Halfway to Nowhere

I am almost at the halfway point of my quest to be more svelte and less tired, so how am I doing?   I wish I could be more inspirational, but after 3 weeks I've only lost 2.5 pounds.  I had lost 4 pounds at one point, but a week of business travel and no exercise is a bad combination.   But, that would simply be an excuse.

When I use my food tracker, I manage what I eat much more successfully.   If you are counting the tortilla chips, you are more likely to stop at five rather than ten.   Exercise has definitely improved.  I have found a class that I absolutely love at my gym called Kinesis.  I've done some hard workouts with off-ice hockey conditioning before, but Kinesis kicks my butt.  Essentially it is 45 minutes of interval training.  Unfortunately, it has an additional cost at my gym, but it is cheaper than a personal trainer.

When I do everything right:  eat well, get to bed early, exercise and take my vitamins, I definitely feel better.  But doing all four things often feels impossible. I had one friend write a detailed email to me about how to take care of me.  I've put most of it below as I think she has some great points and I want to share it with my other mom friends.

From my anonymous friend:

First of all, you are now doing at least 3 full time jobs: motherhood, work and everything else in life, not to mention a marriage. Its impossible not to be tired. As F moves into toddler hood , the pure physicality of constantly chasing , picking up, playing, changing , tantrums etc reaches a new level requiring much more energy, often when we don't have any to spare..here is what I tried:

One night a week OFF: Every Wednesday for about 5 years, my babysitter picked up my child from daycare or school every Wednesday without fail.  Just this one night that was my own was very helpful, I usually worked out but sometimes met a friend, shopped etc...I never went home before bedtime. We still do this--many years later!

Offload whatever errands/household tasks you can: Housekeeper who does laundry, a gardener, pre prepared meals, grocery delivery..whatever is keeping you so busy at night or on weekends and you truly don't enjoy, off load. This won't last forever but the relief of letting go a lot of household tasks was awesome. Well worth the money

Go go a Naturopath: Due to a bunch of health issues that my medical doc couldn't help with , I started seeing a Naturopath and under her care I am the healthiest I've ever been.

We also used our babysitter for a certain amount of hours every weekend.  This was couple time. Sometimes we did dinner, sometimes a bike ride, sometimes just sitting in Starbucks talking. Purposefully taking time to reconnect as a couple was key.

Know that you don't have to entertain F every minute of every day. I think a lot of working moms fall into this. When we are home we want to be interacting all the time, you don't have to.  Why did playpens go away?  Playing on his own is great for his development and your piece of mind, even if it is just five minutes.

Baby Einstein videos are 30 min of escape.

Get up before everyone else..this may seem counter intutitive as you are so tired, but, I still get up and ready before anyone else in the house. I have my coffee outside in good weather and set my intention for the day...it really helps me to center and focus on my frame of mind for the day. Just a few minutes of peace really helps...

Good luck my friend, remember you are wonderful , fabulous mom!!