day.  I'm already planning tomorrow's breakfast :)

3:00- 2 slices of apple and shake with water and half a banana. (213 calories)  I'm not even really hungry.  I'm just drinking it because I feel like I should.  I'm pretty happy it's the last shake of the cleanse.

5:30- Salad with chicken, oil and vinegar.  Pretty sick of this meal too. (350 calories)

So....if I can not eat or drink anything for the next few hours, I have done it!  Day 3 I had around 1115 calories.  I have to say I felt really good today compared to the last 2 days.  I'm glad I stuck with it. I'm really interested to see how I feel once I start eating again.

Day 4-

I made it through Day 3! The WHOLE way through.  I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it.  If nothing else, it showed me I have more will-power than I thought.  All in all I lost 4 pounds.  I am less bloated and I feel pretty good.  I was so excited to have a cup of coffee this morning.  I made it with milk and sugar (like always) and it is way too sweet.  I think this is a good sign.

I'm hopeful the weight will stay off.  Between this "restart" of my healthy eating and the awesome race I had last weekend, I think I'm on the right track.  I'm starting my off season workout schedule today.  Mind you I have no idea what that looks like, but it's not even 7am.  I'll figure it out.

One last word on the cleanse.  I'm am not a doctor.  I have no idea if this is healthy or not.  I am in no way recommending it to anyone.  I just wanted to document my experience and thought I'd share it.

I'll check in a few weeks from now and let you know if it was all worth it.

Danskin Recap

Pre-race-

Woke up around 4.  Had coffee and  peanut butter/banana toast for breakfast, got dressed and headed out.  I met up with Erika around 5:15 and we walked down to transition.  I was worried about parking but it was pretty uneventful.

We arrived at transition a few minutes before it opened. That has never happened before.  Once it opened I got my stuff set up.  Again, uneventful. 

Since I registered the day before I was stuck in the last wave of individuals.  This was about an hour after the first wave.  Thankfully they didn't close transition, so I was able to keep my warm clothes on until the last minute.   

Swim-

I knew this was going to suck. Being in the last wave of a big "first timers" race is not the best spot to be in if you're a decent swimmer.  The first quarter wasn't bad.  Then I hit a traffic jam.  I ended up swimming REALLY wide to try to avoid everyone.  I was extra cautious not to run into or over people because I knew most of the ladies still in the water were having a hard time.

Time-15:38

Rank- 112/1529 over all

They don't break down each event by AG.  There were too many people for me to figure out my AG rank. 

T1- 

The run from the lake was pretty far.  I was pretty quick getting my shoes and helmet on.  Not much I could have done to make this faster.  Maybe run faster from the lake.

Time-2:42

Bike-

I really wanted to ride fast.  The course was pretty flat except a short steep climb up to 90.  This was tricky because there were a few people riding very slow and a couple getting off their bikes to walk. I was able to get around everyone without much of a problem.  There were a lot of people on the course but the lanes were wide enough that passing wasn't too much of a problem.  There was a crazy crosswind coming back across the 90 bridge.  Other than that it was a pretty easy ride.

Time-38:02

MPH-19.4 (This is really fast for me)

Rank 84/1529 (my bike rank has NEVER been better than my swim)

T2-

This is slower than it should have been.  It took forever to get my socks and shoes on.  I also had problems running with my bike.  Not sure if my legs were tired or what.  I need to work on this.  

Time-1:46

Run-

My legs felt much better than I expected. It took a few minutes but I found my stride pretty early.  I looked at my Garmin at mile 1. I was at a 8:50 pace and was super happy about it.  Shortly after that, my Garmin died.  My legs felt good the whole race.  My lungs were a different story.  I'm coming down with a cold or something and breathing wasn't easy.  There was a hill at 2.5 miles.  That sucked.  I forced myself to run the whole way, but a few people passed me on the hill. I pushed as hard as I could after the hill.  All in all, a great run for me.

Time-26:24

Pace- 8:30/mile

Rank-183 (sucks to lose 100 places on a 5k run)  

Overall Time-1:24:33

Overall Rank- 70/1529

Age Group Rank- 10/142

I am super pleased with this race.  I couldn't have asked for more.  I'm hoping this race will give me the motivation I need to jump start my training.

Fabulous Friday

Happy Friday!!  I'm not sure why, but I woke up this morning feeling like a new person.  I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but I feel good.  It's getting close to fall (although it doesn't feel like it in the Pacific Northwest).  Fall is like my New Year.  I don't know why, but I always feel like things are starting new in the fall.  I love it!!

Last night I decided to register for the Danskin Sprint Tri.  It's Sunday.  I've never decided to do a race so spur of the moment.  I know I can finish but I'm a little nervous since I haven't trained AT ALL.  Brian made a joke that I'm the Allen Iverson of racing.  No practice, just racing :)  I am hoping it gets my head back in the racing/training game.

I did the Danskin in 2005.  I think it was my second triathlon.  It was a lot of fun.  I looked up my finish time last night.  1:30:28.  I am pretty impressed.  I remember training hard for this, 7 years ago.  Not sure how this weekends time is going to compare.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in beating my 30 year old self :)

In other news, I'm anxiously waiting for Pnut's CT results.  Hoping to hear today and hoping they can figure out what is going on in her sinuses and fix it!

Have you ever registered for a race last minute?

Do you call the doctor 100 times a day, asking for test results or is that just me?

Have a great weekend!!

Just Mommy

The past few months I've had no energy to be anything more than Mommy.  I have been in mommy survival mode.  I told my mom I felt like I was in the ocean and I didn't know how to swim.  I didn't have time to learn to swim, I was just keeping my head above water.  I was in the middle of a crazy storm (I call it Hurricane Pnut) and I couldn't do anything but hold on and try to ride it out.  I did what I had to and nothing more.  The kids ate (way more take out than I'd like).  They made it to swimming and camp. Brian occasionally had dinner ready when he got home.

That was all I could do.  I went out for the occasional run and sometimes made it to the gym but not often.  I was constantly putting out fires.  I was angry and resentful and had no control over anything in my life.

My mom has been in town for a few days.  I've kind of seen my life through her eyes the last few days.  Does that make any sense?  Seeing her shock to my everyday life made me realize exactly how crazy it was.

Bottom line, I have a difficult child.  She is brilliant, funny, imaginative, perceptive, sensitive, whiny, manipulative, and moody.  This is who she is.  My parenting has been ineffective for her.  We have gotten ourselves locked in an ugly cycle; she does the same thing, I do the same thing, nothing gets better.

Yesterday morning, as I held back tears, watching my mom pull out of the driveway, I was at the end of my rope.  My life was out of control and I didn't know what to do.  I wanted to curl up and cry.

Thankfully I have a wonderful husband.  He took the kids upstairs and helped them clean their rooms.  I did laundry and started to clean.  I was trying to keep busy.  If I looked at anyone, I'd start to cry.  Before I knew it, our house was getting organized and I started to feel better.

I came up with a plan, with the help of my new favorite book, "The Difficult Child" and a ton of blogs/websites.   I have just started to implement it but so far, so good.  I know Pnut will test me.  I know I need to be consistent (this is hard for me).  Here are a few things I did to help out:

Found this on Pinterest

I'm putting the kid's toys in here when they don't put them away.  So far, they are REALLY into doing the chores.  So much so, they have put some toys in here just so they can do chores to get them out.  Going to need different chores.

I made these so Pnut and Little Dude would know what to do in the morning.  It worked this morning. No one argued about getting dressed or brushing their teeth.  We'll see how things go in the coming mornings.

I made these so they would know exactly what to do when I say clean your room.

I have a night time routine too. I need to make cards for that.  

I'm hoping all this will limit my need to yell and get upset.  Everyone knows what is expected.  These are the rules/routines, you decided if you want to follow them or have the consequences of not following them. 

I'm thinking about making a chart where they can put stars on for every time them follow the routine.  We can have some prize after so many stars.  I'm not sure.  I don't want to make it too complicated.

This is my plan.  I'm crossing my fingers it works.  I'm ready to be more than mommy again.