Here’s to a healthy lunch! Salad and cottage cheese — excited about how good I feel today!

My goal for March is to make some very specific changes that will hopefully result in approaching a much healthier weight (and just better health in general). I’m eating at least one salad per day, even at work (hence the tupperware for today’s salad). I’ve also given up fast food, which has been a challenge for me. I try to make healthy food choices and stay away from anything that is processed, but with fulltime work, fulltime school, and the kids, some days I just don’t have time to cook or prep food. My biggest weakness is breakfast, especially lately — because I tend to stay up late to finish my homework, when my alarm rings at 4am I don’t always hear it. The last two weeks I’ve been running late for work a LOT, but I don’t want to skip breakfast. This has been resulting in all too frequent stops at McDonalds for an breakfast sandwich and a large diet Dr Pepper. Which brings me to my next point….I have almost completely given up diet soda as well. This has been complete torture for me! Because I don’t sleep nearly as much as I should, caffeine has been a huge crutch for me for at least 4 months. I don’t drink coffee or tea, so diet Dr Pepper has been what gets me through the day when I need some toothpicks to hold my eyes open. Unfortunately, it’s TERRIBLE for me, and it’s really bad for Baby Boy as well since I’m breastfeeding. In addition to all of that, I’m still working to completely eliminate gluten from my diet. This is still a challenge, especially on days when I have a lot of homework and don’t have time to cook. Sandwiches and pasta are just so darn convenient! I know there are gluten free options, but they are vey expensive, and they are very processed, so I don’t know that I want to start relying on them. I’m also still looking into the Paleo diet, so look for a post soon with my research on that — I still have not decided how I feel about the merits of this diet.

Aside from my food related goals, I’m also trying to increase my physical movement again. It’s so strange to me to have to find time to workout — until I had the baby, I was the kind of person who lived in the gym. Somehow I’ve lost several hours in the day, because it’s been nearly impossible for me to take the time away from homework and Baby Boy to go and workout. Thankfully, I’ve been able to throw the baby in the stroller and go running a few times, but I really miss weight lifting. My garage home gym is nearly finished though, so this shouldn’t be an issue for very long. I’m going to outfit my gym with an exersaucer or a bouncer so that I can actually manage a workout without having to worry about the baby getting into trouble. At 6 months old, he’s gotten to be such a handful! So my actual goal is to workout at least 3-4 times per week, but I’d like to increase it to 6 days pretty quickly. Workout out keeps me sane, and I need a lot of that right now….

In other big news, my French class (FINALLY) ended last night, so I’m back down to 13 credits for the rest of the semester. I have not hated a class that much the entire time I’ve been in school! We had to read four books (written in french) and complete different writing projects for each. That sounded like a ton of fun when I signed up for it, especially since I’m a french major — but the books were TERRIBLE!! They were all about sex (and usually with very young children and prostitutes) and I’ve learned more french cuss words than I’d care to admit. Just to give you a little background, I’m conservative and Christian, so I’m one of those people that doesn’t cuss and stays away from sex related entertainment. I’m not going to ask a professor to change his curriculum for me, but a little warning would have been nice! “Love and Lives in Modern French Literature” doesn’t exactly scream that one of the books you’ll read will start with a 13 year old boy losing his virginity to a prostitute and then giving her a teddy bear as a gift. GROSS. I’m pretty sure this class is going to completely ruin my GPA this semester (I’ve been Dean’s list every semester since I went back to school), but honestly I don’t care nearly as much as I should. I’m just glad this class is over so I can get ahead in my other classes and spend some more time with my baby! Of course, I’ll probably care a lot more once I actually get my grade for this class, so fingers crossed…..