Back on Track (maybe)

I’m baaack! We have safely arrived home from Disney World – the most stressful, I mean happiest place on Earth. We had a great time, but this was not the typical relax by the beach type of vacation. This was balls to the wall go-go-go the entire time. 

Let me first say that one does not go to Disney unprepared. That, my friends is a death sentence. And I don’t mean book hotel, flight, transportation and show up kind of prepared. No no no. I mean research every square inch of rides and attractions at all four parks for up to a year before arrival kind of prepared. You need to know what rides your kid meets the height requirements for, what rides they may be afraid of, what characters will be at what place at what time and what you are going to wear for the weather. You also need to know what places you could possibly patronize for meals, which parks are most crowded on which days, what time the shuttle to the parks will run and which reservations you need to make while your child is still in utero for the trip you plan to make when he or she is five. This is no joke people. 

All that being said, we arrived in one piece with minimal disruption to our fellow passengers on the plane. We made it to our hotel and were even allowed early check-in. Only when the hotel clerk mentioned purchasing tickets to the parks did I almost pass out. All this planning and preparation and I had left our park tickets on the counter at home. Seriously. $800+ worth of tickets hundreds of miles away. Thankfully my mom was able to photograph them and email them to me and Hussania at Disney Guest Services was able to cancel and reissue the tickets. Not until after multiple nervous breakdowns on my part, but the day was saved nonetheless. If I am ever to bear another daughter, I hereby swear that she will be named Hussania.  (Thank goodness I’m neutered).

Having ignored the projected crowd volume on Monday, we visited Magic Kingdom (along with every other human being on the planet). Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios, home of the Tower of Terror. Camille is still upset that we did not let her ride it. Wednesday was Epcot – or as Camille says “Effcot”. And Thursday was Animal Kingdom. To all non-English-speaking patrons of Disney World: it will heretofore be required that you learn and understand one English phrase before being allowed admission. That phrase is “Excuse me” which translates to “Get the Effcot out of the way of my double stroller before I run over your sock and sandal covered foot”. 

On to diet news: I had brownies for breakfast this morning. I also had a beer-battered-deep-fried hamburger while on vacation (All hail Dublin!). I had been religiously in the gym until the week prior – I missed the second half of the week due to illness and despite walking literally hundreds of miles through Disney parks, I did not formally work out on the trip. Sadly, it seemed I was getting something that resembled muscles in the weeks I had been training but with only a week and a half of no exercise I have gone soft again.

This makes me wonder how anyone can stay in shape if all it takes is 10 days off to throw you right back into fat-ville. Am I in for a life sentence of constant dieting and exercise? It seems so. Sorry, Dublin. I constantly struggle between a desperate need to be thin again and thinking that it could be worse and I’m not thaaat fat so I should just eat wheat I want and be happy. I see pics of me from Disney and I say I HAVE to lose weight (then I delete the pics where I wasn’t smart enough to hide my body behind my kids and just have my face showing). Then I see pics of other people and I think to myself at least I’m not that big and the size I am is really not that bad since I pretty much eat nothing but garbage and I still don’t have to shop at the fat girl store. 

I swore I’d be back on the wagon come Monday (today). Unfortunately there are Ghirardelli brownies in my house and with starving children in Africa I cannot let them go to waste. My social consciousness has once again foiled my healthful attempts. At this rate they will be gone before the end of the day so that’s good news, right? 

I am going to go to the gym this afternoon and get back into the routine. If I’m lucky and consistent in two weeks I’ll have some semblance of muscle again. I’ll give myself this much credit – since I joined the gym in July, this has been the best attendance record I have ever had (which isn’t saying much, but still). 

I thought I’d start sending the twins to the nursery again now that the trip is over but that place is a zoo in the mornings. All the skinnys are there with their skinny mom-friends. At least in the evenings it’s the people who work and are there to work out and go home rather than have a grown-up playdate near some exercise equipment. I think the new years resolution rush is still happening (hurry up and just give up already! You know it’s coming!) so hopefully come March the crowd will thin. 

Well, I’m off to feed the kids lunch and spend some time on Pinterest pinning craft ideas I know I’ll never actually execute.

Gym Snark

Hello All. The weight loss is sort of at a standstill. I can say this much – carb-free is nearly impossible. Even for only 17 days. Not totally impossible, but close. I’ve pretty much fallen off the wagon yet again (shocker, right?). 

Our trip to Disney is in about a week and I know trying to diet while on vacation is just stupid. I know, I know, just another excuse to put off the inevitable. But really, who diets while they are on vacation? Seriously? The plan is to go 17DD hard core when we return. Tier 2 of the plan is to try and not gain back the 9 lbs I’ve lost between now and then. 

It seems for me to be a constant struggle between wanting to be thin again and wanting to enjoy life. Yeah, yeah, yeah…”you can enjoy so many things about life without eating things that are bad for you”. Shut up. Seriously. Shut the hell up. If I am going to the movies and want to have popcorn or nachos and I enjoy that about the movies then so be it. It’s not fair for people to say what sort of things you should be allowed to enjoy in life anymore than it is for a heavier person to try and get a health nut to eat those things. But alas, enjoying those things has consequences. I know that much. So for now, I am trying to watch what I eat to an extent (no specific diet plan – the vacation, remember?) and enjoy those things in moderation. By moderation, I don’t mean only eating half my nachos – I paid practically a semester’s worth of college tuition for them so I am going to eat every last crumb. By moderation I just mean that I won’t eat them (or things like them) every day. 

I know it’s not where I should be in all this, but it’s a step in the right direction at least. I also know that eating this way will make me lose approximately 5 pounds a year if I’m lucky. I know that I am going to have to hard core diet to lose the now 41 pounds (yay! It’s no longer 50!) I need to lose. My hope is that once I lose the weight I will be able to just be conscious of what I eat and maintain it. Is that too much to ask, Mother Nature? 

In the meantime I have been working out like a maniac! I’m still doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women regiment with cardio added in a few times a week. I’m very sore pretty much all the time, but I’m going to take that as a sign that something is happening. My husband swears that he sees a difference in my thighs – not so much the size of them but that they are less flabby (my words, not his….he knows better). I don’t see it yet, but then again I’m trying not to get too hung up on “results” with this like I do with eating and the scale. I know I feel good when I work out and I don’t mind it as much as I used to. 

It’s amazing how on a rainy afternoon you just don’t feel like driving all the way to Baton Rouge to go to the gym but then your kids start to get fussy and you are out that door in a flash. I am hoping to start bringing the twins back to the gym nursery again after our trip. That means working out in the mornings, which I prefer. Hopefully all the skinnys at the gym will stay home with their sick kids so mine don’t catch illness there. 

I shouldn’t hate on the skinnys – I hope to be one someday. It’s just hard watching them at the gym all chatty while they are running the track. Let me tell you: there is NO speed above “leisurely walk” where I can chat with a buddy while jogging. I don’t have breath to spare to talk. I barely have enough breath not to fall out on the floor. Same with the elliptical machine or anything else for that matter. My attitude is that when doing cardio, if you can still hold a conversation then you aren’t doing it right. (Visually I see them and figure they must be doing something right if they look like that and I look like this, but I guess the ability to work out at a leisurely pace is a privilege earned by the thin.) Meanwhile I just give them the stink-eye as the sweat literally pours off my fat ass. It’s the price to pay, I suppose. Maybe one day I can turn in my baggy t-shirt for a cutesy little matching set of lycra gym clothes and hang out with my buddies at the gym and talk about how fabulous we all are that we are all here and health-conscious. 

“Oh, you know me, Barbie! I never miss a day at the gym! I mean, little Timmy has a highly contagious, deadly strain of Ebola virus, but I brought him to the nursery anyway! I’m only hurting him if I don’t stay at my healthiest!!”

“Oh, of course, Muffy! We must keep our bodies in perfect condition so our much older husbands continue to financially support us and we can be the trophy wives we promised to be! Did you know I am 45? Thanks to the surgeon I don’t look a day over 23!”

“Oh, Barbie, don’t you just love my new Nike exercise clothes? They are all hot pink and size XXS! I even got the matching sports bra so if I get too hot I can just work out in that!”

So yeah, I’m a little mean-spirited when it comes to this. In all honesty I have about a hundred of these imagined conversations I play in my head. It’s hard to be one of the bigger girls at the gym. It’s hard not to feel like everyone’s looking at you funny. Who am I to judge? But it’s easier to think mean thoughts in my head about others when I’m already thinking mean thoughts in my head about myself. The things I imagine them thinking about me are really just the projections of what I think of myself. Those skinnys could be just like me but only on the other side of the struggle. Or I could be right and they could be Muffys and Barbies. Sometimes, though, there are the nose-in-the-air types who are rolling their eyes because you are on the machine they want. For those, I have one thing to say: I may be fat, but you’re old. I can get skinny. Do the math. 

Oh well….what’s a good workout without a little snark.