A new plan and a change of pace

I have missed you guys! These past few weeks have been filled with so many ups and downs my head is still spinning. I dealt with a lot of shitty stuff for the past couple weeks but I have also enjoyed some great news and happy times as well. I have fallen completely off the wagon when it comes to working out. I am feeling much better than I have been but I’m still far from feeling 100%. In fact, I won’t being feeling 100% for quite some time. I am ready to get back on the workout wagon though! 🙂

Since I have been dealing with so much sickness lately, I have decided to change the way I have been doing things for a while. I was previously very strict about my workouts, pushing myself to my limits, becoming obsessed with how much weight I was losing and working hard to reach my goals. While this is an awesome approach (and one I will eventually do again), I have decided to slow things down for now. I was becoming too focused on what the scale said and getting stressed out when I didn’t lose as much as I wanted to. I was also trying to do workouts (plyometrics) that were too hard for my current fitness level. This was also derailing my workouts and making me dread doing them. The combination of these issues was steering me away from a healthy lifestyle rather than towards it. That is the last thing I want.

Now for my new plan of action. I want to focus more on healthy eating and take a more relaxed approach to fitness. Fortunately, I haven’t fallen too far away from healthy eating like I did with exercising. I have been bad with snacking though. My cabinets are starting to get bare since I haven’t had the energy to go grocery shopping. I will be making a new grocery list packed full healthy foods and snacks this weekend and I will be going shopping sometime soon afterwards. I am excited for the fall because I will be making lots of soups over the fall and winter. I just love homemade soups. Yum!

I have decided to do low-impact workouts and exercising for now. I plan on taking Peanut on lots of walks as well as doing yoga, pilates and other fun easy workouts. I want to slowly build my strength up from being so sick recently and I want to increase my range of motion and flexibility. I will also stop weighing myself for now because it currently isn’t what I need to be focusing on.

That’s all for now! I plan on posting more often again! Sorry for such a long leave of absence.

Sick of being sick

I promise I haven’t forgotten about this blog! I’ve had a crazy past few weeks. I feel like a bad blogger! Lately, I haven’t had the energy to do much of anything, let alone exercising. I’ve been sick for the past few weeks.

Two and a half weeks ago, I thought I had gotten bitten four times by a spider. I had woken up on a Saturday morning with these four bright red itchy spots on my side. I changed my bed sheets and thought nothing of it at first. By Monday morning, my side hurt, itched like crazy and was getting worse. I called my doctor to make an appointment to have it checked because I was afraid of it being a poisonous spider. Well, I was wrong. It wasn’t a spider bite…. I had shingles…

Shingles sounds like my arm is going to rot off. Hubby and I jokingly called it Shambling Shingles for the first few days. For those of you (like me) who don’t know what shingles is, here is a description from WebMD…

“Shingles occurs when the virus that causes chickenpox starts up again in your body. After you get better from chickenpox, the virus “sleeps” (is dormant) in your nerve roots. In some people, it stays dormant forever. In others, the virus “wakes up” when disease, stress, or aging weakens the immune system.”

Shingles is only contagious to people who have never had chickenpox (aka Peanut) but only through direct contact to the rash. The symptoms I had including pain around the area, aching all over, headaches, a rash that turns into blisters, etc. Let’s just say I haven’t had a great few weeks. The rash still hasn’t gone away but it doesn’t hurt or itch that much anymore.

Sunday, I came down with a cold. Sore throat, runny nose, coughing, etc. etc. etc. I have been miserable but I am FINALLY starting to feel better. I’ll be making a post soon about what I have been thinking about during this time of being sick. I have been adjusting some of my fitness goals.

Starting to plan for Peanut’s first birthday

Wow! I just can’t believe how fast time is flying. My baby girl is already 9 months old, she eats like a champ, rolls all over the living room, her fifth tooth came in today and she’s able to rock back and forth on her knees and elbows. She’s getting so big so fast! Her first birthday is less than three months away!!!!

I know, I know! Some of you are probably thinking three months is still a long way away but its not in mommy-land! I was to get the invitations out within the next few weeks to give people enough notice (her birthday is really close to Halloween). I’ve been doing some research for the past couple of days on what theme I wanted to go with. At first, I was just going to go with a generic pink and purple party because it was easy and I had a few friends say she won’t remember it anyway. But what I really wanted to do was a Sesame Street party for her.

Peanut LOVES Sesame Street. Her absolute favorite character is the cookie monster. She’ll stop whatever she’s doing the moment she hears his voice (she even has a talking cookie monster plush). Cookie monster is her favorite but she loves watching all the monsters. Peanut even babbles along with me when I sing  the Elmo’s World song to her.

Her love of Sesame Street made my decision for me. Peanut will be having a Sesame Street First Birthday party! I understand she won’t remember it but she will still be there in the moment, I’ll take pictures to show her and it IS her first birthday. She deserves something special. It doesn’t even have to be too complicated. I’ve have been searching pinterest for ideas and there is so many options available for Sesame Street. I can make it as fancy or as complicated as I want it to be (aka as much as I can afford LOL). I will be doing a lot of homemade projects for her birthday party to save money. Plus I love doing crafts! I’ll make posts about the party planning as I go.

Sorry for the rambling but I’m pretty excited about it!

Source: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SesameStreet/posts