Starting Over March 4, 2012

START. Want to know the worst part about not getting to the gym for an extended period of time? It’s that eventually you’ve been gone for so long that you know when you return, it’s going to be like starting over. Every time I go to the Fort and see my Oly shoes sitting all lonely in their cubby, I’m filled with dread. I just know that the next time I lace up those beautiful shoes, I’ll once again be a beginner. I won’t have a 67kg clean & jerk, and a 53kg snatch. There’s a good chance I will be too winded to even make it through an RX’d workout. Sigh.

DETERMINED. Brady has definitely been keeping me from getting my workouts in. He naps every day from 8-10:30 and then again from 1-3. When I looked in my workout log yesterday I was super depressed to see that I only worked out ONCE in the entire month of February. ACK! That’s awful. I’m determined not to let the dread keep me from getting back to the gym. I WILL get back to working out regularly!

FAMILY. Ah, my family. My favorite people in the universe. Katelyn didn’t end up with the grades she needed to go to Punta Cana with my Mom and she was MAD. Maybe the most mad she’s ever been. Instead of a wonderful vacation to the Dominican Republic, she got pneumonia for 3 weeks and had to miss 10 days of school. Oh, and she had pink eye somewhere in there. Lovely, eh? Brady ended up with Kate’s pink eye and I ended up catching her pneumonia – not fun. 

SILVER LINING. In the good news department, we are all healthy and recovered from our illness. For the most part, we have established a steady level of peace and harmony in our household, which is a huge improvement for us. Teenagers really are the most trying creatures on earth!

It’s a bumpy ride… December 2, 2011

REWIND. Looking back through my last few blog entries, a lot has changed in my life in the last 2-ish months. Then again, thankfully, a lot has stayed the same.

HALF BIRTHDAY. Amazingly, 6 whole months have passed since Brady joined our family. He’s starting to interact with everything around him in such a more profound way. He’s spoiled rotten and loves to be held, but oh well. My shoulders are paying the price for carrying him around with me all the time, but there’s WAY worse things. Some day he’ll be a teenager and he won’t want ANYTHING to do with me. I’ll be LAME and STUPID. For now, I’ll hold him close to my heart and snuggle the pants off of him!

SWIM. Who would have thought swimming could have such a huge impact on Katelyn? She has become more focused than ever, and is starting to do much better in school. Last I looked she was up to 3 B’s and 3 C’s instead of C’s, D’s and F’s. There is the added incentive that if she gets all B’s she gets to go to Punta Cana with my Mother in February. She’s busting her tail in school and has even sat down and had dinner with us every night for the last 3 weeks. It’s a huge relief to see her acting like her old loving self again. Don’t get me wrong…she still has selfish teenager moments, but it’s become much better.

WOD. I’m still having problems getting to the gym as often as I’d like. My goal is to get Brady on a rigid nap schedule of 11:00 and 3:00 to help make our days a little more predictable. I think he’s getting some new teeth though, because my baby who used to sleep through the night is now waking up THREE TIMES. UGH. Me = tired. Most of my workouts have been RX’d including the one yesterday with an 800m run. It was slow, but I did the whole darn thing with a smile on my face!

BUMPS. The bumps in my road are still rocking my ship, but things are looking better. November was our worst revenue month at our gym since 2009 and that’s scary. We have a lot of great people who just finished ramp-up and next week is our Friends and Family Funtastic Free Week so it should be mega busy. I’m just hoping to get some new faces in the Fort and fill the December ramp-up. It wouldn’t hurt to get back a few old faces either.

Bald and crazy October 16, 2011

HAIR. Holy crap. I think I’m going bald. I know that pregnancy awarded me lush and thick hair, but does it all have to fall out at once?! YUCK. Apparently my magic pregnancy hormones wore off and now I’m shedding all my pregnancy hair. It’s coming out in clumps in the shower. I am no longer in love with my long hair either. I think I’m going to chop it off. At least then the drain creature will be smaller each day when I fish it out.

PUKE. Brady’s pediatrician thinks I’m nuts, but I think he has a sever gluten sensitivity. Keep in mind that he’s only consuming breast milk at this point, so his sensitivity is SO SENSITIVE that it’s getting passed to him through me. I’m his gluten filter, and I’m failing. Any time I have anything with gluten whether it’s a beer, half a loaf of zucchini bread(this really happened), or one bite of a chocolate chip cookie, my baby becomes exorcist baby. He spits up for about an hour after he eats, and it seems like damn near everything I put into him comes back out. Sigh. I guess I can’t sneak a cookie here and there….Brady’s going to give me away!

WOD. I only got to workout two or three times last week. Isn’t that pathetic? I can’t even remember how many times I worked out. Brady’s schedule was off last week, and he kept waking up at 6:00AM to eat, and then would sleep until 9AM. Um….Mommy needs to be AT the gym by 9AM if I’m going to workout! I managed to get his naps back to normal today, so hopefully we’ll have our normal schedule back again next week. I have been coaching a little more in the evenings and I’m finding that I have to sit because of back pain. I guess poor Heather is going to have to massage my soas again! Maybe I need one of those walkers on wheels with the seat. Yep, hand brakes, basket and all!

Where to start October 10, 2011

START. There’s never a real good place to start when you’ve neglected your blog for so long. There’s so much to say, but where do you begin? I suck at remembering things chronologically, so I’ll just start with the things that matter most – my family.

TEENAGER. I am totally immersed in what I like to refer to as “the teenager situation”. My once loving child has turned into…something else. She’s volatile, angry, withdrawn and confused. She is trying so hard to be “tough”. She brags about how she’s going to beat people up, her once straight A’s have dipped to C’s and best of all, she’s smoking. The strain this puts on me emotionally is too enormous to describe. My parenting strategy is centered around raising well rounded children who are set up for success in the real world. No matter how much she yells and screams that she hates me, I just reply with “well that’s just fine. No matter what you do, or how hard you try to hurt me, I’ll ALWAYS love you. Always.” She joined the swim team and that has given her something fun to look forward to. Hopefully she’ll exercise the crabbiness right out of herself! And if not….well….let’s try not to think about that.

INFANT. Brady is 4 months old and such a joy. I love him more and more each day. It’s a constant battle to raise your child how YOU want to instead of how everyone else thinks you should. His pediatrician pretty much hung a plaque in her office declaring me the world’s worst mother. Apparently I’m going to kill him by not getting him vaccinated, letting him sleep on his tummy, and not feeding him rice cereal. “But Mrs. Yundt, it’s IRON FORTIFIED!” Sigh.

THE GYM. The gym is…well…struggling. We have had a recent surge in people leaving. And by recent surge, I mean about 20% of our members. It’s so hard to watch people leave and it makes it worse when you don’t feel like they’re being honest. I just want to know why they’re leaving. Give me some feedback. Tell me what I can do to improve. The Fort is one of my favorite places in the world, and it’s awful to think that it might not succeed. We are hoping to expand to a bigger facility, but that might have to be put on hold until our membership numbers come back up a little. Then again, it’s the chicken and the egg.

WOD. I’m finally starting to feel like my old self again. My endurance is coming back, my strength number are good, and I still hate running. I PR’d my hang snatch the other day at 54 kgs. It felt pretty good! Maybe a 60kg snatch IS somewhere in my future!

FRIENDS. Through all the craziness in my life, I am thankful to have some very good people around me. Without their love, support, advice, and ears I would probably have gone insane by now.

 

Skinny Hippo Round 2 September 10, 2011

After having AMAZING results with the first round of Skinny Hippo, I ate like a complete asshole for a few days. Not surprisingly, I gained a bunch of the weight back. Boo!

I have a wedding to attend this evening, and I have this amazing brown dress that NEEDS to fit. Mostly because it’s the only fancy dress I own, but also because it’s AMAZE-BALLS. I decided to do another 2 weeks of the Hippo just to see if I could get some of the jiggle out of my wiggle, and this time around has been MUCH better!

Day 1: 152lbs
HOW did I manage to gain all that weight back! ANGRY! Oh wait….it’s because I ate pizza, crackers, cupcakes and drank a whole bottle of wine. Shakes all day, and feeling great. The Natural Calm supplement seems to be helping with the dehydration this time around.

Day 2: 147lbs
SWEET. Glad the weight’s coming off easy again. Did 3 chocolate shakes today, and even cheated and  had a square of dark chocolate. Natural Calm at night, and feeling good.

Day 3: 145lbs
I don’t have any NUUN tablets at home, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue. I think the first time around with the Skinny Hippo, I was just missing the Magnesium component. I’m not dizzy or overly tired this time!

Day 4: 143.6lbs
Besides the fact that I had to run a mile, I’m feeling good! 3 Chocolate shakes today, and I’m extremely pleased with how fast the weight is coming off. I feel “tight”….you know….less jiggly around the middle. I might even get my baby tee’s back out of the drawer! Natural Calm before bed. Feeling good.

Day 5: 142.2lbs
Today is the wedding! I’m 99% sure that the dress is going to fit. I might not be able to sit down, but dang it, I’m GETTING that thing zipped! I’m doing a vanilla shake for breakfast, but then I’ll probably skip my other 2 shakes so that I can nibble on some food at the wedding. Overall, these 5 days have been SIGNIFICANTLY easier than my first week. I honestly think the digestive enzymes and the Natural Calm are making all the difference. I feel full, and there’s no dizziness this time around!

We have officially started taking orders for Skinny Hippo, and I’m SO EXCITED! I can’t wait to see the results that my friends have with the shakes….I know how good it made me feel to lose the weight, and I want that same success for them!

The inevitable backache August 30, 2011

How is it that I went my entire pregnancy without the nagging back pain that had plagued me for 8 months, and now that Brady’s 3 months old the pain comes back? That goes against everything I know about pregnant ladies. Every representation of a woman with child has some lady with her hand on her back. Know why? PREGNANT LADIES GET BACK ACHES. But not me. Pregnancy cured my back ache. WTF.

The skinny hippo experiment has been going pretty well. We are working on reintroducing solid foods, and my weight has been staying pretty consistent. On day 12 of the experiment we had a dinner party, so I broke down and ate the delicious beef tenderloin, spaghetti squash, a few potatoes and even the world’s smallest slice of birthday cake. Much to my dismay, about 4 minutes later I started feeling sick. Not just a little sick either….MEGA sick. I had to excuse myself, because I basically un-ate everything I had put down. Whoops! It wasn’t that I ate too much, I think I just ate too fast. What can I say, I was HUNGRY!

Brady is such a smiley, happy baby. He sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, and wakes up just full of giggles. My OTHER baby turned 13 years old today. It’s really amazing how quickly time has gone by. Sigh. Every time I hold Brady I whisper quietly to him “don’t grow up too fast, buddy.”

Skinny Hippo Days 7-11 August 19, 2011

Day 7: 140.2
I’m pretty sure the extra calories Bill threw into my shakes are making me a little nauseous. I finished my breakfast shake, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Ugh. The good news is that I feel extra full….but the bad news is that I feel a little yucky. My milk production seems to be back to normal. Pumped 5oz this morning.

My metcon ability is still in the shit-er, and so is my strength. We did 3 sets of 5 on deadlifts today, and I had to tap out on my 2nd set. The weight just felt impossibly heavy. Then again, my lower back is acting up again. The workout was 5 rounds of sprint 100meters, and then max pull-ups. My back locked up on the first sprint and I had to switch to rowing. My pull-ups feel cool though. Got 10-8-8-8-8, which is the most consecutive pull-ups I’ve done in a while. Yay!

Day 8: 140.4
I’m pretty sure a 7:00 AMRAP workout almost killed me. 7 box jumps, 7 burpees, 7 balls slams. I felt very winded, but was able to keep moving. The dizziness seems to be completely gone as well, and I’m thankful for that. My energy level is still very low, and I am exhausted. Bill says this should pass soon. I guess it’s my body protesting this new source of fuel? Sigh. Hopefully I get my energy back soon!  I also feel VERY thirsty. My mouth is perpetually dry, so I carry around a water bottle with me. Maybe some gum would help?

Day 9: 140.8
Ok Bill….you can have your stupid extra calories back. Apparently it is maxing out my fat tolerance. It’s discouraging to have been consuming nothing but shakes for 9 days, and to see weight creeping back on. NOT what we were looking for! Plus, I had to lay on the couch because I felt so nauseous. Today is my rest day, and I definitely need it. I have a weird feeling all day like I have to poop, but then….NOTHING. It’s not very comfortable. Maybe a little jog could help move things along?

Day 10: 140.6
THAT’S RIGHT SCALE! TAKE THAT! We removed the extra calories, and now the nausea is gone. Thank sweet baby Jesus for that. In hindsight, I don’t think that the dip in my pumping was an actual dip in milk production. Brady usually eats 15-20 minutes while I pump, and that low day he only ate for 10 minutes.

The bad news is that Bill switched to a different powder, and it’s DISGUSTING! Seriously. It is so sickly sweet that I almost couldn’t get my breakfast shake down. I added a bunch of coffee and ice and re-blended it hoping it would cut the sweetness….no help. Instead it was a watery, sickly sweet shake. Blech! I want my old powder back! Bill wanted me to drink the other two shakes (I make the whole day at once), but when he wasn’t looking I poured them down the drain. Shhh! Don’t tell! The way I see it, I’m his guinea pig, and this is the only shit I get to eat for 2 weeks….it HAS to taste good!

Day 11: 139.8
Bring out the boom sauce, because THIS GIRL is back in the 130′s! I tried standing on the scale and taking a picture with my phone, but that doesn’t work because my PHONE adds to the weight, putting me back into the 140′s. So, alas we have a picture of an empty scale, but I promise that’s my weight. I told Bill he either needs to get me different powder on his way home, or I’m making bacon and eggs! Oh, and as a side note, I burned myself tanning yesterday. Apparently the lay down bed is WAY stronger than the standup.

I’m tired. I just want to nap all the time, and my stupid back hurts. I’m also kind of sick of drinking shakes. Sam and Kinsy want to have us over for dinner on Saturday night, and I think I might actually eat real food. I’ll skip the booze, just give me copious amounts of ribeye. I’ll probably eat beef until I pass out. Is there such a thing as “meat drunk”? We might be about to find out.

I couldn’t workout this morning because of my back. Sigh. I battled this last year for about 6 months, and I’m hoping to catch it early this time around. Boo.

The Brown Dress Fits. Enough Said. August 14, 2011

The Skinny Hippo Experiment is still going strong. I’m 6 days in, and here is a summary of the last few days:

Day 4: 141lbs
Boom, 141. I’m feeling excited about my weight loss, but overall I’m feeling VERY tired. The workout this morning was a 10 minute AMrAP of double unders. On any given day I would have CRUSHED this workout. I’m like…the Mick Jagger of double unders. I was able to string together sets of 25, but I had to keep sitting down because I was VERY dizzy. I’m thinking there is still a lagging dehydration from the last few days. I plan on getting a few more nuun tablets in me to see if that helps. To make it just a little more scary, I almost blacked out doing yard work. I stood up a little too fast, and everything started to get black. I just grabbed onto the mailbox post real quick, and the feeling passed in a second or two. FUN. Bill’s experiments RULE.

Day 5: 140.8lbs
Well, we knew that was coming. The weight loss has slowed down, and that’s ok. I would be a liar if I said I expected anything less. While I’m on the path of righteousness, Bill is eating like he’s chained to the counter at 7-11. I found an empty box of honeycomb in the garbage. I’m 99% sure he ate the whole box in one sitting. Today is the first day I really feel hungry. Well, it isn’t so much hungry as it is just missing getting to chew my food. Bill had me start taking a digestive enzyme with each of my shakes, because the protein powder was coming out undigested. Without being too graphic, I’ll just say that my stools have been very runny, and you could literally see the protein powder in the toilet. Eww. Sometimes I wish I had a brown toilet so I didn’t have to accidentally see things like that.

Another noteworthy event that happened today was that Be-rad and RTL came over to our house to throw some ribeyes on the big green egg. I was feeling so hungry that I went upstairs to my room and read a shitty book and pouted.

Day 6: 140.6
My weight is still creeping along slowly, which is good. This morning when I pumped, I only managed to pump 3.5oz, and I usually get 5oz. Concerned with my caloric intake, Bill has increased the calories in my shakes. They are now roughly 811.4 calories in each shake! I can definitely tell a difference in how I feel after drinking them – I’m very full now. Despite the fact that I’m full, I’m starting to crave real food. I joked around with Bill and asked him if we were ordering a stuffed pizza for dinner. Fast forward 2 hours and he walks into the house with a stuffed pizza. Mother F-er! It smelled delicious, but alas, I resisted. The weekend was definitely the hardest days of the experiment so far. I wanted wine and Ribeye!

The super duper exciting news is that my favorite little brown dress finally fits again! I tried to wear it back in July, but couldn’t get it zipped. Not even close. Not even with Bill’s help. Today I zipped it up on my own with no problems! Wahoo!

Skinny Hippo Experiment August 12, 2011

See? I’m not defining my life by how long ago I gave birth! It’s a big step for me….be proud.

You’re probably wondering what the heck the Skinny Hippo Experiment is, right? I’ll break it down for ya. It’s 2 weeks of liquid nutrition. The shakes are Bill’s secret formula that gives me about 757.4 calories in each shake, and I get 3 per day. The shake is specifically formulated to give me am exact ratio of fat, protein and carbs. It’s not a caloric restriction in any way, but it will be a carbohydrate restriction for me. Especially after my weekend of oreos for breakfast!

Day 1: 147.2lbs
No problem! These shakes taste great! It’s weird how they don’t fill you up right away, but after about 10 minutes it creeps up on ya. It’s a slow, building feeling. I have decided that my breakfast shake needs to be made with coffee, because that’s the breakfasty thing to do. KTUCK recommended the umbrella…it’s a superb idea.

Day 2: 144.8
I’m already down 2.5lbs! I’m not so naive that I think I lost 2.5lbs overnight of fat, it’s definitely water weight. The truth of the matter is that water weight IS excess weight, and needs to be lost. I’m still feeling relatively good. I’m kind of surprised that I don’t feel more hungry. The workout yesterday was thrusters and burpees and I felt a little gassed, but not too shabby.

Day 3: 143.2
WOW. All I can say about this morning at the Fort is WOW. I’m feeling extremely dizzy and weak. We did 3 sets of 5 today on our jerks, and I could barely finish my last set. Almost immediately I felt winded, even during the warm up. To make matters worse, the WOD was Karen. I got about 10 wall ball shots in and was so dizzy I had to stop. I scaled the WOD to B scaling, which is pretty low for me. It took an astonishing 8+ minutes to do 90 wall balls. Sheesh! I’m pretty sure I’m a little dehydrated since there is zero sodium in these shakes. Bill is having me add a lick of salt (literally….I lick it off my hand) and a cup of Natural Calm to my day. He’s also rushing off to the store to buy me some nuun electrolyte tablets so I can stay hydrated. Hopefully that helps.

 

11 weeks Postpartum August 8, 2011

How long do you think I’ll keep track of my life in terms of “weeks postpartum”? Am I one of those lame parents that will refer to my 2 year old as my “26 month old”? Sheesh. Ok, next post I’m am for SURE not going to say how many weeks postpartum I am.

Last weekend we enjoyed some more relaxation in Door County. This time, we left the crabby 13 year old at home. Ok, not totally at home. She was in Las Vegas with her Dad. Just to enlighten everyone on how she spent her time in Vegas, I have compiled a list:

Top 5 Stupid things my 13 year old did in Vegas
1. Shaved her eyebrows (they’re like….halfway gone in the middle)
2. Bought stiletto heels (because that’s practical)
3. Lost her cell phone
4. Bought a leopard print bra (REALLY?)
5. Ate 1lb of jelly beans in one sitting

Ok, I made that last one up just to make the list seem better. I mean, who has a list of the top FOUR things?! Psh. Nobody. That’s dumb. But yeah, she returned from Vegas with these tiny, 1-1/2 inch long eyebrows. She didn’t want to have a unibrow, so she just took the razor and off they came. The good news is that I’m 99% sure they’ll grow back.

Last weekend was my last weekend of solid foods for a while, so I ate like a complete asshole. Who has mint oreos with breakfast? “Mmmm, these scrambled eggs are delicious…pass the oreos please!” Yep, that was me. The damage wasn’t too bad, but I feel like there’s a honeybadger in my stomach right now trying to claw his way out.

What’s that you say? Last week of solid foods? Yep, you read that right. Bill has a new experiment in the works that I have lovingly named the Skinny Hippo. It’s 2 weeks of liquid nutrition followed by an undetermined period of gradually adding back in solid meals. Let’s hope I don’t go insane from lack of chewing.