It's Fun to Stay at the YMCA

Easter family photo!

This week I braved the gym for the first time since Felix was born. I had done yoga a few times at home while Felix napped, but it always seemed Felix woke up mid workout and it would leave me wanting more.

Well in March our gym membership expired so Josh and I decided to join a family friendly gym with child care options so I can get back into my exercise routine. So on Monday night, with new YMCA membership cards in hand, Josh and I left Felix for the first time with someone other than one of us. In an overcrowded nursery. with strangers. at 6:45 PM...the most volatile and sleepy time for our little dude. AGH! I was freaking out a bit.

I signed him in with an optimistic estimated 1 hour workout time and tentatively passed him over the wall in his car seat to the worker. For the first 15 minutes on the elliptical all I could do was think about all the things I forgot to tell the worker. "He just ate, so he should be OK." "Don't let him cry-it-out" "Please call me if you can't calm him down" "Leave him in the seat if possible, to avoid germs of the other kids" etc. etc.

Then mid-workout, I had an epiphany. I no longer shared my body with a baby and could work out to the point of near-death if I wanted to. (Something I had missed terribly during pregnancy). The last part of my workout flew by as I pushed the tension on the arc trainer as high as my weary legs would allow and let the sweat flow off my face.

When I was done I all but ran back to the nursery to get Felix. He was doing just fine. Sitting contentedly in his seat, watching one of the workers read books to a group of older kids. He squawked a few times on the way home, but overall, I was proud of our little family. Embracing health. Relinquishing total control. Giving me and josh some time for ourselves. It was refreshing. Looking forward to more visits and a return to health!

Addictions

This past week I received an invite to pinterest. I'm officially addicted.

From my browsing and play time on pinterest i stumbled upon polyvore and developed another addiction. Here are some of my creations/inspiration.

I'm hoping these shiny outfits will distract you from the fact that i never gave a final update on the juice fast.

Did it work?

No.? ok...

Well, here's the update. We made it to day 6. I was emotionally dying inside (which is horrible that food had such a strong emotional connection to me - i think this post is appropriately titled.) Josh decided we needed to spend some quality time together and allow ourselves to be light hearted for the evening so we went out to dinner.

I don't regret breaking the fast early. I lost 15 lbs (and so far have kept off 8!) and truly felt like a "cleanse" took place. I obviously realized some unhealthy eating patterns (like my ridiculous mood swings, and constant eating when i'm not hungry + a carb heavy diet). Which I've tried to learn from and implement post-fast.

I think a more realistic plan moving forward would be green smoothie at breakfast (starting off the day right with tons of nutrients). A low sodium V8 at lunch + almonds as a snack throughout the day. and whatever I want for dinner (within reason).

This type of plan is much more feasible and would be a healthy structure/boundaries with lots of nutrients while still giving myself some wiggle room at dinner. I might actually give this a try sometime later this year for 20 or 30 days to see how it goes.

ANYWAY...onward to other things!

Day One of the Blended Juice "Fast"

I put quotes around the word "fast" in the title up there because so far it doesn't really feel like your typical fast. For breakfast I woke up and fired up the blender with 4 bananas, 1.5 cups of grapes, a 3 drops of stevia and about 5-8 cups of spinach (I didn't measure - i just filled up my strainer so i could rinse the greens) and ice. This made enough for josh and I both to have one 14-16 oz drink for breakfast and then me to take 32 oz with me for lunch/snacks throughout the day. The stevia was completely unnecessary because the grapes made the smoothie sooooo sweet! It truly was delicious. I was skeptical because the color came out bright green, but really all you could taste was the bananas and grapes. yummers!

For dinner i blended about 8 carrots, 1 large vine ripe tomato, about 3.5 cups of yellow grape tomatoes (from Real Food Farms!), one white onion, 1/2 a bushel of cilantro, 1 lemon, a VERY small amount of salt, and about a 1/2 cup of water. We ate this one like a soup rather than a drink. At first it was OK, but after a while it became hard to get down because there was so much onion! Whoops! Lesson learned - I will try green onion in the future.

Later that evening we were needing a little snack so we blended some pink lady apples with cinnamon and nutmeg and about 3 oz of water to make an apple saucy thing. It was pretty sour...i think next time I will buy Red Delicious apples so we can get that natural sweetness.

Overall, I didn't feel too hungry throughout the day and if i did i would just sip a bit of my breakfast/lunch drink and that would tide me over. I feel pretty satisfied and content at 11:39 pm. Looking forward to day 2!