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In my (seemingly never-ending) quest to get myself back in shape, I started the couch-to-5K this week. Only this time, I got a nifty little C25K app for my iPhone to help me along. (Thanks, Danielle!) So on Tuesday, I got up at 5 a.m., threw on some workout clothes, and headed to the gym.

Now, theoretically, since I’m just walking/running, I could do that outside, but I prefer the gym. Something about it makes me feel like I’m “officially” exercising instead of just going for a stroll around the neighborhood. Don’t ask me why my brain makes a distinction, I know it makes no sense. And I suppose that I don’t have to work out before the sun comes up, but I work during the day, and evenings always feel crazy to me (juggling cooking dinner, cleaning up, and then Catie’s bedtime routine, which seems to take longer every night because good LORD that child can stall). So, early mornings it is.

Also? I’m working out in Vibram FiveFingers. If you’re wondering why on earth anyone would want to wear such hideous things on their feet, this article from Wired gives the best explanation I’ve read of why “barefoot” running is better for you. For me, I have always had trouble with my knees, and if this can help me run without knee pain? Then hey, bring on the ugliest gorilla-feet shoes you got.

(Man, I’m just full of links today, aren’t I?)

So, yeah, I did it. And I thought I was going to die because it’s been about 6 months since the last time I worked out. But I didn’t die! Yay! I was all sweaty and red-faced and scary-looking by the time I finished, but I was also really damn proud of myself.

But here’s the catch: running without super-cushioned sneakers means that your other muscles – likes the ones in your calves, ankles, and feet – have to work harder. So after I finished out my workout, my knees didn’t hurt, which was awesome (yay for no knee pain!), but my calves? Oh lord, my calves, y’all. I’ve now done this workout twice (on Tuesday and again on Thursday), and I’m pretty sure my calves are trying to kill me. The stairs in our house have become my worst enemy. And as I’m sure Dave can attest, when I’m in pain, I whine. A LOT.

But you know what? I’m gonna do it again tomorrow. Because I’m still trying to pull myself out of that rut. (Hey look, another link!)

Oh, and I have an appointment on Monday to get some bloodwork done and find out what’s going on with the rest of me. I have a suspicion that my thyroid is way off (I’ve been on medication for low thyroid since I was 9 years old, and after 25 years, I can generally tell when something’s wrong with it), so we’ll see.

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So, to follow up on that last post, I started the South Beach diet on Monday. (With a few tips from the “Fat Flush Diet” thrown in, because I actually liked a couple of her techniques when I tried them last year.) Just your basic low-carb, low-calorie diet, and I’m trying to use The Daily Plate to help me track my calorie intake. Which is difficult, because it’s tedious and I tend to be lazy about documenting things like the handful of granola I grabbed as I walked past the pantry. (How do you even document that? How big a serving is a handful?) But I think it’s a good exercise because it’s making me a lot more thoughtful every time I shove something in my mouth (heh… that’s what she said).

And so far, it’s honestly been fine. I haven’t felt deprived at all. I’m staying well within my recommended daily calorie allowance, and I’m not starving. So it’s good. I figure that if I can stick with that ideal “lose 1 or 2 pounds a week” target, I should be down to my goal weight in about 4 to 6 months. It sounds daunting, but not nearly as daunting as it did when I was 265 pounds. Four to six months is nothing compared to that. It’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.

I’d really like to start working out too, but I can’t right now with my sinuses still all gunked up with this cold. Hopefully by the time my Vibram Five Fingers arrive in the mail, I’ll be over the majority of this cold and will be able to get started on my couch-to-5K again.

One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is how much of my mom’s body image issues I adopted as my own as I grew up. When I was little, I remember my mom always complaining about how fat she was, and she was maybe a size 8 or 10 at the time (so NOT fat in the slightest). I worry about passing those sorts of hang-ups on to my own daughter.

My plan is that if/when she asks me about my new eating habits (and I’m sure that she will, because the kid notices absolutely everything), to emphasize to her that this diet is so Mommy will be strong and healthy, and I will absolutely not say anything negative about my body in front of her (even though I might be thinking it). I just don’t want to put those types of ideas in her head. I don’t want her to internalize any of my own negativity or hang-ups.

I never want her to think that she isn’t beautiful, just as she is.

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[Warning: This is a little heavy for a Saturday. I don't normally write like this, but I need to get it out of my system. Proceed with caution.]

There’s something wrong with me. Maybe it’s hormonal, maybe it’s my thyroid, maybe something has snapped in my head. I don’t know. All I know is that something has to change soon, because I can’t stay like this much longer.

I went to the doctor on Friday for both this latest sinus infection, as well as the pulled muscle in my ribs that made it basically impossible to raise my left arm. She gave me antibiotics for the cold and muscle relaxers for my rib, so that’s fine. But what isn’t fine is the number on the scale. It knocked the wind out of me.

I’ve written before about my gastric bypass surgery, which I had nearly 8 years ago. At the time, I weighed 265 pounds. (I’m only 5’5″.) I lost a little over 100 pounds after the surgery. My lowest weight was around 155 – 160 pounds, at which point I wore a size 10 and felt pretty damn hot. Eventually my weight settled around the 165-170 point, but that was fine. I wore a size 12, and I said that as long as I could shop in the regular clothing stores and not the big-girl stores, I was happy. And I was.

Since I had Catie, something has changed. I was so sick during my pregnancy, by the time she was born, my net weight gain for the whole pregnancy was 1 pound. So within a couple of weeks, I was not only back in my pre-pregnancy jeans, I was in my size 10 skinny jeans again. Which was, well, weird. Of course, all that weight I lost during pregnancy was muscle, not fat, so I expected to gain some of it back as I regained my strength. But I think I’ve gone a little overboard.

Essentially, in the past 2 1/2 years or so, I’ve gained 30 pounds. That seems excessive, no? And I get it. I’m not as active as I was. I eat too much crap. I have this mental block about throwing food away or being “wasteful” (no doubt instilled in me by my mother). But if Catie eats three bites of her peanut butter & jelly sandwich and then announces that she’s done, what am I supposed to do? Throw it out? Hell no, I scarf that bad boy down. Same goes for her leftover mac & cheese, and her leftover chicken nuggets, and, and, and…

There’s other issues here too. Like how my weight is connected to my self-esteem, and how that’s connected to my libido (i.e., if you feel fat and ugly, you don’t really want to get naked in front of anyone, even if it’s the person who’s vowed to love you forever). These things are all intertwined, you know?

And I hate it. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be one of the “gastric bypass failure” stories. I always swore that would never be me. After all, that only happened to people who were messed up in the head. And now, look, here I am, steadily on my way to that exact fate.

But, hey, this is not my pity party. I am not the type to sit around and moan about how miserable I am, and I have very little tolerance for people who do that. The point here is to get off my (rapidly expanding) ass and do something about it. Yes, ok, in the last two years I have started more than a few diets, and I have failed at all of them. So maybe it’s time for me to try a different approach.

First, I’ve decided that I need to see a therapist. Sure, the blog is nice for unloading some stuff, but there are also some things that I can’t really talk about here because a lot of people in my family read this site, and I don’t want to alienate any of those relationships. I’m also considering going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, because I’ve looked at their checklist of symptoms of compulsive overeating, and there are a few too many that ring true to me. (Of course, I do realize that by announcing my intent to go, I’ve pretty much shot the whole “anonymous” element to hell). I also need to make appointments to talk about some of this stuff with my OB/GYN, and maybe an endocrinologist, because I do feel like there is something “off” with my body as far as my overall lack of energy.

Second, I am going to start on another diet. But here’s the problem: with a three year-old in the house, it’s basically impossible to not have some junk food around all the time. That’s fine. But it makes it nearly impossible to do an intensely low-carb/all-organic diet. So I’m going to start working just on calorie restriction alone. Obviously I will try to make healthier choices during the day, but I also don’t want to beat myself up about it if I indulge in an 80-calorie cookie, either. I’m also going to start trying not to eat at night (after, say, 8 p.m. or so). That’s going to be the hardest for me. I’m a nighttime eater. I probably get a good 30% of my day’s calories after Catie goes to bed. But I’m going to work on cutting that out.

I also have to get exercising again, because I know that I will never feel “right” until I do. I started the couch-to-5K program last summer, and I really liked it a lot. But then we went to Mississippi for my aunt’s funeral, and then we moved to the new house, and then, and then, and then… You know, excuses excuses. I fell off the exercise wagon and landed back on the junk food wagon. So I’ll try it again. I ordered a pair of these crazy shoes and I’m gonna give it another shot.

And if I screw up, well then, I’ll just try again. And again. However many times it takes until I get it right.

I will NOT be one of those sad failure stories. I refuse.

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One thing from last week that I forgot to mention: I brought Catie’s nebulizer with us to the UK because she’s supposed to take Pulmicort twice a day during the winter months for her asthma. The asthma specialist she saw at the hospital last year recommended it, and we’ve found that it helps, so this is what we do. I have a spacer and an albuterol inhaler in case she has an asthma attack while we’re out & about (or, say, on an airplane with no electrical outlets), but she hates the spacer and freaks out every time we use it, so I try to avoid it. Since we only do the Pulmicort first thing in the morning and before bedtime, it didn’t seem like a big deal that I only had it in nebulizer form. (cue foreshadowing)

The hotel we stayed in near Heathrow had one U.S.-style outlet, so the nebulizer worked fine while we were there. Once we got to my mother-in-law’s house, though, not so much. I don’t know what’s up with the nebulizer’s voltage, but it shorted out no less than THREE different power adapters. I was starting to panic because Catie had gone a few days with no Pulmicort, and December is never a good month for her asthma, so I really didn’t want to let it go for too long. I figured that the next best option would be to get a Pulmicort inhaler; I already have the spacer, so it would just bypass the need for electricity altogether. She’d hate it, but you know, desperate times, desperate measures.

So last Tuesday, before we left for Scotland, I called a pharmacist and explained what was going on. I asked her what would be the fastest way to get an inhaler for my daughter. She said that if my mother-in-law had her own doctor, getting Catie an appointment as a temporary patient would probably be a lot quicker than going to the ER. Mags called her doctor, and got us an appointment time less than 2 hours later.

We checked in, and they didn’t take my U.S. insurance card or ask for any money. We overheard someone say that there was only one doctor working that day, so there might be a long wait. I suppressed my internal groan, thinking that we were about to experience one of these nightmarishly long waits that I had heard about the UK healthcare system.

About 20 minutes later, the doctor himself came out and called us back. I thought it was odd that it wasn’t a nurse who came to retrieve us, but it was nice. We went straight into his office, even though I had to carry Catie because she was already starting to cry (my poor girl sees way too many doctors, she’s now scared to death of them). The doctor had a fish tank in his office with a couple of clownfish in them, so that immediately diffused Catie’s fear as she started getting excited about “Nemo! Mommy, it’s TWO NEMOS!!”

I explained to the doctor about Catie’s asthma, the blown-out nebulizer, and the medication I needed in inhaler form. He wrote me a prescription on the spot. The end.

The whole appointment took less than 5 minutes, and cost NOTHING.

We wanted to hit the road for Scotland after Catie’s appointment, so we ended up getting her prescription filled in Inverness. That took another 5 minutes. And here’s the kicker: in the US, Catie’s inhaler would cost us $40 *after* our health insurance coverage kicked in. In the UK? Because Catie is under 16, all prescriptions for her are FREE. The pharmacist actually looked confused when I tried to give her my credit card. It’s funny, I expect a fair amount of culture shock when visiting a new country for the first time, but that was the first thing here that honestly made my jaw drop.

I learned that prescriptions are also free for pregnant women and senior citizens. Huh. I can think of more than a few people who might find that helpful, if not life-saving.

So, based on my experience, I have to say that if that is what one should expect from this evil “socialized medicine”? Then, hell, go ahead and sign me up as a socialist. Because that was freaking awesome.

Note: I wrote this post a few days ago, thinking that’d be the end of it. Now it looks like I’ll actually have a two-parter on socialized medicine, because Dave and I have both come down with some sort of Evil Sinus Infection of Doom That Won’t Die, and we’re both going to see my father-in-law’s doctor this afternoon. I guess we’ll see if I’m still as impressed with the UK medical system after this.

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I know the topic of whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccine is kind of a hot-button issue. A lot of parents are opting to skip it. I honestly don’t understand why, but my view on this issue is skewed. Catie’s asthma is severe enough that a bad cold can land us in the ER (and it has, twice). The thought of her getting the flu scares the bejeezus out of me. I don’t even want to try to think about how awful that would be.

Honestly, I don’t know if I would still feel strongly in favor of the H1N1 vaccine if Catie didn’t have a chronic respiratory illness. But there have been 86 children that have died from H1N1 this year so far. Sure, statistically that’s a very small number, but it’s still 86 too many. I can’t imagine what those parents are going through, but I imagine that if they could reverse time and get their children a vaccine that would prevent them from getting sick, they would. I also don’t know the conditions behind those deaths, if those children had other contributing factors that compromised their immune systems. But I know my kid, I know how her little lungs are not prepared for a severe flu, and I’m taking every imaginable step to prevent that from happening.

The problem is that no one seems to have the H1N1 vaccine. Anywhere. I saw on the local news this weekend that our county’s health department received 3000 doses, and that they’d open their clinics to give the H1N1 vaccine on Monday morning at 9 a.m. So today we got up early and drove to our nearest clinic (a good 30 minutes away) to be there when they opened. (Note: there are four different clinics in our county. I thought odds were good that the clinic we went to would be less crowded since it wasn’t the one in downtown Raleigh.) Clearly, we were not the only people who had that idea. There were literally hundreds of people there. The line wrapped around the building and down the block.

The best picture I could get. Doesn’t even begin to show just how many people were there.

Catie and I waited – and the line didn’t move at all – for about 10 minutes. Then I thought, hmm, I wonder about her pediatrician’s office? I had called them on Friday and they didn’t have the H1N1 vaccine, but if the health departments got a shipment over the weekend, maybe the private practices did too? (And also: why didn’t I think to call them before we left the house?)

I grabbed my cell phone & called, and the nurse said that they have “a limited supply for high-risk patients.” I said, “I have a two year-old with asthma, does that count?” She said yes, and asked if I could come right then. I said yes, and quickly got out of the mile-long health department line.

So, back into the car for the 30-minute drive back to town (thank goodness we were in Dave’s car so Catie could watch the Wiggles on the DVD player; I heard nary a peep of objection during all of this back-and-forth driving). Since we only had to see the nurse and not the doctor, they got us in and out of there in no time. We went ahead and got both the seasonal flu shot & the H1N1 (she’ll need a second dose of the H1N1 in a month). The shots were awful, of course. I had told Catie that the nurse was going to give her medicine so she wouldn’t get sick, but you know, a needle is a needle. She screamed and cried, until they whipped out the magic lollipop reward, then she was all happy and smiles again.

She hasn’t shown any signs of side effects so far, and I hope it stays that way. Now it’s just up to Dave and me to get our shots (Dave’s afraid of needles, so I’ll probably only be able to coerce him into the nasal mist kind). Because really? I do not need a repeat of last year’s trip to the hospital. In fact, if I could stay away from pediatric ERs for the rest of my life, that’d be fine with me.

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I started a new diet today. Which, if we’re counting, makes this probably my third or fourth diet this year. But, every other time, it’s just been something that I tried to do on my own. This time, I have a plan. Duh-duh-DUHHH!!

Specifically, I’m doing the Fat Flush Plan. Which is pretty intense – low-carb, low-calorie, low-fat, low-everything-I-like. I’m modifying it a little bit, because while I get that her goal is to shock your system into losing weight, I also think this woman is juuust a teensy bit batshit insane. And I think that I can stick to the basic principles of her low-carb/low-cal/low-fat ideal without completely compromising the integrity of the diet. Because look, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to cook with flaxseed oil, because it’s flat-out disgusting. I’ll stick with my olive oil spray, thank you. Also, she instructs that you should eliminate salt from your diet, which, no. Cut back? Sure. But I want to enjoy my food, and salt plays a pretty major role in several things that I eat. (Besides, the main benefit from cutting out salt is that it makes all of her diuretics more effective, so I’ll lose more water weight, not real weight. Whatever.)

I am, however, doing a lot of the supplements and other things she recommends, like the cran-water (unsweetened cranberry juice diluted with water – mmm, bitter! Gag.), and I can drink hot water with lemon, no problem. She recommends this “Long Life Tonic” twice a day, which is her cran-water concoction mixed with a teaspoon of ground psyllium husks. Which I had to Google, because I didn’t know WTF psyllium was, and it turns out that it’s basically the raw form of Metamucil. Nice. So with this drink, you get bitterness and grit. Yum. Dave looked at it and said that if that’s the Long Life Tonic, he’ll just take the 5-year hit on his lifespan rather than drink it. I’m honestly not sure how long I’ll stick with it either, because it’s truly revolting. But I’ll try.

The author also frowns on caffeine and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which means my Diet Coke is a no-no. I’m not crazy, there’s no way I can go cold turkey off of Diet Coke, but I *am* trying to cut back to maybe 2 a day (down from my usual 5). So far it’s 1:45 pm, and I’ve only had one today. I also feel light-headed and headachy, which might be a sign that I’m working on a pretty serious addiction here. I’m trying a cup of (caffeinated) green tea to see if that helps.

As for exercise, I was doing really well on my couch-to-5K plan, and I had gotten to the point where I could jog for three whole minutes without stopping, which was a first for me. And then we had to go to Mississippi, and then the house move, and everything just sorta went to crap. So I need to get back into it. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that soon, as soon as the shock on my system with this diet wears off.

So, you know, if things seem pretty whiny and bitchy around here for the next couple of weeks, you’ll know why.

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Note: I promise this isn’t going to become sort of exercise/fitness blog, but it seems like writing about it is one way to keep myself accountable, so here goes.

Today, I was planning to do my couch-to-5K workout again. Since it’s the weekend, I left Catie with Dave rather than hauling her along with me. I thought the gym’s daycare might be fun for her, since she enjoyed it last time, but the nursery is only open in the afternoon on Sundays. So no biggie, I set off for the gym by myself while Catie & Dave snuggled on the couch and watched cartoons.

I got to the gym, and the parking lot was… empty. I walked to the door anyway, and sure enough, there was a little sign stating that the gym doesn’t open until 1 p.m. on Sundays. It was 11:30 a.m. at the time. Sigh. That’s what we get for joining the YMCA, they’re closed on Sunday mornings because they assume everyone is at church. Even more annoying is that I thought ahead enough to look up the nursery hours online that morning, but not the actual gym hours. I’m clearly a genius.

I headed home, and decided since it wasn’t too hot outside (about 80 degrees, a lot cooler than it’s been over the past several weeks), I’d try to do my workout outside instead. Plus, Catie loves to ride in her stroller when I go for walks. So I headed home, loaded her & the jogging stroller up, and we drove over to our local community park. There’s a huge lake there, and the trail around it is exactly 2 miles. That’s about the length that I do during my 30-minute workout (5 minute warm-up, 20 minute walking/jogging intervals, & 5 minute cool-down), so I figured it’d be about the same, right?

Um, NO. Jogging outside as opposed to inside on a treadmill? TOTALLY different animal. Turns out that the added heat, plus the humidity, plus the hills (oh lord, the freaking HILLS) equals a workout that’s about a thousand times harder. I’m sure that pushing the 32-pound toddler in the jogging stroller didn’t help, either. I thought for sure I was going to pass out before we could get back to the car.

I wore Dave’s heart monitor/stopwatch because mine is broken and I wanted to keep track of my jogging and walking intervals. (Not that it did much good, I was only able to jog a full 90 seconds once, the rest of the time I could only do 30- or 60-second intervals.) And I’m pretty sure the heart rate jobby is busted because at one point it said my heart rate was 278. My resting heart rate is around 90. Um, pretty sure I’d be dead in that case, but thanks, stopwatch!

The good news, though, is that because it was so much harder and I wasn’t able to run as much as I was “supposed” to, I figured that it was going to take me a lot longer to go the full two miles. But I finished the course in 32.5 minutes, so it wasn’t much longer than my treadmill workouts at all. I’m pretty proud of myself for that, I guess I was running more than I thought I was.

Of course, now it’s three hours (and one lovely lukewarm shower) later and I still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. But hey, that’s just proof of how hard I worked, right?

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