Dear Sweets,
It’s over! I can’t do it anymore. Our relationship is toxic and super unhealthy. I love you too much. I can’t stay away from you. But, the time has come to realize that we are not good for each other.
I am too attached and I know that the feeling isn’t mutual. I tried to just have a casual relationship with you, but I couldn’t do it. I am an all or nothing girl and just casually dating you, my sweetie, just wasn’t reasonable. It was not possible.
When you are around, I think about nothing but you. Your sweetness was too hard to resist.
So today, we are breaking up. We cannot see each other for awhile. I know it is unreasonable to think that I will never encounter you again. We have too many mutual friends to think we won’t cross paths. Just know that I need to cut it off cold turkey. If I see you, I will keep my eyes averted. For now, it is too painful to see you with other people. Don’t say hi. Just ignore me, as I plan to do to you.
Maybe one day we can be friends again. Maybe one day I will see you casually. But right now, I just need to be away from you. Right now our love affair is too hot to handle. I feel out of control in your presence.
I need to make sure that I find a healthier relationship with someone that makes me feel good about myself. I feel nothing but regret after we are together.
So, thanks for the memories! They were sweet, indulgent and sinful at times. But for now, I just need some time away. Love you always!
Melanie
I couldn’t possibly love the return of our warm weather more. It’s 78 degrees at 6:45ish on a Saturday evening. I am sitting in our back carport area, full from a yummy Steak taco, rice, beans and a coconut Mojito. My entire family is sunkissed after an afternoon spent splashing in our kiddie pool. My littlest kid is well napped, my older kid is well fed and my husband is relaxed and happy hanging out with our busy boys. The fridge is full of groceries. The errands are all completed for the upcoming week. And the best thing is that we still have one more day in our weekend to just relax. We both got our workouts in today. Life feels so good. I feel good. I am going to take this moment and bottle it. I’ll save that bottle to open the next time I feel overwhelmed or unhappy. Life is so good. Sometimes you just need to stop and take it all in.
I woke up early to go for a run. There was a full moon last night, so I definitely did not feel rested even though I woke up without an alarm at 5:30 am. I am just a morning person early riser crazy woman. I forced my lazy butt to get dressed in my running clothes and headed down to lake for my weekend run.
It didn’t feel particularly early until I arrived at the lake with the view of the moon still out. 5:45 am with the big beautiful round moon still shining in the sky. It looked absolutely gorgeous. i wish that my cell phone camera could have captured its beauty.
It was a chilly morning which was perfect for my quick little jaunt around the lake. I tend to keep a good pace when there is no one else around. It’s funny, I just get super vigilant and cautious when I am running solo. It probably sounds goofy and paranoid, but I just want to keep myself away from any possible harm. There are lots of crazies out there. Anyways, I kept a good clip and finished my run 1 minute faster than normal. Not necessarily breaking any records, but my 10 minute mile with no stopping feels great for me.
I am super excited for hopefully 3 consecutive days of morning runs with this lovely 3 day weekend upon us. I so rarely get the chance to run during the weekdays, so I am looking forward to getting an extra day on the road.
Hope everyone is having a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend!
Currently, I am sitting on our loveseat trying to type as quietly as humanly possible. It is pitch black in our living room and my eyes are still adjusting to the brightness of our computer screen. Little L is passed out snoring on the couch about 4 feet away from me. For the past couple of nights he has woken up in the middle of the night screaming and begging to go downstairs. This is familiar territory for me. About 6 months ago this was a nightly occurrence. And let me tell you, when it went away I almost threw a party!
Here’s how it went (and hopefully will not continue to go). L wakes up sometime between 11 and midnight. He frantically calls my name and declares that he wants to go “down’tairs”. In order to keep him older brother (with whom he shares a room) sleeping, we have to quietly insist that he lays back down and goes to sleep. Sometimes this works and when it doesn’t, our little 2 year old night owl with wail and scream and hit until something happens. The something is either he cries himself to sleep in my arms or the lack of sleep gets to me and I take him downstairs to sit.
Last night, he woke up at 1 am with the same routine. This time I just politely told him to go back to bed and went back to my bed and attempted to sleep. He sat at the landing of our staircase screaming his head off. No way am I giving this little boy his way tonight. I can’t survive with this routine. 90% of the time he insists that I be the one to “keep him company”, adamantly refusing the requests of his father. Tonight, he wanted to go downstairs badly enough that he welcomed his father eagerly.
So this brings me to this current moment. I am awake at 4:30 in the morning, workout clothes sitting right next to me. I am “ready” to do my daily workout, but I don’t want to risk waking him up. It sounds almost crazy. His sweet little butt spent almost 2 years waking me up multiple times nightly and now I don’t want to wake him up and ruining an already awful night’s sleep. Parental love at it’s best. I guess I just thank him for giving me a chance to vent and blog, Thanks L!
We saw some old friends, M & H, for a playdate with the kids. They too are on a health journey of sorts.M is a big runner. He is registered to run a half marathon in August and is actively recruiting friends to join him. The run sounds amazing. You start at AT&T park, run to the Golden Gate Bridge and turn around to end up on the outfield! Amazing! I love the Giants. I love San Francisco! I just am not sure that I would love to do a Half Marathon in 3 months. So I signed J & I up for the 10K.
I am super excited and motivated to train for this run. Heck, I woke up bright and early this morning to go for a jaunt around Lake Merritt. I did not have the best night sleep for some reason but pushed my lazy butt out the door to get it done.
The weather couldn’t be better for a 6 am run. Sunny, clear skies and a slight chill in the air made for the perfect conditions. Now, just to get the motivation to run the whole lake with no stopping.
The first thing I saw on my run was this lovely sign.
Hey I just started this run! Ha! It made me stop, laugh and turn around to take this picture. It was a funny way to start off my first run in a long while. It definitely shook off any tightness i was feeling.
I put on some good tunes.
And I just started going, moving my feet forward, listening to the beats in my ears. I try to soak in the beautiful scenery.
31 minutes and 1 5K later, I had finished my first run of my Giant Race training season! Feels good. The sweat, the red face, the slightly sore quads. It feels like a familiar place.
I had a lovely chat with one of my coworkers today. She has also been on a health kick and has lost a good amount of weight. We both have a tremendous amount in common. We are both full time working moms of two kids trying to navigate our busy lives as healthily as possible. We only see each other a couple times a month, but we both shower each other with encouragement and compliments each time.
We both are Type A personality perfectionists who are hypercritical of ourselves. We both have a hard time taking all the compliments with our weight loss. I feel like I still have so far to go. And she feels like the compliments are a commentary on how she looked previously. Either way, we both feel like we are still on our journey to optimal health. Neither of us are there yet.
K is not one to beat around the bush, she tells it like it is. So when she complimented me and I told her how I felt good, but desperately wanted to eliminate my gut. She told me bluntly “Get over it or get surgery!” I laughed, because this is just how she is. She then proceeded to explain her blunt statement. She has been having the same feelings as well about her core area and was complaining to her trainer. Her trainer had told her the same statement. Basically, we all can tone up our middles, but the excess stuff left from two pregnancies and years of being overweight was not going to go away anytime soon. So, we might as well just “own it or do something (namely surgery) tofix it, because it ain’t going nowhere”. She is totally right.
There are things that just can’t and won’t change unless I do something extreme to make them change. And I don’t feel so strongly about it to actually pay money and risk my life to have it surgically changed. I will never have long skinny legs. I have short muscular ones that help me run pretty fast and look pretty decent in heels. I kind of have large saggy boobs, but these babies fed two healthy boys and look pretty decent in a push up bra. All the worry and complaints, hours of sweat and tears will never change these things. So, I am letting myself own it.
Thank you body for carrying me around these almost 36 years and providing me a life that I really appreciate and love. I promise to keep on taking care of you, if you take care of me.
It is so funny how life is. I seemed to have caught F’s cold, so I have been feeling rather out of sorts and generally yucky. My workouts have been really challenging because my breathing is really off and I haven’t been sleeping well. I have not been feeling super great about myself.
Yesterday, when I went to pick up the boys from school, I noticed that F’s class had done Mom Questionnaires in celebration of mother’s day. It made me smile for so many reasons. That kid is such a snuggly love bug. I hope that he always stays this loving. Mostly though, it allowed me to see his perception of me as a mother. F sees me as a 25 year old aspiring firefighter whose favorite thing is her 4 1/2 year old little hero. He definitely got it right that he is my favorite thing ever (in addition to his father and brother). Not so sure about the other stuff.
This mother’s day weekend, I would like to celebrate my children, who have given me the right to celebrate this holiday. I wear my mommy badge fiercely and proudly. It empowers me and gives me street cred. It makes me a Mommy Superhero.
Each morning, I love to see their sweet peaceful faces and hear their calm breathing as they slumber away. I love carrying their heavy sleepy bodies in my arms down to snooze on the couch while they slowly wake up. No quick abrupt wake ups for my little sleepy bears. F likes to be kissed and nuzzled awake. Li takes a little bit more slow and calm movements. I indulge both of their needs, as neither one seems to have inherited my morning personality.
At the end of each school day, I love seeing their faces when they realize that I am there to pick them up from school. I swear it is my favorite part of the day. I feel like a true Superhero when they scream my name and sprint across the play yard towards my open arms. I very rarely allow J the opportunity to do the school pickup. In the rare case that I don’t do the pickup, I feel off for the day, less joyful, like I missed something important.
I love being accosted by their school friends. I treasure the high fives and the requests to be held and hugged. I love being begged to watch them do another cool stunt or execute another cool airplane maneuver with whatever paper airplane they constructed for the day. I spend a good 15 minutes listening to the kids tell me their latest secrets and describe their cool new toy acquisition. I always exit reluctantly to take my tired kids home from a long day of school, but smile thinking of how fun and sweet their school friends are.
I love our car conversations about their school day. I get to hear what they ate for lunch, who they played with, who made bad decisions that day, what they did in art, how many times they played outside. I never tire of the school stories. I adore hearing F’s sweet squeaky voice singing the new song of the week.
I love absentmindedly taking off their shoes inside when we get home, only to realize that the sand from the playground is now sprinkled in our entry way and carpet.
I love the dinnertime dessert negotiations. If I eat 3 carrots, can I get ice cream and a cookie? If I finish this chicken nugget, can I get 2 movies rather than one? Do I have to eat all 3 carrot sticks?
I love the bathtime madness. There is always so much water pooling outside of the tub no matter how many times I beg them to keep their splashing to a minimum. The bath toys are rapidly taking over so much room in the bathroom, we might need a new storage container just for the bath toys.
I love the storytime bargaining. So, will you read me 3 short books or what about 1 long book and 1 short book? Okay, so since we got 2 short books, can you tell us a story too?
I love the bed fellow convo. After L falls asleep, will you snuggle me until I fall asleep? Can I have one more drink of water with ice? This water is too warm, will you get me some more ice?
Now, it would be a lie to say that I always feel joyful. I would be fibbing if I said that I never felt frustrated or impatient. But, most of the time, I truly do love most bits of motherhood.
My kids help me to see myself in a different way each day. My kids tell me that I am strong and beautiful. My kids thank me for tucking them in at night. F appreciates that I carefully floss his teeth each night (which he announced at the Preschool Mother’s Day Program on the microphone). L shows me he loves me, by being fiercely protective and possessive of me. I love them for giving me my mommy superhero cape. I wear it with pride each day.
. I took my foot off the gas lately. Real life took over focus for a bit. For me, this health journey has been such a huge focus. It has been an all consuming process. It consumes my sleeping, my eating, my downtime and my attitude at times. I had hoped that this health journey would make me a lighter and happier person, but I am pretty sure that it has been a bit of the opposite. I feel more controlled and in some ways, that doesn’t seem healthier. So with this great epiphany, I decided to loosen up. I continued to work out, I continued to eat semi-healthy, but I let my mind take a break. I allowed my brain to stop focusing solely on health. I feel like it was a healthy break.
It helps tremendously, that the CA weather has been insanely warm. It makes for weeknight warm evenings with the kids running around the carport and cold beers in hand for the adults. The weather calls you to head to the local beach after a dinner al fresco to allow the kids to soak their school clothes in salty Bay sea water. The weather requires you to walk to the local ice cream shop for a cone or cup of sweet melting Mint Chocolate Chip because it is the only thing that will cool you down from the heat. The warm weather beckons to an afterwork happy hour to indulge in happy hour apps and one small cocktail.
The funny thing about mini break is that I didn’t really gain any weight. I realize that I can eat and drink more loosely and still stay within my same weight range. I know that this can be maintainable. This can be a lifestyle change that is maintainable.
I guess I am happy to trying out a new balance with my focus. It feels like a lot less pressure. I like feeling lighter both physically and emotionally. I like sticking my toes in the sand after a nice glass of cool white wine sangria. I also enjoy the exhausting and sweaty feeling after an early morning workout. On my way to finding a healthier balance.
It embarasses me that sometimes I can totally see myself in my 2 year old. F had a playdate with one of our neighbors and we chose not to send L along with him. Sometimes, the big kids just need big kid time without a little toddler in tow. L was completely and totally distraught to see his older bro skipping joyfully off to a couple hours of boyish debauchery with our neighbor kid with him left to stay with his boring and uncool parents.
L had the tantrum of the century. He begged to go outside and accompany his brother, but J and I refused. We offered him all sorts of alternatives, but he wasn’t having any. No he didn’t want to color. No he didn’t want to watch a movie. No he didn’t want to play with stinking Playdoh. J offered to truck him down to our local park for some playtime, but he screamed bloody murder and insisted that Mama take him. The boy begs for our solo attention and he finally has it, but chooses to tantrum instead.
I got our little distraught toddler dressed and carried him down to the park. Once we arrived at the park, I insisted that he walk to the Firetruck Play Structure. He’s getting heavier and heavier every day. I can only carry him so much before my back and arms begin to ache. He screamed and cried while clutching onto my legs. Here we were, exactly where he wanted to be, but he refused to even run or walk through the park. After much negotiations and standing my ground, despite his loud cries and tear covered face, I convinced him to walk the couple feet to the playground. He refused to play. He stayed clutched to me fiercely. It probably took a good 20 minutes of negotiating before he actually played. He just stared at me angrily and stayed attached to my arms.
This is me. This is me to a tee. I get so stuck in getting my way and doing things my way, that I can’t even see straight. I sometimes have my things so planned out in my head, that I can’t fathom things not going as planned. I just focus on how I need things to go my way, even if the way things are going are just as fine. And instead of trying to adapt and go with the flow, I freak out. I panic. I can’t see straight.
I see that I am totally and utterly focused on the number of a scale. The number on the scale is not the number that I want. I feel like I am failing. I feel like I am losing the race. I feel like I have not reached the finish line. I feel incomplete and disappointed. I am in the midst of my temper tantrum. Here I am , at my health playground, with opportunities for fun and joy all around, but I am focused on the fact that I am not the number that I had envisioned on the scale. I am a healthy BMi, I am 3 sizes down. I am 10 times as strong. I can keep up and surpass my kids. I can do multiple chin ups and push ups. I am going to stop freaking out about the scale. I am just going to play for a bit. I am going to enjoy these sunny days and appreciate where I am right now. No point in pouting and focussing on the failure of the previous plan. Plans are meant to be changed sometimes.
What a week for so many crazy reasons! Excited to move on and move forward.
After my disaster of a month last month and a rather challenging week healthwise for the family, I am progressing forward. L recovered and then got F sick with his virus. So basically, we have been tending to stomach fluish kids and the biggest pile of laundry in the world. I can’t believe that I have had to wash this many sheets, towels and pukey clothing. Thankful to have both my boys feeling back to normal as of yesterday. We are ready to move on from the sickness and back into wellness.
This week I decided to shake up my eating habits a bit and I am already feeling the effects of it. I am working on consuming more “real foods” and significantly less processed foods. I don’t really expect myself to eat 100% real foods, but have made a huge effort to eat 80%. I find that already, I am a less hungry and my sugary cravings aren’t as present when I don’t indulge them in the first place. My sweet tooth can’t be indulged very often because, once indulged, it’s hard to keep myself from continuing to indulge. I love sweets too much to just have a little. I am going to take this month to wean myself off of the sugary processed stuff that I was consuming daily.
We’ve made some changes to what was formerly known as our candy bowl in the office. That beautiful bowl is filled with dried fruit packets, trail mix and granola bars. They are all processed foods, I realize, but it is a small effort to get our team and ourselves to eat more food and less candy. Who knows, maybe in a month there will be apples and bananas in our bowl.
Small little changes will lead to a big change in the end, as long as I keep pushing forward.
MelMelKel
pgarakani
12monthstohealthy 