One of the reaosns I decided to start this blog was to chronicle my journey from post partum chunky back to a six pack. The last two weeks have been especially challenging for me in this regard. Baby boy wound up with his first cold, and started waking me up 4-5 times a night gagging on his own snot. Unfortunately, I still had to go to work, so sleep just disappeared from my life for a while. As a result (of course), I was next to get sick. And right about the time I get rid of the sinus crud, I managed to come down with a serioiusly unpleasant stomach flu (which I’m sad to report, isn’t fully gone yet). Although I did lose a few pounds during these last few weeks, it wasn’t exactly how I’d planned jump starting my quest to get back in shape.
Although it’s not quite gone yet, I’m planning on restarting my workouts tomorrow. I’m supposed to be taking it easy because of a minor car accident in January, but I’ve decided that it’s time. I’m practically losing my mind from workout withdrawal, and I am super excited to get back! My husband and I have moved into San Tan Valley since the baby was born, so I don’t have a gym membership anymore. Luckily, we’ve been able to aquire some second hand workout equipment, so I will be able to lift weights, and I can run for cardio. I also have both T-25 and Insanity, so I’ll never have a shortage of cardio if I don’t want to run. We are also setting up some mats for martial arts and a punching bag, so hopefully my husband will begin teaching me karate soon. He was an instructor for years and he misses it a lot, so I’m hoping he can teach a few students a week here. Either way, that will help me on my quest to lose the baby pounds! I’m currently sitting at 158, which is 20 pounds over my heaviest prebaby weight, and 40 pounds over my ideal weight (I’m pretty short). I’m hoping to lose 10 pounds in March, and adapt my diet and workouts from there.
Diet has presented a particular challenge to me lately, as I had mentioned in a previous post. Several members of my family have been diagnosed with either Celiac Disease or gluten intolerance, and there are many signs that I am gluten intolerant as well. For those of you who don’t know, Celiac Disease is a condition where the small intestine is intolerant to gluten. This can cause many digestive issues, and can eventually damage your gut. For me, I just get sick every time I eat anything with gluten in it. I have for a while, but I’ve been in denial — I’m Italian, and the thought of giving up my whole wheat pasta is like the thought of losing my left foot. As sad as it is, I’ve decided it’s time to just rip off the band aid and go gluten free. That is easier said than done though, and my execution the last few days has been far from perfect. My oldest sister said that it took her a year to get everything set and get into a normal routine with it (where she didn’t feel sad or angry everytime she saw a cupcake). I’m hoping I get it straight faster than that, but its definately been a challenge. While I’ve been pondering this diet change, I also came across the Paleo diet, which is a gluten free diet with much more to it. The idea is to eat the way a caveman would — nothing processed, no dairy, no grains, no legumes. Just meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit. I definately love the idea of completely eliminating processed foods from my diet, but I’m still not sure I buy the whole “beans and corn are bad for you” part of the diet’s theory. I’m curious if any of you have any experience with the Paleo diet, or if you understand it better than I do, what your opinion of it is. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to not eat bread and pasta, and just focusing on as much natural food as possible. And because no post is complete without a picture…here is my first attempt at making spaghetti squash. I went Mexican with it this time and added ground beef, corn, black beans, and a touch of sour cream, but I’m excited to actually try it out as pasta!