My body hurts... and a giraffe.

my body has been hurting. a lot. right now i can totally blame it on Jillian Michaels. but the thing is, my body has been hurting since i delivered landon. by the end of the day, i would have aches and pains throughout my body. my legs hurt. my back hurt. and my knees really hurt. i remember telling my mom this about a month ago... and her explanation for my body aches was..."you are heavier than you have ever been before." meaning that my body was not use to carrying all this extra body weight and by the end of the day, it was tired and sore.

totally made sense to me... but i didn't want to hear it. i just had a baby, who had a lot of needs. and the last thing i wanted to hear was my body was heavy. however, it stayed in my mind every night when my whole body was sore from running up and down stairs, picking up landon (in the RIDICULOUS heavy carrier) and playing on the floor all day.

speaking of playing on the floor with landon... i kept hearing all about this teether called Sophie la Girafe. i guess it is a teether made in france. when i first heard about it, there was NO way i was getting it... it was $25.00!! who in their right mind would spend that kind of money on a silly teether... me. i did it. but only after watching this adorable video on it!!

so far, so good. he seemed to enjoy it. although i am literally putting it in his hand every waking hour of  the day. for twenty-five bucks, he better enjoy it. :)

butt kicks... kicked my butt.

i have taken a few steps to get ready for this healthy transition in my life. tim and i went through our fridge and trashed anything we thought might throw me off track... good bye vanilla icing. we went through our pantry... good bye potato chips. and finally did a clear out of the kitchen... good bye brownies sitting on our counter since friday. 

we did a big grocery shop on monday... and stuck to healthy snacks and meals. welcome to our home carrots, bananas, wheat pasta, ground turkey, broccoli, tomatoes, and cheerios. 

day one of purging junk food out of our home and eating healthy was successful. i am going to stick with how i lost weight in the past... counting calories using my LOSE IT app on my iphone and doing Jillian Michaels 30 day shred.

this morning i couldn't move. my abs hurt. my butt hurt. even my armpits hurt. i was miserable doing day 1 yesterday and cursed at myself (and jillian) for the pain i felt during the 25 minute workout. i have learned that doing butt kicks at 160 is way easier than 190. i have to hold my belly as i move up and down. yes, you read right... when i run, my stomach moves in ways i have never seen or felt before. it feels weird. uncomfortable even. so when i have to move up and down, one hand always tries to hold the stomach in place. it truly is a scene to see me in action. however, it totally motivates me to focus and finish each session. 

i will do weekly weigh-ins every monday...just like in the past! mondays work well for me because it helps me "be good" over the weekend knowing i step on the scale on monday morning. 

you can follow those weekly updates by clicking on "my journey" page at the top of my website. 

today is the day..

today is the day...

today is the day i start counting calories- 1,400 a day.
today is the day i start exercising- just finished day 1 of the 30 day shred.
today is the day i have decided to share how much weight i gained during my pregnancy- alot.

i have been embarrassed to share how much i gained because like i said in an earlier post... it is WAY more than the average pregnant woman is supposed to gain... (25-35 pounds) i have only shared my weight gain with one other person and her blog... it felt good to get it out there and know it was in a "safe" place. but now it is time to bring it out. my mom will be shocked. she swears i gained maybe 30. she thought i looked good throughout most of pregnancy... but she is my mom. and she is supposed to say that.

here it is. on the day i delivered landon... i tipped the scales at 215. you read it right. 215 pounds. i weighed ten more pounds than tim at that point. see what mint chocolate chip ice cream every night before bed does to a pregnant body?

that means i gained between 55-60 pounds during my pregnancy. throughout my whole pregnancy my mom would constantly say "i only gained 12 pounds during my first pregnancy." it always got on my nerves because i remember when i gained twelve pounds in one month during my pregnancy. my doctor never seemed to be concerned about my weight gain. i guess i carried it well being 5 feet 7 inches tall. although she did think i was having a "BIG" baby.

i lost thirty pounds pretty quickly... dropped to 182 by the July 19th... however, with the stress of all our problems with landon.... and the idea of me having cancer... i just stopped caring. i remember thinking on july 24th... "if i have cancer, i better beef up... treatments and the disease could make me lose a ton of weight and be even sicker." yes. this was my thought process... and this thought made me gain 12 pounds back in six weeks.

so my number is 194. i weigh 194 pounds. i am petrified to hit that 200 mark again and need to start getting far away from it. i took some "before" pictures of myself but i am going to wait to post them until i am done the 30 day shred... hoping to see some kind of progress because those pictures are horrendous.

but until those pictures... here is our first family shot taken last weekend!

and he is laughing...

landon got a HUGE kick out of me clapping my hands at him... this has been the one and only time he has laughed... but i absolutely loved it. as you can hear in the video.

a relief.

i mentioned in the last blog post that i had some health concerns/issues to attend to before i wanted to start losing this baby weight... and after today... i can finally say... i am 100% healthy.

 (Landon is celebrating!! )

for those of you new to the blog, back when i was twenty weeks pregnant, doctors found i had an enlarged spleen.. (click here to read about that drama) oodles of blood was drawn and doctors concluded it was enlarged due to having mono in the past and just being pregnant. the decision was made to ultrasound my insides again six week post partum. well. i had my abdomen/pelvic ultrasound on july 24th...i passed according to my OB... but the surgeon who was attending me said i failed (my spleen was still enlarged) and needed to move to the next step. oncology and hematology.  those words frightened me to death.

i had an appointment on august 14th. my doctor was nice... but basically wanted to test me for EVERYTHING under the sun out there... from blood work, to CAT scan, even my bone marrow...he explained that the spleen is a BIG lymph node. and he was concerned about whether or not i may have a cancer related to it. talk about stress, anxiety and nerves. here i am dealing with a hearing impaired, torticollis, reflux and broken clavicle infant and he threw the word cancer at me.

off i went for blood work on the 16th of august. 13 vials of blood. and for the first time, i just about passed out. they had to tilt me back and give me a wash cloth. miserable. on the 21st of august, i had to do a complete cat scan of my insides... i had to drink this 32 ounces of this AWFUL barium. and then they stuck an IV in my arm to light up my veins.

and after months, weeks, days and hours of testing. i don't have cancer. in fact, all my blood results came back wonderful. even my iron came back great! (which was low on August 14th) !! and the CAT scan results show my spleen size being a perfectly normal size! i cried the minute the doctor told me and the nice man gave me a big hug.

so now i am ready to hit the ground running. september 4th. healthy eats and exercise. but until then... tim and i are going to celebrate with a martini... i mean... i feel like i am starting fresh... like a new year... why not make it a birthday cake martini!

new school year resolutions

in the past, i would blog almost every day. it was a way to reflect on my day and my eating patterns. i always had a story to share about something that went on in my life. once, i found out i was pregnant last september, i just stopped. i stopped mostly because i was obsessed with being newly pregnant and that was ALL that was on my brain and I wasn't ready to share it with the world yet.

last night, tim and i looked through my blog... we love looking at the most recent posts with Landon and how much he has grown in just two and a half months!!

i hope to start getting on a normal eating/exercising schedule on Tuesday, September 4th. the reason i am waiting until then is for a couple of reasons... first reason. labor day picnics will be all over. second reason. summer picnics in general will be over. third reason. i haven't shared much yet, but will do soon, but i have been going through some health issues and hoping everything will be okay by then.

so even though i am taking a year off from teaching, i am still going to make a couple new school year resolutions.

1. start taking care of this post pregnancy body.
2. try to blog every day.

i want to blog more so i have a little history of my little guy growing up. it goes SO fast and i want to try to capture as much as i can.

speaking of capture... we now have a roller. i thought it was a fluke but he totally did it four times in one day. and then did it the next day too!!

what not to wear.

i have hit a wall on the weight loss. one of the big reasons is because i just love to eat right now. i love food. a lot. i have fluctuated up and down within five pounds for about six weeks. and i am realizing i need to make a decision.

i should either start busting my butt to fit back in my old size 8 clothes...or accept where i am right now and start buying a new wardrobe. i mean, don't get me wrong, i love maternity clothes but i know there will be a time that i will need to put them to rest.

for now, i will accept where i am...i need to head to the store and buy some new outfits that fit this new body. i am hoping not to be this weight forever but i need to start treating this new body different. i need to try to make it look as good i can get it. i know it will take me a while to lose this weight... that's just my body and my metabolism... so i might as well embrace it until i do.

LANDON UPDATE:

No news on his hearing... we are still not sure how much he can hear... but we are hoping he hears more than we think he does. his next appointment with the Ears, Nose and Throat doctor is on October 11th...

We head to CHOP for a followup on his broken clavicle on Monday... and while we are there, the Physical Therapist referred us to get a little helmet for our little guy's head. i am sure we will have to go through some testing to see if he qualifies but we might as well keep on top of it all.

He is now able to turn his head to the left around 60-70 degrees.  i asked the PT last week how long we will be dealing with this torticollis... she said he has a very severe case of it, and she is thinking by the time he is five months.

his reflux is doing much better too! he has been such a happy baby since we started the medicine!

oh and our little chunker weighs in at 13.9 pounds (81st percentile) and 24.5 inches (89th percentile)... he is getting so big... and really LONG! 

he is loving his gym, books and starring at the television... he also enjoys tummy time!! 

nine hour stretch.

before i update the information from the doctors visit today... i wanted to share a big milestone... Landon slept 9 HOURS straight last night. he went down for his usual bedtime of 8... and i of course woke up at 2 ready to feed him... but he slept. i woke up at 3 ready to feed him... but he slept. i woke up at 4 ready to feed him... but he slept. i finally heard him cry for a feeding around 5 and was so shocked that i woke tim up to share the news!

luckily we were all rested for the doctors appointment. the doctor looked in his little ears...which landon HATED! he face turned as red as an apple. he was so angry! turns out, our little guy has a good amount of fluid in his ears. this fluid is hindering his hearing but the doctor told us that it is not to the point that we are seeing in the audiology test results... so we are not getting our hopes up too much. 

so what do we do now? we wait. and we wait. and we wait.  we wait two months to see if the fluid goes away. if it does, we reassess his hearing. if it doesn't... our little guy will be getting tubes and then we reassess his hearing.

it's a waiting game. in my mind, i want to get the little guy hearing aids and get those ears listening. but i am learning it is a process... and it looks like it may be a long one. i keep praying that God will open up those ears... that once the fluid dries up, he will be able to hear. 

and i will leave this post with a picture of landon. he is really getting interested in his toys... i LOVE seeing him grow and change every day!