Well, after feel­ing more than a lit­tle frus­trated last week, I am feel­ing bet­ter as I write this post.  I can’t put my fin­ger on why I’m feel­ing bet­ter.  I think it might be a com­bi­na­tion of sev­eral things.  A sup­port­ive friend, some advice from some­one I didn’t even know, nicer weather, some decent results on the scale, and hav­ing a new book on the way.

Also, after talk­ing with Heather, my sup­port­ive friend, I made the deci­sion that in order to get past some of my strug­gles, I just need to do it.  I was telling her that since I live in a cold weather cli­mate (North Dakota), I some­times strug­gle to get my fruits, veg­eta­bles, and water intake to where they need to be.  Let me be hon­est with you.  When it’s cold out, I don’t want cold food.  Heather was great and sug­gested some alter­na­tives, but in the end I decided that was a big ol’ excuse for not doing what I should be doing.  Instead of mak­ing more work for myself, I’m just going to do it.  My goal for this week is 3 bot­tles of water every day (96 oz) and 5+ fruits and veg­eta­bles every day.  Hope­fully since we’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing some nicer weather I’ll get off to a good start in this area and the week after won’t be too bad even if it’s colder.

My foot is still bug­ging me.  My knee is still bug­ging me.  While I’m tempted to keep on exer­cis­ing with the foot thing just to get it dealt with, I think a bet­ter plan will be to do some­thing that is less impact (the Pilates), let my foot and knee heal up and start again at a slower pace when that hap­pens.  Until then, hope­fully the bike and Pilates will become two of my great friends.

Thanks for the sup­port and com­ments!  Every one means a lot to me.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot

Pre­vi­ous weeks’ weight loss:  5 lbs

This week:  .8 lbs

Total:  5.8 lbs

Well, you may have noticed that I missed last week.  (But, with my “break” from blog­ging, it’s pos­si­ble you also didn’t notice.)  :-)  Whoops!  I usu­ally write my posts on Fri­day, so when it comes time to post it I can just put it up.  Well, I didn’t get it writ­ten on Fri­day or Sat­ur­day or Sun­day or Mon­day.  So, I missed a week.

I have to admit that another part of the rea­son I didn’t write last week’s post is that I was feel­ing a lit­tle over­whelmed.  Thurs­day I was at the gym and did the ellip­ti­cal crosstrainer, and I ended up doing some­thing to my knee.  It was hurt­ing to the point where I couldn’t even go up and down the stairs on Thurs­day.  In addi­tion to hav­ing an extremely painful knee, I had been hav­ing prob­lems with my feet.  No mat­ter which exer­cise I do, my toes seem to end up numb to a cer­tain degree.  Some exer­cises are worse than oth­ers, but they all seem to end up with me hav­ing numb toes.  Also, on my left foot, I have been expe­ri­enc­ing a few dif­fer­ent symp­toms.  First, I felt like I was walk­ing on a small rock, but when I took my shoe off there was noth­ing.  Then, it got to the point where every time I took a step, I had the sen­sa­tion of a nerve being bumped.  (Like when you hit your funny bone)  So, I made an appoint­ment with the podi­a­trist, and it turns out I have a pinched nerve in my left foot and the same thing seems to be devel­op­ing in my right foot.  So, right now, I can take it easy, ice my foot, get a cor­ti­sone shot if it gets worse, or have the nerve removed.  Great.  Then, I get to go through it all again with my right foot.

I wasn’t ready to talk about it last week, and I still don’t exactly how I’m feel­ing about all of that.  But, I decided to take it easy on the impact exer­cises.  This week, I’ve been doing bik­ing (with numb toes) and a lit­tle ellip­ti­cal.  After I do those, I’ve been lift­ing weights.  So far, I’ve only focused on lift­ing legs.  I fig­ured if my knee issues were due to weak mus­cles or ten­dons in my knees lift­ing would help me build up my strength.

So, as far as weight loss goes, I’m still at the same weight I was at 2 weeks ago.  Last week I gained .4 pounds and this week I lost it.  I’m sure that the fact that my baby is just about 4 months old also has some­thing to do with my weight loss (and the lack of it).  I’m try­ing to keep a good atti­tude and remem­ber that as long as I get the good habits in place now, the loss will come when my body is ready.

So, I’ve joined the gym, and I’ve been there sev­eral times.  I have really enjoyed it so far.  So, as long as I can keep my rou­tine of going on Mon­days and Thurs­days, every­thing looks good on the gym front.  This week’s goal is to drink lots and LOTS more water.  I haven’t been feel­ing very bloggy lately, so I think this post will be short and sweet.

Pre­vi­ous weight loss:  4.4 lbs

This week’s loss:  .6 lbs

Total weight loss:  5 lbs

I am one of those peo­ple.  In fact, I believe I might be that per­son.  Let’s not pre­tend you don’t know who I’m talk­ing about.  I’m the one who joins the gym right after New Year’s.  I’m one of those peo­ple who shows up on Mon­days and Thurs­days (and one of the week­end days) and uses the ellip­ti­cal and tread­mill that you had been using at that time for the last 8 months.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to be that person.

Tim­ing just worked out that way.  I had a baby in Octo­ber and started think­ing about join­ing the gym.  Then, we got a cold that would.not.go.away!  It was so frus­trat­ing.  By the time we all got healthy and feel­ing good, it was the week after New Year’s.  I don’t like to be that per­son.  I really don’t.  In fact, I almost waited until Feb­ru­ary just to avoid this sit­u­a­tion.  Then, I remem­bered that I am worth it.  Instead of feel­ing bad about being one of the many, MANY peo­ple who joins the gym in Jan­u­ary as a start of a new leaf or res­o­lu­tion or what­ever it’s being called this time, and going twice before turn­ing the leaf back the way it was, I’m going to make the best use of my mem­ber­ship, time, and equip­ment that I can.

Weight loss progress:

Pre­vi­ous weeks’ loss:  3 lbs.

This week’s loss:  1.4 lbs.

Total loss:  4.4 lbs

I promise I will post some­thing other than only a Mon­day post soon!

So, we’ve been sick.  We’ve been sick since before Hal­loween.  Accord­ing to my men­tal cal­cu­la­tions, that is some­where around 10–11 weeks.  Jonas is 13 weeks, and I know that he got sick some­where around Hal­loween– the first time.  Ugh.  Since then we’ve been cough­ing, sneez­ing, and pass­ing what­ever it is that we have from one per­son to another.  Just when some­body seems to be get­ting bet­ter, some­one else comes down with it.  Then, when I think I’m finally safe from another round of the yucks, I wake up with a sore throat, stuffy nose, cough, or some other form of it. Yuck.

Finally, after all five of us endured mul­ti­ple rounds of the yuck for over two months, I men­tioned it out of frus­tra­tion to my doc­tor at a rou­tine checkup.  She said if we were not well in a week to call her back.  I did, and she pre­scribed antibi­otics.  Again, yuck.  I went back and forth about tak­ing them (and giv­ing them to the boys), but in the end we did it.  Jason and I and the two older boys all took a round of antibi­otics.  As the week pro­gressed, I had two dis­tinct feel­ings about tak­ing the meds.  First, I was hes­i­tant and reluc­tant to take them.  We’ve all heard about the overuse of antibi­otics and doc­tors who are pre­scrib­ing them for colds.  Every­one knows that is bad and can lead to seri­ous prob­lems down the road.  Now, here I am with four of the five of us on antibi­otics.  Then, I felt relieved.  They worked.  Appar­ently what we had needed antibi­otics in order to go away.  Within two days I felt much bet­ter.  The boys were notice­ably bet­ter.  It was what we needed.  We can now con­sider leav­ing the house again!  Ten weeks inside a house with two preschool­ers and an infant is a L.O.N.G. time.

I know I made the right deci­sion in get­ting the med­i­cine for us, but I still feel guilty about it for some rea­son.  I guess there’s no way to win this one.

Now, onto my weekly check in–  I did fairly well last week with eat­ing well.  I meal plan on a reg­u­lar basis, and we have lots of fruits and veg­gies in the house.  How­ever, I am nurs­ing (as I will prob­a­bly men­tion every week in one way or another) and that makes my weight loss much less pre­dictable.  My first week I lost 3 pounds, and last week I lost noth­ing.  That is weird if you ask me.  Not frus­trat­ing yet, just weird.  :-)  I under­stand it hap­pens, and to the degree that I can, I also under­stand why my body hangs on to some of the weight.

This week, we bought Just Dance 2 for the Wii, and I’m hop­ing to dance away some of my calo­ries in the upcom­ing weeks.  In addi­tion, now that we are well, I’m going to be join­ing a gym!  Yay!  I’m hop­ing for two days a week at the gym with the boys in their child­care area and one week­end day.  The other days, I’m hop­ing to dance or use our tread­mill at home.

Pre­vi­ous weight loss:  3 lbs

This week’s weight loss:  0 lbs

Total loss:  3 lbs

This week’s spon­sor ques­tion from Salon­pas is:  Have you ever been injured start­ing a new exer­cise rou­tine? Tell us about it…If not, do you get any aches and pains? Where?

I am not sure I’d call it an injury, but when I started the Couch to 5K run­ning pro­gram a cou­ple years ago, I had some def­i­nite aches and pains for the first cou­ple weeks.  My knees were achy, and my shins were a lit­tle sore for a while, too.  How about you?  :-)

Also, I’d love to get to know you on Twit­ter.  Tell me who you are, and fol­low me @CBerbs