Trial Week Over-Now the real test

This time last week I was on a mission.  This was the week I was finally going to get serious about getting fit and losing my baby belly-really I'm much more concerned with losing my baby thighs than the belly.  So I blogged my intentions, logged my food on myfitnesspal.com, filled my Nalgene repeatedly throughout the day to get my goal of 3 liters of water, got a new pair of running shoes AND...ran once.  Not all was lost, however, even though it wasn't the week I had intended.  Planning out meals ahead of time makes it so much easier to avoid the "I'm tired, let's go out to eat" scenario that has ruled our lives since Sierra's birth.  I have a new plan to get back into running thanks to Runner's World magazine having a section devoted to the new mom returning to running with a strength training program and an ease back into it plan to avoid injury.  They even tell you how to correctly jog with a jog stroller!  I now know that my schedule I set up to assign different chores to different days so as to not be overwhelming worked wonderfully.  I had a great week being mommy to my two kiddos without any help.  Yes, I did have a couple of nervous breakdowns throughout the week, but those have to do with thinking about returning to work next week, nothing to do with how life is going right now.  I also learned that My Fitness Pal greatly underestimates the number of net calories I can have in a day to lose weight because, despite not burning more than 200 calories in any given workout that I got around to this week and it telling me every day that I ate too many to lose any weight, I lost another pound!  Thank god, because the first couple of days I was starving!

So it's not easy getting back to a healthy lifestyle when you've slacked off for as long as I have (I am very critical of myself because I never got back into a workout routine after Peyton was born, although breastfeeding for 1 1/2 years got me down to a lower weight than I was even before I got pregnant with him).  I am still motivated.  My goals extend beyond fitness and weight loss.  My main goal is to take time to care for myself so I can continue to care for others both at home and in my job as a physical therapist.  My goal is to tie up lose ends of projects not completed, tasks talked about but never undertaken.  I don't do well in chaos and I don't do well when I don't get enough "me" time, so this is the time to make sure that I don't fall into the same pattern of "I'm mommy and I have to be there 24/7" as I did after Peyton was born.  This time I will allow help...I will demand it.