Thursday, August 8, 2013

Total Male

William has learned the word no pretty well. He uses it fairly often, but I'd say not as much as I thought he would. of course I may be speaking too soon...or typing...or thinking- whatever, you get the point. I can usually counteract that no by firmly saying yes, or I can start counting. Oddly enough the very first time I did the counting to 3 thing he reacted. Not quite sure why, but I'm not complaining. It works about 98% of the time.

Anyway, one of the things he just loves to say no to is cars passing me on the highway while we're heading home. I find this absolutely hilarious because it's just such a male thing. Sure females get into that competitive thing but for the most part it's really not that big of a deal. Well today he of course was telling other cars no and I said to him, "Sorry, honey, but I'm not going to drive like a bat outta hell just so other cars won't pass us." After that he began giving me kissy faces and blowing me kisses.

Another thing he likes to say no to is adult men. Should he be next to me or I'm holding him and a man gets too close he firmly tells them no. Also, at Sam's Club with my mom he was charming all the ladies by telling them hi but the first man they passed he yelled out no and shook his finger at him. Ah, William, he truly is the little protector (William means protector, in case you didn't know...or according to some sites, resolute protector, either way). And while it's cute, I do wonder how that behavior is going to evolve. While I'd be touched he'd be so protective of me, it can also mean a lot of bad. Like he would feel no one would be good enough for me and I'd be doomed to keep picking my son over a man who is actually a very good guy.

There's not much I can do about it, though. While he loves his Uncle and seems to really like my mother's husband and he loves my dad, he's only around two of them and doesn't have any other male interaction. I know you could say that's my fault, but if you met his father you'd understand why I've cut contact with him. I don't exactly have male friends. I don't really have many female friends either. So yeah, for right now I can't really do anything. I am thinking about getting him into the Big Brother program when he's old enough if I'm still single by then because I really want him to have a male role model.

Until then I'll just enjoy my competitive, over-protective little man.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Love

In the car at a coffee stand, sister getting a cup before we head to the lake:

William: Mommyyyyy!!!
Me: What, baby?
William: I love you!
 
First time he's said it! Obviously it wasn't that clear it was more like yuff you but yeah. Made me so incredibly happy!! Felt really good ^_^

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

He Ate!

I know I haven't posted in forever, just been so busy, but I'd like to try again to keep this thing updated as often as possible.

William used to be a great eater but over the past several months he's become very picky, refusing to eat foods he used to love. He's gaining weight like he should but I know that's from all the milk he gets at night. I've been trying everything I can think of to get him to eat but none of it seemed to be working.

Well last night I figured I'd try hard not to give him milk every time he wanted it. Somehow he ended up going to bed without a bottle, which amazed me, but I think he was just that tired since it was well after 9pm.

During the night he only had one 5oz bottle of milk and then he woke up at 8:20am. When I finally decided to get up I tried to find him something to eat. Asked if he wanted eggs, he told me no (he can say no, now). Asked if he wanted yogurt, he said no. Looked around some more and saw some English muffins and asked if he wanted those and he grabbed for the bag. Bread and fruit is about all I can ever get him to eat.

So I made him and English muffin with butter and jam and he actually ate all of it. Well he ate one half then wanted out of his chair so I let him since one half is way more than he's eaten in a good while. He took the other half and set it on the kiddy table and played for a bit then came back for it and ate it.

Really happy he finally ate something. Hoping I can continue it for the rest of the day and from now on.

Monday, April 22, 2013

It's Been a While

I haven't even written a letter to my son in a good while. Just so much has been going on that when I get any free time I prefer to read or watch something.

Well William certainly has the knack of walking. He's getting pretty good at running, too. Course, the snow and icy/slushy areas aren't the perfect running surface. Today I found he has pretty great eye/foot coordination. I took him outside to walk around for a bit and his uncle decided to come out and play with him (his uncle is his FAVORITE person in the world). His uncle grabbed a foam ball from the box of toys I keep at my sister's apartment for when William is over there while I visit or when I need to run grab something from somewhere and need to do it quick. Anyway, he brought the ball outside and put it on the ground and kicked it some. He kicked it to William and I told William to kick it, showing him how. Well he walked right up to it and kicked it square on. He did it several more times. No slips, no misses, right on every time. None of those times was the ball right there where just simply shifting his weight would have touched the ball. No, he had to walk up to it every time and there was no hesitation. The ball is also small enough that when I make the sign for ball (making a sphere with my hand, fingertips touching) the ball fits perfectly inside it.

His talking is getting much better. I was beginning to get worried because all these other children born around the same time were saying quite a few words. Then someone asked me the gender of all those babies and only one of them was a boy. They said boys blossom later than girls. So I waited and now he's really catching on.

I think I mentioned his first word was the name of the woman at the daycare he goes to. Then came mama. He has three different meanings for the sound ma-ma. One is me, another is food or I want and at the moment I can't remember the third one. Now he says uh-oh, get down, papa, ew, and several others that for some odd reason I just can't remember right now. Ew is the newest one. He says it for almost everything. He ALWAYS says it for diapers, even clean ones. He's also trying out the word dog and phrase good job. We've been watching Kipper on Netflix and in the theme song the word dog is say quite a bit and William loves dogs (though he's a bit skittish when they actually come up to him) so him trying to say dog is no surprise. Right now it's just the D sound, though. We only started watching Kipper two days ago.

The phrase, get down, comes from the daycare woman and me, my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, pretty much every adult William comes into contact with. While I don't think he's as bad as I was when I was little about climbing on things, he's still climbing a lot. When I first heard him say it I was like, "What the heck are you saying?" He was very forceful in tone and his brow was furrowed as he said it so it really struck me. It just came out as something like, "dowa!" He was just sitting next to me watching something a movie. Then the next day he added a g' to the beginning so it became "g'dowa!" and he was standing on something so I realized what he was saying then. After that he'd say it every time he was on something he shouldn't be, pretty much telling on himself. Then we had to go to the doctor's to get his ear infection checked out and he was telling other kids to get down when he saw them sitting in the other chairs.

We're not sure if he's calling for my mom sometimes but he's been saying me-me while at her house. It's the only time I ever hear him say it and it almost always has something to do with her so we're beginning to wonder if that's his name for her, mimi. No idea where he's gotten it from. She refers to herself as nana and everyone else calls her that, too, to reinforce it.

My little man still likes to tease. I think it's a family trait from both sides. My niece has become extremely good at it. She's been doing it since she could talk, at least. With William I noticed it starting around 6 months. He was sitting in his high chair eating some goldfish (which some of you might think is crazy of me but my son has been nomming solid food since he was about 4 months and he initiated it, he's a very good eater when it comes to not choking). After a while he decided he was done and proceeded to just grab a handful and drop it on the floor. I fussed at him for it a few times. One of the times I was looking at him right after telling him to stop and he slowly reached down, picked up a single goldfish cracker, slowly brought his fist to his mouth, opened his mouth, closed it, then slowly moved his fist, still containing the cracker, over the side of the tray and dropped the thing. The whole time watching me.

The latest thing was he stuck his thumb into a potted plant at my mom's and got a little bit of dirt stuck to it. He held his hand up, finger splayed, in front of his mouth with the thumb pointing towards his mouth. He then smacked his lips, which is what he sometimes does to show he wants to eat something (if I make the noise by him he'll feed me something from his tray). He then brought his thumb as close to his lips as he could without touching then, a huge grin on his face, then just before it touched he drew it back real quick, laughing. He did it several more times, looking right at me. My mom and grandma were right there, too, so I wasn't just seeing something haha. You know, I think I only teased him a handful of times with bits of food, making like I was going to give him some but then ate it myself. Other than that I tend not to tease, not because I find it mean or anything, but just because my mind just doesn't exactly think that way. So all I can do is blame it on genes.

Well I'm going to stop there for now, it's somehow gotten to be 1am and I should get to bed.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

My Son

Yeah I'm still trying to eat better and all but I just haven't weighed myself in a while. Will post something about this next week.

But today I want to say that William said another word!!! Also, we think this sound he makes that sounds like it could be a slurring of "What's that?" really is, "What's that?" He usually makes that noise when pointing to something and then wants to inspect it. I blame the slurring of the words on me. I talk too fast -_-'

As for the word he said today, well it was Thomas. As in Thomas the train from that awesome show in the 90s (maybe late 80s, I'm not too sure). At Barnes and Noble he loves to play with the train set they have which has a bunch of the pieces to the Thomas set. Then at the Museum Without Walls (it's done by the Children's Museum and called Museum Without Walls because they don't have their own building so they just rent a space wherever they can each month and set up) he always goes back to the Thomas train set they have. My sister and I took him to a local toy store that has loads of really awesome toys. Like real toys that require some imagination to play with and are just so simple and fun. They had three tables set up, one of them with Thomas stuff on them so he played with that the whole time. I really wanted to buy him just Thomas but at first all I could find were pieces where it was a train and another car or a battery operated single piece, all of them $22. I did finally find a starter set with a simple oval track, railroad crossing sign, and Thomas and a musical caboose for $36 so I got that. Of course as we were leaving and I had to take the two trains from William's hands he threw a fit and I had to show him what I was getting him.

Opened it up in the car and he was very happy. He has been nearly inseparable from them. This morning he had the caboose in his hands and I was busy trying to use the bathroom and he was bugging me, handing me the box the set came in and making a noise that's a bit of a question. Pretty much he was asking me to open the box and take something out. I kept telling him there was nothing in it but he kept at it. Finally, when I was done, I figured maybe he wants Thomas since he's only got the caboose. So I told him I'd go get Thomas. When I handed it to him I said, "Here you go. Here's Thomas." To that he replied. "Tho-mas?" And I laughed very happily and said, "Yes! Thomas! You love Thomas, don't you?"

It was very clear. I'm still excited about it! So now he says his daycare worker's name, Thomas, What's That, and then he says two different forms of mama. One seems to have a very forced ah sound and the other seems to be more like muhmuh. The forced one is for me but he doesn't use it nearly enough for me to be completely sure, but he's starting to use it more and more. And the other pretty much means food. Any type of food he sees and wants he'll say muhmuh, including when it comes to see my boobs -_-' While he doesn't nurse anymore (all he does is sometimes does a quick suck and then that's it) he still knows they're meant for food and will pull at my shirt saying muhmuh? muhmuh? and try to pull one of my boobs out.

So he's coming along a lot better than I thought. His language development had me worried a bit because he just wasn't saying mama. But I think he was sometimes and I just didn't realize it. And he definitely knows things.

When I ask him if he's hungry or if he wants to eat he goes to his high chair. Still haven't gotten him to understand what bath means, though he loves them. It's so amazing watching him grow and learn. I really need to do more with him in terms of teaching him his numbers, letters, shapes, and colors, though. I feel like I'm seriously lacking in that. He does sometimes try to sign the alphabet with me when I sing it and sign, so there's something. But he sure is a smarty pants ^_^

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Day...I Don't Even Know

Yeah I forgot when I started this, haha. Oh well. One thing I saw today was a paper with some measurements from a few years ago. I'm not sure how long ago but it was either 2008 or later or it could have been 2004 or earlier. But pretty much I'm the same exact size now as I was when I took those measurements. One difference was my calves, I've lost a whole inch on them. That's good, haha.

Well here's today's menu:

Breakfast
-Half a serving of leftover beans with some onions and cheese
-Glass of water
-Bowl of froot loops

Lunch
-Whatever I snacked on. Some of it included some banana, a tangerine, some chips, some candy here and there. I wasn't very hungry today again.

Dinner
-Salmon (the good stuff. My sister and her husband caught this stuff a year or two ago)
-Broccoli with a little bit of cheese
-Rice
-Glass of sweet tea

Dessert
-Two homemade crepes, one with nutella and half a banana cut up on it, the other with nutella and some strawberries sliced up on it

I really need to actually eat food and stop snacking on whatever, even if it is just tiny bits. Seriously, the candy was very little. I don't know why I haven't been hungry lately. Maybe it's because I know I don't have much left on my food stamps and there's not much here but ramen, bisquick, bread, and peanut butter and jelly. William has food enough for him, though. I try not to eat the stuff I've bought for him, though I have been eating his tangerines because they seem to go bad real fast, same with the bananas. Going to grab some stuff with WIC checks tomorrow, though, not that it'll give me much of anything I can give my son except milk. I don't understand why I got 6 gallons of milk a month and he only gets about 3. He goes through them so fast and I don't give him any milk during the day except for one bottle at nap time. I've tried giving him milk in a sippy cup for the morning but he won't have anything to do with it and it just gets wasted. At night he gets a bottle for bed and he only wakes up about twice at most if he does at all so that's only two extra bottles. I give him 5oz each time, which is what I've always given him for milk, even breastmilk (no, he does not go hungry, the little porker is in perfect proportion for his height). Lately I've been giving him around 8oz for bedtime so he doesn't wake up so early for the first middle of the night waking he sometimes has.

Haha well, anyway, I think food went a bit better today. I really loved how healthy dinner was and I didn't get tons of rice. A little more than the 1/3 cup I should eat but not by much. I really need to try and have dinner like that every night. I'm thinking tomorrow will be a delicious baked chicken breast with a salad and something starchy, maybe corn or a spoonful of the leftover beans.

Well we'll see. On Monday I will weigh myself and post it here. I'm going to start trying to get some exercise in. I asked a friend of mine if she'd like to do the belly dancing DVD with me after school on Tues and Thurs and sometimes in the morning the other three days during the week. I actually meant to go do that today but completely forgot, though I will say that lugging boxes around and up and down stairs was a workout. It also made me realize how weak my stomach muscles have gotten. They've always been my strongest muscles but I guess I just allowed myself to relax too much while pregnant so my lower back was killing me after doing all the mess with these piddly boxes.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Weight and William

I think I could stand to get some William posts in here if I'm going to post often about my weight loss stuff.

The little man woke up good and happy this morning. I always try to get in there to get him out of his crib when he's happy but I don't always make it in time. I wish he understood about calling for me. I'm not even sure he really understands that mama is me. My sister thinks he does but that's because when he wants to eat something or drink something but it's closed up he brings it to me saying what sounds like mama, but I think it's actually mum-mum, which is a rice cracker thing. He has yet to actually call me mama and it makes me a bit sad. He can say his daycare worker's name just fine. If I had him call me by my actual name then he'd be able to call me because apparently the Z on the woman's name is supposed to be pronounced like an S so it comes out sounding like Sarah and that was his first word, his daycare worker's name -_-'

I sometimes worry about his language skills. He hears just fine but really, he can only say his daycare worker's name, mum-mum, and the other day I got him to saying pop. He's a boy of few words. He doesn't babble a lot either. He's a pretty quiet little thing when it comes to talking but he does squeal a lot and will scream at things when hes angry. If he wants something he usually just points at it. I know he understands things, though. I ask him if he wants to eat, making the sign for it as well, and if he does, he'll nod and go to his high chair. I ask him if he wants some of my water, making the sign for it, he'll nod and hold his hands out so he can hold the glass with me. He knows what a light is, I've got him knowing what his head is by singing the head, shoulders, knees, and toes song. He's a bright boy but just doesn't want to speak. I keep wondering if it's something to do with me. I speak fairly fast and I always worried that my children would have a hard time speaking because of that. I've begun reading aloud to him again, not trying to make him sit down with me, just let him play and all. The point to it being that I read slowly and carefully and he at least hears words as they're supposed to sound and at the speed they're supposed to be produced. Heh, when I say slowly, I mean slow for me. It's hard for me to slow down because I feel like I'm speaking in slow motion and it's irritating, but when I sing or read aloud so people can understand me, it comes out at a more normal pace, which, for me, is slow.

I know some children just don't want to speak much. The doula I had told me her son was like that. He could communicate just fine and he used signs when it was more difficult to show what he wanted but he did eventually get over than and begin speaking, though he still doesn't say much. I hope that's what's going on with William.

Other than that, today he was all right before his nap. Afterwards he was a bit cranky and by 5:30pm he was really working on my last nerve. At 6:30 I stuck him in the bath for the second time today and he was very happy about that. Just before he was being incredibly whiny and getting irritated with everything. After the bath he sat with me on the couch for a bit and then I put his pjs on and he was just so tired that when I accidentally knocked him over when trying to get into the kitchen he just started crying. So I didn't bother warming his milk. Just handed it to him and took him to bed. He was out in minutes. I wonder if he's having a growth spurt because he's been like that the past few days. He's just so tired that he doesn't try to stay away in his crib, he just passes right out.

Well onto weight loss stuff.

Breakfast
-Bowl of dry coco pebbles cereal

Lunch
-Nothing

Dinner
-2 Servings of beans with onions and cheese
-2 biscuits (one with butter, one with jam)
-glass of milk

I wasn't really hungry today. I did snack on some things like a few animal crackers with some peanut butter, some grapes, a tangerine, two pieces of french bread. And I had two glasses of water. Oh and a few skittles and a small piece of chocolate.

Hmm...(weight loss stuff)

I just checked my weight, curious, and it says that I've lost 2lbs but have gained 1% body fat. Have I somehow lost muscle mass in less than a week? I don't see how I could have. Oh well, the body fat percentage is more of an interesting thing to look at. As long as I get rid of the excess and have what's left in the right places, I don't care what percentage I have.

I don't remember which day was the last time I updated here so I'm not going to bother trying to remember everything I've eaten those days. I'll just put up what I've eaten today and I'll stop being lazy and just take my stupid measurements.

Breakfast
-Homemade personal pepperoni pizza (yeah, I know, pizza for breakfast but I was at a lost for what to make and I had leftover sauce I made the day before)
-Glass of sweet tea

Lunch
-Whatever I managed to snack on throughout the day. The pizza filled me up quite a bit. I know I had a tangerine, a few grapes, and a few animal crackers with, yes, I'll admit, a little bit of cake frosting haha.

Dinner
-1 philly cheesesteak stuffed red pepper with some sweet bbq sauce
-A few potato chips
-A glass of water

The stuffed red pepper was only half of one with a slice of swiss cheese in the bottom (next time I make these it'll be provolone) and sauteed onions and mushrooms with some strips of roast beef I got sliced at the deli all heated up with some butter and minced garlic. It's good but I'll add some salt the next time, it was kind of bland. Aside from the potato chips it was a nice, low-carb meal. I could have eaten more but I wasn't interested in eating more than I did. Overall I didn't eat much today, just wasn't hungry.

I'm going to juice some but I don't think I'll do the juice fast anymore. I don't have a lot left in my food stamps to go buying so many expensive fruits and veggies. Can't believe it went so fast and the month is only half over. I have to be careful with how I spend the rest. At least my student loans should be here by the end of this week so I don't have to worry about that anymore.

One thing I really need to do is exercise but I just don't want to do any at home, not with the new neighbors downstairs. I could go to my university's gym but I'd really rather not go alone. If only I didn't live in stupid Alaska I could have a friend go on a walk with me. Blah. I REALLY want to get rid of the weight. I know my cholesterol must be ridiculously high and my poor pancreas is probably getting exhausted. I need to do this, get healthy, and change my lifestyle. I need to stop being so sedentary or else I'm doomed to have diabetes and heart problems when I get older like the rest of my relatives seem to have. I have to do this!

Oh! Back when I was 16 and dating the one guy I was with for years, I used to complain about eating right or exercising sometimes. He'd look at me and say, "Just go do it. Don't think about it, just do it." I tell you what, Nike really had something there. That was how I got myself up off the couch on days I just didn't feel like doing the belly dancing I decided to do for PE. I knew that once I started it, I'd not stop until I was done with everything (like the 200 sit-ups, 12 push-ups, and stretches I did after the DVD ended). But now, that slogan isn't cutting it for me. I had school and a boyfriend to do this stuff for. Yeah, doing it for myself should be more of a motivator, but it's not. I've had years to become comfortable with being overweight, I much prefer to sit still and watch or read something. Of course, as a real little child I was the complete opposite.

But I did see something on Pinterest that pops into my head whenever I really badly want a soda or something. It's something like, "Don't give up what you've always wanted for something you want at the moment." That phrase kept me from grabbing a Coke at my mom's yesterday though I really, really wanted one. I can have a soda when I've lost several pounds.

Anyways, on to the measurements:

Bust: 47 1/2in
Underbust: 40 1/2in (haha according to most bra size chats I'd be about a 48 G lofl! I wear a C cup actually)
Arms: 16in
Waist: 38in
Stomach: 45 1/2in
Hips: 50in
Thighs (thickest part): 29 1/2 (scary, they're almost as big around as my waist O_O)
Calves: 16 1/2in

So there you have it, the measurements. I remember my calves being 12in after losing weight years ago.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Day 4

Real quick before I go to bed.

Breakfast
-Protein smoothie (milk, 1/2 a banana, 1 scoop protein powder, some chocolate ovaltine since I don't have coco powder)

Lunch
-McDonalds (most of a medium sweet tea, most of a medium fry, two plain cheeseburgers)

Dinner
-Homemade chicken nuggets
-Glass of sweet tea

There were several glasses of water, mostly in the afternoon and evening. I know I drank at least four in the last three hours.

And I was supposed to go to bed 3 hours ago -_-

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Detox

I have been having a little bit of trouble staying away from the junk. I find myself sitting here thinking about it far too much. So I decided to try a juice fast to help clean out the bad toxins from all the years of junk and fast food and to jump start the weight loss.

I was at the store a little bit ago and it's been a while since I tried to just incorporate the juice into my day just to have something really good for me in there so I couldn't remember how much of everything I need. Gonna go look at the recipe again and figure it out then write it all down so I can go back just before I run out of this stuff, which won't be long.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Day 3

I did okay again today. While I did have some junk food I didn't eat much.

Breakfast
-Breakfast pizza (croissant rolls, eggs, sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms, jalapenos, and cheese)
-Glass of water
-Glass of sweet tea

Lunch
-Nibbled on popcorn and twizzlers
-Three glasses of water over the course of a few hours

Dinner
-Red beans and rice leftovers
-Glass of water

Dessert
-Two pieces (a few hours apart) of pumpkin spice cake with chocolate chips and butter cream frosting

Snack
-Bowl of coco crispies

I did have two swallows of my sister's Coke and there was more water interspersed throughout there.

Haven't taken my measurements yet, I know I'm being really lazy about it, haha. And tonight I'm going to bed earlier than I normally do.

Food Stuff

Forgot to put up the food post yesterday so I'll put down as much as I can remember from then and then stuff for today. I'll also do the measurements tomorrow.

Yesterday:

Breakfast
-Greek yogurt with 1/2 a banana, a teaspoon of finely chopped pecans, some dried blueberries, homemade granola, and flax seed.
-Glass of water

Lunch
-Leftovers of smoked sausage, red bell pepper, onions, and kidney beans
-Glass of water

Dinner
-4 Asada tacos (marinated beef, cilantro, onions, green sauce, and lime juice on small corn tortillas)
-Spanish rice
-1/2 a serving of refried beans with a little bit of cheddar cheese and onions
-Glass of sweet tea

Dessert
-Two s'mores
-Some pomegranate seeds

Snack
-Four graham crackers squares with 2 Tbsp of peanut butter
-Glass of water

There was some other glasses of water in there but I still didn't drink as much as I should have.

Today:

Breakfast
-Monkey bread
-Glass of whole milk

Lunch
-2 Chicken lettuce wraps
-Glass of water

Dinner
-Red beans and rice (smoked sausage, kidney beans, rice)
-Glass of sweet tea

Dessert
-One square of pumpkin spice cake with chocolate chips and butter cream frosting.

Again, other glasses of water and then a few swallows of some very strong lipton tea since I have a headache and no tylenol or anything.

So yesterday I did really well until dinner time, but it's so hard to have just one or two of those tacos. And really, they're not that bad considering everything is fresh. The fattiest thing was probably the green sauce because of the avocado in it but that's good fat. And the corn tortillas had the most carbs. That's just for the tacos, though. I did have two servings of the rice and then of course the refried beans have loads of starch in them. Not even sure why they're called refried. My sister made them from scratch and all it was, was boiling them, draining them, then mashing them.

As for today I did much worse. I got up and waited for forever for my sister to wake up because I thought she was going to make this breakfast pizza today. By 10:30am I was getting so hungry I was feeling nauseous so I went ahead and made this biscuit monkey bread. It took a little bit so I didn't eat it for close to an hour and then about two hours after that we ate lunch. Also I spent most of the day over at my sister's place and they have a lot of things to snack on. I avoided most of it but did nibble on a few things.

Also, I saw some pictures of myself today, one from when I was big and pregnant and one from this past Christmas. The pregnant one was really cute because I was posing and all and with my huge belly I didn't look fat at all. Then the Christmas one I was sitting on the floor hunched over helping William with something so I looked ginormous and it just grossed me out. I tell you what, that picture was some motivation. I should get that printed out and stick it to my fridge. I don't want to continue looking like that. I want to look like how I feel I look. I know I'm overweight but I honestly don't think I look as big as I must actually be. And also, in my dreams I've only twice had dreams where I was overweight and felt self-conscious. Several dreams total where I was overweight but I'm usually not self-conscious at all about how I look and the funny thing is that in dreams where I should feel self-conscious, I'm naked. But for the most part I'm always fit in my dreams. It's how I see myself. My poor self-esteem comes from how I think others see me and how they feel about the fact that I'm overweight. The bright side of all of this is that it could be worse. I could be totally oblivious to my weight and what I eat and just let myself go until I can't go through the store without an electric cart. I feel bad for those people who have to use those things because of weight. It's so debilitating being that heavy and no one should have to deal with it.

My middle sister is fairly overweight as well. Though she was still lighter than me until after I had William then I was about 5 or 10lbs lighter than her. Now she's back to being lighter since she's pregnant and all the throwing up and the baby taking nutrition has caused her to lose weight. But she did just says she's finally starting to gain. Well, anyway, her frame is not for weight. She's got a petite frame. She'd have a lovely willowy figure at her ideal size and weight. Because of the weight she has knee problems and I really hope they don't get worse when the baby gets good and big. We live on the second floor of the 4-plex and she already has trouble with the stairs thanks to her knees. I'm lucky I'm built for weight. I have wide feet and plenty of muscle and I'm strong because the weight I carried most of my life came on gradually so I was able to build up my strength. Being pregnant only affected my hip joints in the morning when I was getting up (and they affect me now if I don't do a few hip exercises/stretches at least every few nights) but I could still do everything I always did, though most of the time people wouldn't let me carry several grocery bags into the house.

Anyway, I won't be like this any longer. I don't want to see pictures of myself and think, "Gross!" I want to look the way I feel I look.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

William and My Weight

Some more on the update front about my lovely little man. He's been feeding himself for several months now but only last month did he decide he wanted to feed himself with a utensil. He's does pretty well for his age, I suppose, not really sure what's considered doing well and doing poorly. He does make quite a bit of mess, but that's to be expected. It's also nice to see him beginning to eat some meat. I was at a loss as to what to give him that would give him protein for a good while since he's now getting cow's milk and hasn't had a bottle of breastmilk for about a week now. Then my mom reminded me about Greek yogurt and I remembered that it was a great source of protein when I was on my gestational diabetes diet so I bought a big container of it and he loves that. I won't push meat on him until he's good any ready but I do offer it to him.

He's eaten an egg but it's hard to get him to eat it again. He won't even try it but I know he likes it. He ate the one because my sister managed to pop a tiny piece in his mouth when he had it open, laughing. But after that one egg he still won't eat it right away. Yesterday we let him try a piece of hamburger from McDonald's. I really don't care to give him fast food but I must admit I have given him fries from time to time because I am bad and have fast food myself. If you've ever had kids you know how they are, they want what you're eating so it was either give him a fry or drive myself insane with his whining and screaming. Believe me it's not something I'm going to give in to all of the time. But it shouldn't be so bad since I'm trying to change my eating habits. No fast food, no soda for starters. I'm happy to say that he has NEVER had soda. I grew up on the stuff and I'd much rather him have french fries from McDonald's or Wendy's than soda. Well other than that the only meat he really eats is chicken nuggets. He's had some from a local restaurant here and I make homemade ones that I much prefer over any fast food or restaurant ones. Oddly enough, though, he won't touch chicken if you hand him some from a breast, just chunks in chicken nugget form.

But he's a pretty good eater other than meat. Oh! Beans. That's the form of protein I was giving him before I remembered yogurt. He loooves beans because he can feed himself with his fingers and he probably likes the taste, haha.

Well, on to my first weight loss post.

I checked my weight this morning on an empty stomach. 222.8lbs, which means I've lost two pounds in the last week, yay! I did start controlling my portions some and since I'm broke and finally got my food stamps done up I've been making it a point to cook dinner. Since I'm not working and still on Christmas break from school I have the time. Course, school starts on the 17th so I'm planning on putting together some crock pot meals and make-ahead freezer meals so on days I go to school I can easily get something done.

Anyways, I haven't measured myself yet, I'll do that tonight when I make my food diary post. Oh and I have a nifty scale that calculates body fat percentage, too. Sad, and embarrassing, to say that I am 4% away from being half fat but the good thing about it is that I am 4% below being half fat!! Yay! I was scared I'd be over 50%. I don't know what's a good percentage of fat for a woman so I'm not really going to look at that except to help me out when I feel like I haven't lost enough by seeing if I lost fat and gained muscle.

So the big goal is to be at least 140lbs by September. September is the month I realized I was actually thin back when I was 16 and losing weight the first time. I mean I saw the scale and all but I rarely bought any clothes and never much paid attention to the size during that period until my mom took me shopping for all new outfits. Really I don't even care about the weight. I care about the size. I mean I'm the same size I was at 193lbs but I'm 222lbs, so you see it's stupid to focus on weight, instead focus on your pant size.

So 140lbs and a size 9 is what I want to be. I'm tempted to go a little further and see how I look as a size 6 but we'll see about that when I reach my goal of a size 9. I loved the way I looked as a 9 because I was thin but I was soft. I had fat in all the right places and I looked healthy, I wasn't even self-conscious about the way I looked even though I still had a bit of a belly roll because I wasn't toned. But I'll be working on toning throughout this time because the pregnancy stretched out my stomach and the water weight made my arms balloon and they haven't exactly recovered.

But that's just my long-term goal. I'm going to set short term goals as well. Monthly I'd like to lose between 10-15lbs and weekly around 2-3lbs. Those are safe. I don't know anything about losing inches so while I'll keep track of that either every week or every month it's not something that I'm going to say, "I want to lose this many inches in this amount of time."

And with that, day one is begun.

Quick Update and More

William is quite the handful. He's been climbing on things a lot lately and even moving stuff to tables and counters in order to climb on it to reach food. He drank out of a plain old cup without spilling anything (did that several times with the same drink), he can now sign "please" and even made a two word sentence with his signs saying, "More, please," when I asked him if he'd like more chips the other day. He's got all his teeth he's supposed to have in now (well maybe more so because they say that at 9 months a baby is only supposed to have two teeth but William had eight and now he has all four front teeth, all four eye teeth, and all four if his 1 year molars). And there's loads more but I should really be getting to bed since it's 2:45am.

First, though, I want to say I'm hijacking this blog for my weight loss stuff. I've needed to lose weight for a few years now and keep getting sidetracked with delicious food or crazy men. It's January and this is the month I started in when I began my first ever successful weight loss. I was 16 years old, 193lbs, and a size 18. Right now I'm 25 years old, 224lbs, and a size 18 (and no that's not a lie or vanity sizing, I have jeans from when I was 16 before I lost the weight and after being washed they fit perfectly, I'm more muscular than the average woman). Pre-pregnancy I was 230lbs. By the time I was due to be induced I was 253lbs. When I finally went back to work when William was 5 months I was 205lbs (weight gain from going from a house that has money to buy the good food and more of a schedule so meals were prepared daily to a place where I'm broke half the time and thanks to work and school and William I barely have time to do anything else). When I was 16 and lost weight I went from the weight and size I mentioned above to 142lbs and a size 9. A size 9 is considered on the bigger size of skinny. For me it was perfect. As soon as I reached that weight I stopped all the good things I was doing like eating right and exercising. Luckily my portion control was doing well and the only reason I gained anything back was because of depression eating.

So I've done it before, I know what I need to do, but now I just need to do it. I also saw someone else's blog with a weight loss challenge and part of it was to adopt two good habits. I'm thinking for me, this is going to be getting to bed at a decent hour and moisturizing my face at least every night but I will do it in the morning if I have time. My mom says it looks like I have rosacea and part of that is dry skin that won't sluff off like it's supposed to so I have rough patches on my face and I found with daily moisturizing (putting a good layer of cream on and leaving it there for 30 minutes) it helps a lot and I have baby soft skin ^_^

I will post tomorrow what my weight is (I'm thinking it's going to be more than 224lbs, that's just what I remember from when I weighed myself the week before this past one). I'll also take measurements. I'll even keep a food diary. I'm planning on going on a diabetic diet of sorts. Pretty much just using the guidelines from my gestational diabetes diet but with less calories (though I'm not really going to be counting them, just eating right and portion control because that's all you really need along with exercise).

Anyways that's all until tomorrow morning.