Here we go again!!

I took a week off and now I'm ready to go again!  Making my goals public and actually completing some of them was such a good experience, I decided to make some new goals JUST so I can follow through on them :)

In the week since I last blogged, I have lost another 2 pounds, exercised almost every day, done virtually none of my diastasis exercises, had Ari in bed before 9:15 almost every night, Lilah has slept until 6am every night except one, and I haven't nursed Lilah even one time!

So here I am all ready to sign up for another set of challenges with the goal of improving my quality of life!  There will be two key differences: I will be challenging myself to follow through for 12 weeks and I'll be reporting weekly rather than daily.  So, here are the new goals:

1) Plan my families meals 1 week ahead
2) Improve Ari's eating habits
3) Stick to my budget
4) Follow the South Beach Diet
5) Exercise daily
6) Continue my diastasis rehab

I've also decided that for this challenge, I'll be reporting weekly rather than daily.

1) Pre-plan meals: Every day I wait until around 3pm to decide what to make for dinner. Not only is a pain in the butt, but since I never seem to have the ingredients, I end up running to the grocery store nearly every day.  My goal is to pre-plan my meals one week in advance so I can cut down on my trips to the grocery store, follow my diet, and stick to my budget.  For dinner we will have 2 vegetarian meals, 2 fish meals, and 1 chicken, 1 turkey and 1 red meat meals per week.  I'm generally pretty happy with eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day, so that part should be easy.

2) Improve Ari's eating habits: Over the last year, we've allowed Ari to get into a number of bad habits.  One was his bedtime issue which is now solved (thankyouverymuch), but another is his diet.  Somewhere last yearAt this time, Ari eats no vegetables, fruits or real food of any kind.  I've tried putting spinach in smoothies, sweet potato baby food in his MacNCheese, giving him dipping sauces of all kinds, but nothing seems to work.  If it weren't for V-8 splash, my little man wouldn't get any veggies or fruits in his diet at all. For the past year now, all he eats is basically junk... a lot of cheese, crackers, pizza, chicken nuggets, french fries, MacNCheese, hot dogs, etc.  He refuses chicken (?!?!?!), beef, pasta, veggies and fruits..... he won't even try, just looks at it and says, "I don't like it!" and pushes it away.  Well, one of the things I've learned about parenting is that consistency is key.  If he knows I'm not messing around at meals, he'll start following.... I hope. Apparently he eats all his meals at school, now it's time to start eating his meals at home.  I'm tired of making a nice meal only for him to request a hot dog.  My first step is to serve juice ONLY for meal times.  Right now he wants to drink tons of juice and then isn't hungry for meals. I think of all my challenges, this is the one I'm most likely to fail.

3) Stick to my budget -  For the last 16 months I've been on a budget and for 16 months I've overspent my budget. Each month, Lawrence gives me $1187.  After student loans and my cell phone bill, I have about $1000 with which to pay for doctor co-pays, medication, food, gas for the car, clothes for the kids and myself, gifts and any other incidentals.  Lawrence pays for all our gas, electric, cable, and any other fixed costs.  At this time I have $298 left in my monthly allowance, $275 on my credit card, and 14 days left to the month.  My goal is that by the end 12 weeks, I will have my credit card payed off and be within my monthly allowance so I will be able to start saving money for my own uses.  Most of the time I feel like I can't spend $1 on myself because I have so many other things to pay for, but once I get filled to the brim with self pity I'll go spend $200 on myself (thus going over my budget)... because I deserve it!!!  I think the heart of the problem is that I never had any real understanding of money and have never been able to exercise the self control to live within a budget.  Well..... If I can take control of my finances, I should be able to actually pay all my bills AND have something leftover for myself.  It's time to embrace financial responsibilty!!  I'm hoping that pre-planning my meals with with help with my budgetting.  I CAN DO THIS!!!!

4) Follow the South Beach Diet -  In the previous 6 week challenge, I lost 4 pounds.  Now it's time to step it up a notch. My Sister-In-Law recently sent me a book called "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About it" which was really an eye opener.  I always felt that it's not just an issue of calories in/calories out, but rather that our bodies process different foods in different ways. This book had a LOT of different ideas about nutrition than anything I had really heard before. After reading (most) of the book, I've decided to adopt a low-carb diet. My goal is not only to lose weight, but also to model good eating habits for my children.  I wanted to have a real lifestyle change which was sustainable with my crazy life. Since South Beach allows whole grains and fruits in addition to lots of veggies and meats (which are also good for growing children) I thought it was the best fit for my goals.  The way South Beach works is that I have an "Intro" period of 2 weeks during which time I basically cut out ALL carbs including fruits and certain veggies.  After the 2 week period, I re-introduce fruits and whole grains.  I'm excited to plan out my meals for the next two weeks in accordance with the new diet.  I've been 'practicing' the diet for the last few days and have already lost 2 pounds.  Tomorrow will be my first official day on the diet and I feel ready.

5) Exercise daily - As I left the last challenge, I had finally started exercising on a regular basis, so I figured it's time to create an actual exercise regimen.  I've decided on 3 days of cardio, 3 days of strength training.  Monday, Wednesday & Friday I'll strength train, Tuesday, Thursday & Sunday I'll run 2-4 miles.  Unfortunately, most of the races this season are already over, but I have the Warrior Dash in 3.5 weeks which I'll be training for.  I took my stregth training regimen from http://www.strength-training-woman.com/strength-training-exercises.html.  I took 2-4 exercises shown for Biceps, Chest, Hams & Glutes, Hip & Thigh, Quads, and Triceps.  The whole work-out takes me about 1/2 hour. If anyone is interested in specifically what I'm doing,  I will be happy to e-mail it to you.

6) Continue my diastasis rehab - I'm thrilled with the progress I made in my original challenge, but I still have a ways to go.  Like I had previously stated, I'm not at the place where most other women start..... which means I can probably close my diastasis recti in another 6 weeks. I already lost nearly 5 inches off my waist and I'm ready to finish off a few more inches.  For the first time in a long time I tried on a dress with a waist and it looked nice!  The hard part will be continuing to wear the splint, but I'm excited to try to finish this off and really get my waist back :)

So, the way this is going to work is, today is my pre-start post.  Tomorrow will be my day one and I will list out my upcoming meals, what Ari is eating, money for the week, exercise chart & diastasis chart.  Then I'll update every Thursday.  Wish me luck!!!!