Energized

One month ago I started working out with a personal trainer. The first week I lost 6 pounds. I was FLOORED. "Oh my gosh, I'll be able to lost 20 pounds before he gets back if this keeps up!" Well, that followed with 3 weeks of up a pound, down a pound, up a pound, down a pound. I was beyond frustrated and was so done with the whole process of 'losing weight' that I wanted to quit. Not gain back all I've lost but just stop trying to lose and try to be happy with the weigh I currently am. I have several friends who are huge motivators to me who have talked me out of this multiple times and finally last weekend something HIT me. I can NOT cheat. I can't have a throw away day or two a week and expect to lose. I can maintain that way (thus the up and down a pound) but I just can't lose. So I committed to myself, my friend, my husband, that I would NOT cheat until Kolt gets home and really lock down my food intake. I spent the weekend watching my family eat chocolate peanut clusters, mint cookies, pizza, bread sticks, peanut m&ms, chicken wings, candy, ice cream, all of my favorite things. I bought frozen low calorie meals, and protein bars, and salads instead. I made the conscious choice to resist the crap food of the season and focus on my weight loss. And it PAID off, I lost 3 pounds since Friday and am the lowest weight I've been in a long time. Tonight I'm going to a church Christmas party, those things are not known for healthy choices, so I opted to eat dinner before hand so I could calculate my calories. It's small things like that, and asking for the nutritional info at restaurants that are helping me lose again now.

I'm so proud of myself. My new "skinny" jeans that I could barely squeeze into are sagging and almost falling off and I'm seeing myself in the mirror and thinking "I actually look good. I'm not fat anymore." That in and of itself is a HUGE step for me. I'm no where near done, honestly I'd still like to lose 15-20 more pounds, but that can come in time, and it should. I'm hopeful to lose at least 5 more pounds this month, well really 7 if I'm being honest, before Kolt gets home. I feel like if I can keep this up, it's possible.

I have 2 huge mile stones coming up. 1- in 2.6 pounds I will no longer be "over weight" according to the BMI scale, 2- in 1.6 pounds I have lost 80 pounds since I was fully pregnant with Leila. I've come so far, I have to remember that when I get frustrated. I still have room to improve and want to continue to do so. I feel like I've adopted a healthy life style and it should be easy to maintain. I want to be a good example to Leila, be able to get down and play with her. I don't want to walk into a room and wonder if all anybody thinks is "wow, she's fat." I want to be confident and be more like the person I was when Kolt met me.

It's been a lot of sacrifice, especially during this junk food fest season, but no food, no matter how delicious, is better than feeling beautiful, confident, sexy EVERY DAY. When I get down to where I want to be, I'll allow myself a treat on occasion, it's not realistic to expect to NEVER have those kinds of food, but at least now I know that I don't need it, nor do I really want it anymore, and that is a success all by itself.

On the Kolt front, we're down to a month or less now. We won't know the day he'll be back until about 2-3 days ahead is all. But we have a good window. I do know now when I'm leaving (about 90% sure) either the 4th of January or the 7th, depending on who goes down with me. So at most I have 25 days until I go back to Texas, and that just makes my heart sing. Soon enough my heart will be whole again. There is much to be grateful for and celebrate right now.

It's December!

Not much going on, just figured I'd better update. We're just about down to one month to go. We don't know when he'll be home, probably won't know until a week ahead of time, but we have a general idea, and it's getting close. So far time is still just trucking along and I'm getting excited. So much so that I can't fall asleep at night, which really sucks. I'm crazy tired but my mind just won't shut off at night because it's filled with visions of seeing him walk down the hall towards us in the airport, imagining what that first hug and kiss will be like, what Leila will do when she sees him, how long it will take us to find a house, praying for good weather until I go, you get the idea. Good news is I do have a tentative plan of action on how to get home, and now how to get the S2K home! That's more than I had a few weeks ago. The plan is I'll drive down with a friend that I'll fly up from Austin, and Miss Leila will fly down with her Grandma. The only wrench in that plan is Grandma just had surgery on her shoulder, and seeing her in her sling there's no way she can change a diaper, let alone handle her through security and on a plane for 3 hours. So now I'm not quite as confident of the idea. I do NOT want Leila to have to drive down, it will be a nightmare for her and me because of the stress I'll have for her discomfort and restlessness. We'll just have to see how it goes, I'm prepared to take her with me if I have to, I just really don't want to.

I've been working with a realtor trying to find us a house. I don't want to spend months looking when we get back, more like a week so we can close and be in by February. We've been without our things long enough, I'm ready to have my own home again. We've got a pretty narrow search criteria and so we've got about 7 choices at the moment that are decent, 4-5 that are really good and that's really all I want. I don't want to spend all of Kolt's time off when he gets home running around trying to find a place to live and get settled. I'd like to spend time as a family and have fun, you know? Hopefully my tendency to over think things and plan and prepare will help us out in that regard.

Here are some Christmas pics I took last weekend of Leila, too cute not to post.

Holy Cow

So this whole weight loss thing has been a roller coaster of ups and downs and stalls, but I finally feel like I'm seeing progress, thanks to a picture I had taken of me today. I've been able to tell in the last couple of weeks that my arms are toning up and my belly is less flubby, but it wasn't until I saw this pic today until the reality hit me, I really am starting to look good.

Not trying to toot my own horn, but 75 pounds is nothing to turn your nose up at. I still have 20-30 more I want to lose, but I'm happy to say I no longer think of myself as a fat person. Well, mostly I don't. I think that nagging doubt will always be in my head, which I think is normal for people who have been big before. But I'm proud of all I have accomplished and will still yet accomplish. It's all a matter of choice and determination. Once I decided I was ready to embrace a healthier life style, and put in the work, the results came.

Here is me 6 days after I had Leila. I'm quite swollen with fluids, but even still I can admit it, I look horrible.

And here I am today, with my gorgeous baby, all grown up.

Thankful

Tonight, I'm thankful for the wonderful people the AF has brought into our lives. I suppose part of living the military life style is meeting remarkable people, and then having to tell them good bye. They aren't just friends, they become your family as you travel across the world and go where the service wants you.

I knew when we left San Antonio that there would be a good chance that Chrissy wouldn't be there when we got back, but not so much so that I really gave her a proper good bye. For some reason, tonight it's slapped me in the face that my one and only AF spouse girl friend will be gone when I get home. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to survive down there without her. And not just because she takes phenomenal pictures (which she does), but because she's an incredible person, who I was blessed to get to know.

Because our husbands are pursuing the same career path, chances are we'll see each other again, and I think we should plan a girls weekend get together anyway, just because we're awesome for holding down the home front while our men are away. It will most likely be years before we are stationed at the same place again, if ever, and this BREAKS. MY. HEART.

I'm not the type of person that has tons of friends, and I don't make friends easily. I can probably count on one hand the number of true friends I have, they're invaluable to me, and I hate that I'm losing her to the AF life already. She's one of the most decent, honest, tell it like it is, god fearing, wonderful people I've ever had the blessing of getting to know, and she won't be replaced and will most definitely be missed.

In her honor, I'm posting my favorite pics that she's taken throughout the time I knew her.

I love you Chrissy, God Speed.

Sigh.

I'm torturing myself tonight by watching military homecomings on youtube. Not sure what made me decide to do that, but now it's hurting. I'm at the point now where it really feels like we're entering the home stretch, but in reality still have a ways to go. It makes me anxious because now I'm more focused on him coming home than ever and it doesn't help time to pass any faster. I do believe and feel that it's coming to an end, but we still have two months to go and that's no small thing. I don't have a lot of things planned out either and that's no help. I just miss him, so much. I miss being able to just talk to him when I have something to say, not have to write it down to be sure I remember to tell him the next time we chat. I miss joking around with him and picking on each other. I miss having a normal conversation about day to day boring stuff, not just plans for the future or the what ifs. I miss having a normal life that doesn't revolve around deployment. I know we're almost there, but the hole in my heart that his absence has left feels particularly huge tonight. And it really doesn't help that last night he told me it looks like his homecoming date has been pushed back by a few weeks. Nothing is for certain of course, but that's the last thing I wanted to hear. It is what it is, it's totally normal and it shouldn't have caught me off guard, but it did, and I hurt. I long for the day when this is all over, and tonight, I'm certain I'll be crying myself to sleep.

I can't believe it.....

Well, last night went remarkably well. I put her down at 7:30, her new official bed time, she cried for 20 minutes and was out. She slept all the way until 2 (really 3 am with the time change) and woke and cried for about 6-7 minutes, more whined really, and was out again. She woke up at 4 (really 5) and I nursed her, lied her down awake, she protested for about a minute and went to sleep. She was still lying down when I went into the room though, and so she may very well have gone back to sleep. Then I took her into bed with me at 6 and we snuggled until 7. I'm not ready to give up the morning snuggles yet. Today she went down for nap time in a matter of minutes. My mother in law graciously offered to let me move Leila into the guest room so that she can have her own room and I was very nervous. You'd think I'd be fine since I first moved her into her own room at 3.5 months old, but still....she's my baby and I've grown used to having her close. We did her bed time routine and I lied her down awake, she cried for 4....FOUR minutes and seems to be asleep. I don't dare hold out hope that this will continue, it's simply too good to be true.

If this keeps up, I'll have to eat my words. For being 100% against crying it out, it looks like it may be exactly what my baby girl needs. It does NOT mean I don't love her, or that I'm ignoring her, or that she's going to be insecure or feel like I've abandoned her. She's old enough now that I feel she understands it's bed time, and I'll be there when it's time to get up. People who are anti CIO (cry it out) are VERY anti CIO and I used to be one of them. I've learned now not to judge and it's not as cut and dried as "if you leave your baby to cry, you're a horrible neglectful parent." Sleep is so important, Leila was much happier and pleasant today and I think that is in large part due to her sleeping well. Here's to hoping it continues to go this well.

Ug.

I'm doing something tonight I swore I would never do, I'm letting Leila "cry it out." I would have never thought it would come to this and I know many people who will think I'm a horrible mother for doing this, but it really has come down to nothing else has worked. Her sleep has deteriorated such that after her 2nd night waking (around 1-2 am) she won't go back to sleep in her own bed, she cries if she does. She nurses every 45-60 minutes after she gets in bed with me and wakes up around 4 am just talking and ready to get on with the day. I haven't gotten more than 2-3 hours of sleep at once in I don't know how long. She's screaming right now as I right this and I feel like shit. I hope she'll forgive me.

On a different note, Halloween was a blast. She was such a cute little cookie monster and loved trick or treating and held on to her pumpkin all night long. I have so cute pictures....but they're all on my phone, I'll have to see if I can get them uploaded.

Kolt is doing well. We're down to 2 months to go. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. October just flew by and I'm hoping November does too. I still have no clue how exactly I'm getting back to Texas. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get it narrowed down and someone will drive with me. I could drive alone, but I'd rather not. My mother in law has graciously offered to fly down with Leila so she can avoid that awful, long journey.

I may blog a few more times tonight to get me through, hearing her cry is ripping at my heart.