DAY ONE: Trying out this exercise thing people keep yapping about.

People keep talking about this funny weight loss solution; exercise. Apparently its a thing and people have known about it for quite some time. But have people bothered to tell me about it until now?! Yes, they have. But I largely don't listen because why? Because up until about 2 years ago I felt pretty cozy in my 200lb body. I'm so obviously not out to impress anyone with my thin-ness so I've never felt a push to lose any weight. Instead, I just buy clothes that fit me and try to have long pretty hair and decently makeup-ed face so people will look past my chubby rollers and look at my hotty-pants face. Anyways, I was happy enough to do nothing about my body.
And then Alice happened. This massive 10lb baby made me gain 30 lbs while pregnant. No sweat. Every time I have a baby the weight disappears within a month, tops. I'm usually still overweight, but at least the baby weight leaves. But this time something happened. I birthed a 10lb baby... and didn't lose 10 lbs like usual. I was still 230lbs, what I weighed before I had her. WTF body? What you doing.  I decided to ignore it hoping the weight would just decide to vacate on its own but after several months it just didn't. To make matters worse, I started to get aches in my knees when I went up and down the stairs. My ankles and wrists were on FIRE. I went to get checked out and it turns out I developed mild arthritis, likely from carrying around way more weight than my body could handle (and you know, regularly hauling around 30 pound toddlers). I've been on cortisol injections and anti-inflammatory's for the last 18 months and man. Arthritis is the PITS. Still, I had zero desire to gym it up.
THEN, this year I filed my taxes and the most beautiful thing happened. We were POOR! The thing about being lower middle-class is you are too rich to be given handouts, but too poor to be able to afford small luxuries like, for example, a gym pass. Half the battle of going to the gym is having the desire. The other half is having the funds. Well, hot dang! Being poor meant I would have access to the city's recreation centers for free for the next year. 50% of the excuse to not go to the gym was suddenly taken away. It became more apparent with the combination of arthritis and sudden gym funding that this is something that I need to do! If not only for my health but to take advantage of sweet sweet free stuff. ( I LOVE FREE STUFF)
So here it goes! My first attempt to be a gym-goer. I went this morning on opening day, with all these weird social distancing measures in place. I only had time for 35 minutes of working out, but I didn't hate it. Mind you, I don't know what I'm doing so I stuck to the treadmill and rowing machine since they're familiar- but maybe in the future I can branch out. For now, keeping small. Hoping to keep it regular.

DAY ONE COMPLETE!

Keeping my distance. Don't touch me.

After my workout. Still exhausted from waking at 6:00am to come here. Not worth it yet.

Baby Alice: The Birth Story

Well all whopping 9lbs 15oz of Baby Alice is finally here. I say finally, but she was actually 2 weeks early just like her 7lb brother. She is chubby, and bruised and hungry. The boys love her, maybe a little bit too much right now, and we think she's cool enough to keep around.

Here is her story:

On Aug 21st my water broke. Well, it "broke". I had some waters leaking in spurts and since Elliot came the same fashion my thought was that it was go time! I had some contractions and we decided to head into the hospital so we could take full advantage of floating around in my birthing pool long before baby actually arrived.
Fast forward 6 hours. Contractions stopped, and I was only dilated to 3cms with no budging so I was sent home. What a disappointing night. It was determined that I had a high leak and since no bacteria would be introduced to baby, I could stay like this for weeks before baby would actually decide to come. I was pretty bummed out since my step mum was going out of town on Saturday and I really wanted her to be the one taking care of the turds while we were in hospital. The next day I felt like the baby was never going to come. She was sitting up super high and I had no pressure or anything. I consigned to my fate of delivering a term baby. That is, until around 5pm while waiting for supper to finish. We typically have a dance party most nights while dinner is cooking. Its my last hour with the kids before Kevin gets home and we are all usually pretty sick of eachother. It helps with the final stretch. I was carriyng around and dancing with the 15 month old baby when I got a huge contraction. I had to sit down and catch  my breath... and then there was nothing. But all of a sudden Baby Alice felt crazy low again. I messaged with my sisters on facebook and mentioned that I would like to get a full night sleep and she could come int he morning if she wanted to.

On August 23rd at 5:00am I scrambled out of bed because my water was BREAKING, like all over. After putting on new clothes I decided to go back to sleep until contractions came. I knew I was having a baby today, there is no way there was any more water left. After an hour of sleep I was woken to my first contraction at 6:00am. The house was quiet with sleeping children and husband and I laid in bed until 6:20 when I decided they felt real enough to head into the hospital. I was still anticipating a few hours of quality birthing tub time. I called the midwife and we decided to meet at the hospital entrance at 7:00am. On the way out the door I had some contractions I couldn't talk through, and then when we arrived at the hospital I had a few there getting out of the car. In the elevator up my contractions were short and close, about every 20 seconds I would get a new one. We flew into the birthing room and I asked the midwife to run the regular bathtub for me to get into while she was blowing up the birthing pool. All I could think about is the water. With the two previous water births the water was incredible in taking away the pain and I just couldn't wait for the massive pool to be set up yet. As soon as the tub was full, I got in and instantly felt the urge to push. I screamed "I HAVE TO PUSH NOW OK?!!!" And hunkered down and started pushing in the hospital's tub. My midwife was so amazing. She stopped filling the pool and raced to my side. She turned on the hot water spray head and applied it to my back while letting me go ahead and push. I told her when the head was out and then I laid in the pool to push the rest of the body. It felt like lightening. Everything happened so fast. Kevin was there rubbing my back, and Heidi the  midwife spraying hot water and I was making a baby happen. After the head was out, her chest was getting stuck and I had a moment of pause where I didnt feel the urge to push and I relaxed and said "I think I'm done now, I dont want to push anymore." And Kevin and Heidi yelled "SHES ALREADY PRETTY MUCH HERE!! JUST PUSH!!" Haha, ok, ok. Apparently you're not allowed to stop mid-birthing. I pushed her the rest of the way and instantly I got that amaaaaaazing feeling. Euphoric bliss. Better than any taco or orgasm ever. Seriously, if you haven't pushed out a baby before- I highly recommend it.
Unfortunately it is short lived because birthing the placenta isn't very fun, but once that is over you just get to lay in bed with a tiny human that you produced and worked hard to get there. Its pretty great.
Well, there you have it. My baby Alice who was supposed to be born in her birth pool, at a reasonable weight was born in the narrow hospital tub, as fat as can be and you know what? She's my first baby with not even a fragment of a tear. Don't know how we managed that one. All in all, we are doing pretty great she naps when I'm busy and is awake when I'd like to be sleeping. She's a hungry little hippo and so am I. We make a pretty awkward but good team.
Daddy is probably the most tired of all of us. He's having to be mom and dad to 3 crazy toddlers, do all the chores and make all the food and then at night he gets to be constantly interrupted while I chain-feed this addict baby. He's the best birth coach, best maid, and best friend I could ever ask for. So glad he was with me through the last 5 years of birthing babies. After Baby Alice was born I said "Lets not do this ever again" He heartily agreed.

Photos? Ok. How about one of me pushing out a baby, and one of the nasty purple baby on me. I'm not crying. I'm flippin' happy.

.2 year hiatus and a birthed baby.

it has been over 2 years since i last made an entry in my blog. even though this blog has been an active work of mine for the past 8 years, the other day i "stumbled upon it". it has been so long since i had made an entry that i legitimatly forgot about its existence. it wasnt until i looked at my own profile page on instagram which carried the URL that i remembered about it, and instantly i missed writing in it, and looking back on the things that i had written. i wish i could do one long post to cover the last 2 years but my memory is not sufficient and i feel those moments and feelings that i had would be half hearted and half remembered.
yesterday i went to book club where we discussed the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, i wasn't in the mood to read the book myself as i am about halfway through 5 different books right now and i wanted to focus on finishing one, but the conversation that came with my book club being inspired by the book was fantastic. it talked about creativity and doing what you love all in without worrying about the outcome, or what people will think about it. so here i am, doing something i love to do which is document my family's life. i'm hoping to find little moments of time each day to sit down and write a little excerpt to keep me on my toes. (right now my little moment is a sleeping baby and a 2 and 4 yr old who are playing "a ghost is chasing us") with my little moment, i think i should backtrack for one major event- Dimitri's birth. yeah, i had another baby! surprise, blog! i will dedicate this next post to the happenings of the event.

being a mom is hard. any kind of mom.

i remember the first few months as a stay at home mom with my new baby. it only took a matter of days to realize that people were right all along. being a stay at home mom isn't a vacation. i found it difficult to be so sleep deprived and i felt like my life was a constant rhythm of feed, burp, diaper, sleep. i felt like i could never leave the house, but at least i had time during baby's nap to keep on top of things like laundry and making dinner.

then i went back to work when bean was one year old and even though our house stayed mostly clean from nobody being at home, it was a small rush to get home and make dinner so i could spend time with him before a 7pm bedtime. then things started to slip. i started to realize that things were even harder as a working mom than as a stay at home mom. i still had to keep on top of laundry, renovations, cutting the grass, cooking meals, and grocery shopping while maintaining my garden, and attending family events and preparing for singing time sundays at church.

wow. being a mom is hard.

i was looking forward to the time when we'd have another kid and i could be home all the time and devote my time to being a stay at home mom again who can keep on top of the laundry and dinner.

then Sebastien was born.

turns out, having a newborn the second time around is NOTHING like having one the first. you still have to entertain a toddler while taking care of a new baby. you can't leave the new baby on the floor while you shower even though he can't roll, because the demon 2 yr old will 100% think stepping on the baby is super funny. or poking him in the eyes. or dumping out a cup of apple juice on his head.

and when that baby learns to crawl those times that you used to be able to shower, or do laundry, or tidy up, or ever wash a stinking floor are gone. a stay at home mom of 2+ children means you work your butt off for very little progress. you may clean the bathroom, but when you come out, there is watermelon all over the floor, and lego peices thrown around the room for fun, and the air intake vent on the wall has been taken off and random crap is being stuffed down it. oh, and by the way, when you go to clean up that mess in the living room, another kid has gone into your clean bathroom and is making a huge water mess brushing his teeth with the toilet water and laughing "its so funny, its so funny!"

your only release is when your poor husband who works a 4am shift and got up with the baby in the middle of the night to give you a break, takes the kids outside on Saturday for hours while you do the bare minimum cleanup around the house. 7 loads of laundry from the past week and a half, quick scrub of the toilets, mow the lawn so your neighbours don't report you to the bylaw officer, a load of dishes, and wash all the floors.  every saturday you think about what the other perfect moms you know are doing with their kids. probably going out for a picnic at the park leaving behind their perfect houses and building memories instead of building the supply of towles in a now empty closet.

oh, but it gets better.

after the second kid hits a year, you get to go back to work again! which means you are getting home barely in time to cook a quick dinner, followed by bathtime and bedtime then cleaning up the kitchen which takes you well into 8:00pm. then you have ONE hour until your husband needs to start getting ready for bed. ONE hour to either.... go grocery shopping, put in a load of laundry, clean the living room, or the bathrooms, or work on the renovations that are essentially going nowhere. OR, you can take the hour and watch an episode of TV and pretend that responsibility doesn't exist. ( i choose that option ALL the time. ignore it and it'll go away, right?) Unfortunately nope. Saturday comes and the entire day is spent on laundry and mowing and bathrooms all over again and nobody enjoys the weekend.

being a mom is hard. and it won't be any easier when we are on to our 3rd kid and i become a stay at home mom again. its always hard. its always a never ending list of a million things to do. and its always ignoring those lists to play with your kids, or watch netflix.

i just bloody wish i'd get paid for all this work, because right now i'm doing two full time jobs and only getting paid for the one that takes me away from my kids.

END RANT.

Cleanse Day #6

I'm over halfway done the cleanse! Feeling pretty good but that is most likely because I cheated.

Yup. Cheater. I just couldn't do the cleanse over the weekend. It is just too stressful running around with the kids and things with having to pack all these veggies and making smoothies (we had a smoothie explosion incident in the car and I was like "THATS IT I'm not making another one!")

Saturday was my worst day, but Sunday I got a little better. I followed the cleanse in the morning and my only cheating in the evening was bits of chicken in a stir fry and I finished the last of Sebastien's rice which wasn't much.

Today I am back at it for the remainder of the week. I forgot to weigh myself this morning, but on Sunday morning I was down another lb. So I weighed in at 208. Six lbs down from the start of the cleanse and 18 lbs total lost since I started my diet in March.

I have just 5 short days to go and then I'm back to trying to eat healthy, and try to do food combining. I've got my meal plan laid out for the next two weeks and I'm excited about trying some new vegetarian meals.

I'm still not working out at all. I'm terrible at doing it myself. I am very much a person that needs a coach there 100% of the time telling me what to do. I'd like to join some sort of crossfit that runs daily, but most I've found don't start late enough for me. My only free timeslot during the day is from 8pm-10pm and I can't find anything yet. Crossing fingers something will open up.

Here's to a good week with no cheats!

DAY ONE: Cleanse

Hi friends. So I have completed my 6 weeks of healthy eating that my nutrition coach, Viktoria put me on. (Yeah, my sister Viktoria.) It is pretty exciting stuff. She is just about finished school to be a holistic nutritionist and she plans to have her company up and running this summer. Just check out her cute logo!

She created a meal plan for me based on my lifestyle, how much weight I'd like to lose, when I plan to get pregnant next, what symptoms I am experiencing, and catering it all to the whole foods I actually like to eat! (no plain greek yogurt for this girl!) I started her meal plan at a starting weight of 226 lbs, and by the end of the 6 weeks I weighed in at 214 lbs. A whole 12 lbs lost! I have to admit, I don't feel like I've lost 12 lbs, but I have a long road ahead of me, so I was glad to see some progress on the scale.


Now that my 6 weeks are over (and spending this last week eating whatever the heck I wanted because of renovations and stress) she is starting me on a 10 day detox cleanse.

 I will document how it goes here. Yesterday was my first day and I have to say, it is going pretty well. I am not HUNGRY, but I also still have all of my usual cravings. It was so hard just eating veggies and drinking my smoothie for supper last night and watch my family eat a creamy penne and chicken dish last night. *sigh*. And then I keep seeing ads everywhere for food. McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, Opa souvlaki platters, and I just got an e-mail from Swiss Chalet with the headline "Hungry as a Dinosaur?". Well not hungry as a dino yet, but SOON I promise!

I am really excited to see if the cleanse helps to curb my fatigue and some digestive problems, I've never really detoxed before so I am sure my body has a lot of crap to get rid of.

The cleanse is pretty straight forward. 1 large smoothie every day that I will slowly drink through the day, I can snack on fruits, veggies, raw nuts, plain greek yogurt (which I won't be touching with a 10 foot pole), herbal teas, and boiled eggs.  Sounds like what I am already eating, but this time without salad dressings or carbs or meats.

I'm going to kick this cleanse in the face. (and maybe drop a couple lbs while doing it, I weighed in this morning and I'm down 4lbs already)

I'll check back in a couple days and let you know how cleansed my bowels are.

week #1 weigh in

Well, here I am after a week of healthy eating. It's been great so far actually. I complain a little but about how I wish I could have the potato chips everyone is eating during games but other than mild cravings for whatever is in front if my face at the time, I haven't been starving yet. When you are eating vegetables, it can be a LOT of food! And I love quantity.

I will confess that during a pie competition I attended this weekend I had little nibbles off Kevin's pie. A girls gotta live a little!

Here is my 1st week weigh in. I'm sitting at 219 lbs as of 11am today. Last Monday my weigh in was 226. So 7 lbs lost in a week. I'm skeptical that I'm actually losing weight because I don't feel different yet and my clothes still barely fit and my body often fluctuates 10lbs give or take. So if I drop below 216 this week then I will believe that maybe I am losing lbs.

Wish me luck! Sébastien turns 1 on Sunday and the partying leading up to it makes me nervous I'll loose my cool.