Week 4, day 2 - DisEaster

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to start this weight-loss programme before my birthday AND Easter... Or maybe it wasn't such a good idea to start at all. I feel like I can't meet my own expectations, looking after the kids, the house, the garden, do a fair amount of work, spend time with my family and look after myself too.
Easter weekend was a food frenzy. We went to 7 different places (family and friends) - Zsombor was sprinkling all the ladies wherever we went with his perfume and he said his little rhyme too (so cute, bless), and throughout the day he collected 32 chocolate easter eggs and 8 chocolate bunnies - not counting the ones he managed to eat that day. Of course you have to eat everywhere too - not a lot, but mostly ham, eggs, bread and... cakes.


On Easter Sunday I managed another gym session and also had a good bikeride with my son. I can't possibly fit in any home sessions though, because I have so much work on the computer - most of which I have to do at night, when the kids went to sleep.
At the moment this is what an average day looks like: Get up around 6am, both boys wake around the same time. Feed them, clean up the kitchen, go outside and play with them, maybe do some stuff in the garden. Around noon make lunch, feed them, put them down for a nap. While they are asleep, do some work on the computer: check e-mails, write some, do quick fix jobs that can't or don't have to wait till the evening. Start the washing machine, the dishwasher, wash up the stuff that I can't fit in the dishwasher. When they wake up, tidy the house as much as I can before they want to go out again. Then around 4pm we go outside again till around 7pm. Then we come in, I feed them, around 8pm we go to have a bath. Both boys should be in bed around 9pm, 9.30 the latest. Then go downstairs, tidy the living room and the kitchen a bit, have some food myself, come up and start to work till about midnight. Zsombor normally gets up around 11pm, crying - he has such vivid dreams that he wakes every time talking out loud or crying. The baby gets up somewhere around 3am, so I feed him, then go back to sleep for another 3 hours, then the cycle starts again. This is when Roland is not home. It is a bit different when he is home, he does the food and looks after the kids while I try to catch up with work and cleaning the house.
I feel like I can't meet this goal that I challenged myself to. One more thing I will try: every day Roland's home, I will go to the gym first thing in the morning. In the evenings it is so busy, I can't fit any gym sessions in, impossible. Still, I will be unable to do any of the home plans for at least another three weeks approximately.
Then there is the problem with this weighing I mentioned in the last post.
I feel like it is too much, one thing always suffers in the cycle. If not me, the kids, or the house, or the food (eating garbage), or the garden, or Roland (of course not in this order), or I just get exhausted in a couple of days because I practically have no time to relax, and just be alone a little.
Still, I'm not giving up. I will try the morning sessions in the gym, and try to be as active as I can on days when Roland's not home. Do long walks with the kids maybe. If anyone got any practical ideas, they are most welcome. Let me know how you manage?
Weight-wise I'm back to square one. This is week 4, I'm supposed to be 3 pounds lighter and I'm not. I weigh just as much as I started with. I lost a pound on week one, then put back one on the next week, then I kept that on the third. Now I guess it's about time to start losing that weight.

Week 3, day 5 - Mid-week check in

I'm now so confused. I got on the scales this morning for a mid-week check, just to realise that I apparently put on 3 pounds! Not a nice thing to see on the scale, and I thought, this can't be right. I wasn't eating that much, I went to the gym too on Wednesday, now why is the extra pounds? Then I realised that my breasts were quite full with milk, that must make the difference! How am I supposed to get a right number for my weight now? How do I know that I lost a pound because of exercising or only because the baby had a good morning feed? Help.

Week 3, day 4 - First gym session of the week

I'm looking at the date/time function on my mac, and it shows 'Thu'. I got a little confused for a second, then I realised it's past midnight, so it really is Thursday now.

I managed to go down to the gym this evening. I spent a little over an hour there. I was really missing cardio, so I did 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 on the bike, fatburning level. Then I did 2 series of the weight exercises Tom gave me. This time I didn't feel tired at all. I was in a good mood, the workout felt good as well, and by the time I finished, I felt very light and energetic, not like last time.

The whole day felt very light and easy-going actually. Me and the kids went to Budapest with Roland, who had to go to work for a few hours in the morning. While he was there, we went to a playground at the parks of Városliget. We all really enjoyed it, there were so different toys to what we normally see around this part of the country. My older son sled down on a really high slide, I was really proud of him. Actually I was proud of him the whole time we were there. He was very nice to the other kids, looking out for the little ones, looking up to the big kids, talking to parents, and sharing everything he was playing with. He was so well behaved compared to most of the kids there. There was this kid (around my son's age), who simply poured a bucket of water over my son's head, then ran off. All I could say was 'what did you do this for???' then he took off. Poor Zsombor just stood there, water dripping down his face and shirt. Luckily it was very nice weather, about 25 degrees, so he dried up quickly. I kind of sorry that he starts kindergarden this fall, I'm sure he will be bringing home all sorts of misbehaviour, and my three years' education will go straight down the loo, and I can start over again.

On the way home we bought a lawnmower, finally. We were planning to buy one for years. Maybe next time I'll swap a cardio session with lawnmowing. By the time I finish mowing 2000 square meters of grass, I'll burn some calories... Talking about the grass, yesterday I did an hour's intensive raking in the garden, I wonder how many calories that burnt???

Week 3, day 1 - Not met, not surprised

Well, well. I woke up this morning, and thought: I didn't make it. Then I went and stood on the scales to face I haven't lost the pound I was supposed to. I was 89,6 kgs, 197,5 pounds. I knew it, so I wasn't surprised. I know the reason too. Last week I only did two gym sessions, and none at home. I went to the gym on Monday and Sunday. I guess the two were quite far from each other, and let's not forget I had my birthday on Thursday too, that we celebrated with a yummy carrot cake made by Roland. And I spent the Saturday at my dad's, which meant lots of relaxing and a good sleep in the afternoon - apart from the nice foods.

Sunday's gym wasn't nice either. I got a pair of trainers for my birthday, and I was wearing them on Sunday.

I thought it will give me a boost, but right after I started exercising, I knew it will not be a nice one. I got tired a lot sooner, and the exercises felt much harder. I managed to do all exercises though, but after I finished everything, I didn't have that good feeling that I was nicely worked out and a little tired. My muscles were aching, and I didn't have the sense of achievement either. It was just a tick, that I've done it. I was proud of the new shoes though (how sad is that), but inside I felt quite down, not sure why. When I left home, I was looking forward to the gym, but as soon as I started exercising, the feeling was gone.

I don't want to give up though, this week I will try harder and lose two pounds. If I can do it, I can do it now, it would be a lot harder as I get closer to my goal towards the end. So now I'm planning the week ahead, and will stick to it either way. There will be three days this week when I can go to the gym: Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. I'm thinking, Sunday will be Easter, but a good reason to go to the gym anyway, it will probably be another food and chocolate frenzy.

Week 2, day 5 - Birthday girl, birthday boy

In this post it's only a little note. It was me and my husband's birthday yesterday, and I managed not to stuff my face all day since the next time I can make it to the gym is Sunday. My husband made a very delicious carrot cake for the evening, and we blew the candles together with our older son - the baby was asleep by then. I forgot to wish though. :( Is it too late?
I'm really tired, need some sleep, but I have so much work to do on the computer, I can hardly keep up. I must work on Sunday to meed deadlines and expectations. Tomorrow might be a little breath of fresh air, I'm off to my dad's with the kids. These days are quite relaxed usually.
I'm very much looking forward to Sunday's gym session though, I managed to get the urge in myself to do some workout. Luckily there is no sign of less or weak milk supply, baby is happily eating every day, every time. :)

Week 2, day 2 - A different story

Managing my time has always been a problem for me. Now that I have two kids, it's even more difficult to find enough time for everything I want. This day was a perfect example, but all in all, I have to say I have quite a productive day behind me. One 'family event' in the morning - breakfast and coffee in town, nice stroll home, then some work, lunch (delivered), my husband taking a nap with my older son, while I'm spending one-to-one time with the baby (this doesn't happen too often), some more work, then another family event in the afternoon: some cake and ice cream in the patisserie. Then a much needed mini grocery shopping, clothes dropped off to the ironing lady, then I finally managed to go to the gym.

By the time I got there, I realised that I only have about 45 minutes to finish gym plan 1, that took me an hour and a half the first time. I thought the gym will be empty like in the mornings, but it was a different story: almost every cardio machine was taken, ladies sweating to kill the pounds. As I was doing my 5 minute warm-up on one of the bikes, I felt like I know a secret - these ladies are working hard on the cardio machines, and I'm off to the weights! They will probably think that I'm trying to build some muscle, but they have no idea that I'm going to beat them in losing weight in a couple of weeks! :) They were all guided by their personal trainer, who happened to be the only male in the gym, and I felt smarter than him too!

To speed up the process, and to make sure I get home by bath time to get the kids ready for bed, I decided that I will do the three sessions of every exercise in one sit, rather than going from one machine to the other, doing three circuits - like I did last time. It prove to be quite time-saving. In the 45 minutes I had, I managed to finish 10 of 12 exercises. The one that I missed was the inch-worm and the crunches. I thought that I will do these too at home, after I put the children in bed, but of course I didn't. I was sooo hungry, so had two sandwiches, loaded the dishwasher, ironed my husband's chef coat for tomorrow, and emptied the washing machine. Now it's quarter past 11, I'm so sleepy but have a bit more work to do. So I'm wrapping this up, thinking the next time I will be in the gym is probably Sunday - the end of another week!

Week 2, day 1 - Summary of the first week and the result!

Yay, I did it! The scale showed 197 pounds (89.4 kg), so I am now putting a small green tick next to the first week. The only reason it's not a rather large one is because I haven't done everything that I should have. The interesting thing is that I never had to say no to any food at all and with this poor exercising I still lost a pound. This afternoon, for example, my older son slept three hours in the afternoon, and I was a bit bored, waiting for him to wake up, I ate a whole box of chocolates that my aunt bought the other day. I was just thinking, what a waste of packaging and space bonbons are, about 90% of the bloody thing was plastic and paper. I guess it could be that even if I don't make it to the gym, I'm living very active days with lots of walking, weight-lifting (baby), etc.
Never mind, a pound down, hello week 2! I just realised that it will be harder and harder to achieve this as the weeks go by. So I am thinking, tomorrow I'll hop on my beautiful brand new bike and cycle to the gym, it shouldn't take more than about 15-20 minutes. Then I'll do the weightlift plan, gym plan 1. The past couple of days I received a second gym plan, which I will test later on this week, probably Sunday, because on the remaining day when Roland is off, it's our birthday!!! Funnily me and my husband were born on the same day, 14April, only there are three years age difference. I can't really see that I'll be in the gym on that day...

Day 7 - A missed training and an early birthday present!

I'm still not sure how this happened, but since Roland came home from visiting his mum (around 3pm), the time just slipped out of my hands.
First, he went to pick up my brand new bike, I got this as a birthday present from him. It's a Cruiser Lofty. So comfortable and very stylish, I can't wait to take a longer trip on it.



Then we were testing it on the street, then my sister came to visit, then we went to celebrate the little girl's birthday next door, then I had to go and pick up the trailer we bought for the bike, then I popped in the shop to get some milk for tomorrow, then it was 8pm! Honestly, I don't remember sitting down for longer than five minutes today, apart from the time when I was feeding the baby. I guess I should be laying in bed, enjoying the after burn effect, because I had such a busy day, I'm sure my body needs lots of calories to regenerate itself.

Tomorrow morning is the first proper weight-check. I'm not very proud of this week's training. I only had time to go to the gym once, then there was one session at home, and that's it really. Not a good start. Someone said: start as you mean to go on, or something like that. I really do want to go on, and I can only hope that the scale will be showing what I would like it to. Next week I should be more selfish and put my needs a bit forward in the list of things that need to be done.

I'm not quite sure if a very busy and active day like this could equal an hour's or hour and a half's training in the gym, I guess we'll see tomorrow!

Day 5 - Home programme, Maradonaaaa

Because of missing yesterday's gym session, I had to make it up for myself today. It's not very easy to do anything at all after such a busy day, but right after the kids were asleep, I did my home programme in the living room. Great movie in the background on TV: Black cat white cat by Emir Kusturica. I've seen it about a hundred times, so I know the dialogues by heart, don't have to pay much attention - enough to have a peek at the best moments. I have to say though it's not the best idea to start exercising at half past nine in your living room. After every exercise one feels like it would be much better (or easier) to get a drink and just watch TV. I guess the best would be to avoid the situation and just go to the gym as it was planned ahead. Lesson learnt.

We had a good walk again in town with the kids, 2 and a half hours. Breakfast at the bakery, then to the jewellers - I had to have my wedding ring cut off because it was so squeezing my finger, I couldn't take it off. I asked it to be extended by one size. One reason why not to loose so much weight for your wedding. Or not to gain that much after? :) My husband says it's bad luck to have your ring cut off, but hopefully we didn't build our marriage on luck! :)

My back pain is much better, not sure if it's because of the exercises, I'm not doing anything else different. Haven't weighed myself for a couple of days now, I might have a peek tomorrow, which is probably a rest-day, so on Sunday I can do a gym programme again. I'm not sure if it should be a cardio or a weight training? Tom, what do you recommend?

Day 4 - Sore muscles and a session in the hospital instead of the gym

After yesterday's workout I have sore muscles almost all over my body, especially my bum and tights. At least I don't focus so much on my backache! In the morning I thought that I will be doing a cardio training in the evening, but instead I had to go to the hospital, my mum had a surgery. So I swapped that hour in the gym for an hour with her, good girl I was, also a tiny little bit happy too that I didn't have to go to the gym.
But to make it up for the lost session, I will be doing a home plan tomorrow, and go back to the gym on Sunday.
Luckily the baby does not complain at all about the milk, so it seems that sore muscles (fatigue) has nothing to do with the taste of the breastmilk.

I will keep this short and sweet, not much to report anyways. Tomorrow is another day.
God, I'm so tired.

Day 3 - The first gym session

The good thing about going to the gym in a small village is that it's likely to be empty at 9am. So I thought, when I went down and there was this young tennis coach guy, half naked with a nicely toned upper body, doing workout. Just a tiny bit sweating, to make his skin shimmery. You get the idea. Then I thought, I might swap today's weightlifting programme with tomorrow's cardio, but by the time I finished warming up on the treadmill, he left. Phew.

So I did the first weightlifting programme. It took me an hour and a half to do everything, but I did, as it was written down. There were 12 different exercises, 3 rounds of each, with light weights, and high repeats. Usually 3x16, or 3x12, depending on which muscle, and what weight it was. My personal favourite is the 'inch worm' - when you are starting totally bent over, touching the ground with straight legs (well, if you can), then you start 'walking' with your hands to end up in a push up position, then you catch up with your legs to the starting position. Quite funny, I was glad the tennis guy left. :) Although there were low weights and many repeats, I couldn't do all three rounds at once of the same exercise. What I did was kind of like a circuit training. I did one exercise, went to the next one, and when I finished with all twelve, I started over again, and once more. I hope it is just as good as if I did all three rounds in the same sit? I didn't take long rests between exercises, only as much as it took me to walk from one machine to the other. At the end I had to face that I really have muscles all over my body. It's like a toothache - if you don't have one, you are likely to forget that you have teeth. It's just normal. At the end of the workout, I really felt like I need to do lots of streching, so I did. While I was walking back to my car, I felt quite tired, and thought that I need to sit down and rest for a little. But by the time I got home (about 5 mins), I was fine.

My back ache is still there, although a little bit better. I still have a hard time lifting up the baby, but I'm pretty much ok with my own weight now.

I forgot to mention yesterday, that I took the baby to the doctors to have his regular checkup, and we all agreed that he is not gaining enough weight. Normally babies should double their weight by the time they reach 6 months. Barnabas was born with 4.15 kg (9.15 pounds), and now at five months, he is only 6.80 kgs (15 pounds). It's not very likely that he will gain 1.5 kilos in the next month, so the doctor suggested that he gets some Sinlac . I had mixed feelings. At one end I was a little disappointed that my breastmilk was not strong enough for his proper development, but from the workout point of view, I was happy that it all happened before I started exercising. I'm sure I would have had terrible remorse, thinking I was so selfish to choose exercising instead of eating and resting, producing good milk... But this is not the case. It could even be that there is nothing wrong with the milk, because he grew 4 cms in the past two months, which is quite a lot. He is now 68cms, quite a tall baby!

Tomorrow is gym day again, I will be doing 50-60 minutes of cardio, at fatburning level, which means that in my case my heart rate should be around 112 during exercise. That is 60% of my maximum heart rate. You get the maximum heart rate if you take the number of your age off 220. Is that right Tom? I can't wait for Monday, to see what is the result after the first week. Now I'm thinking, I won't be checking my weight every morning, only on Mondays. Or when I remember to do so. :)

Day 2 - Pain in the back(side)

I just said yesterday that I will weigh myself every morning, but I already forgot on the second day. This is really me though, story of my life. I could never stick to anything that needed constant attention. One day I was really up for changing this bad in me, and searched all over the internet, how could I change it. Then I found this exercise: to make your brain more focused, pick one little thing on yourself and once every hour, in the same time, touch it, or do something with it. I picked my ring, and I decided that I will move it around once every hour. I only did it once, then the next time I remembered, was hours later. Tried again in that hour, but forgot the second time, just like before. Then I gave up and said to myself 'that's you, accept it'. So I did. :)

Still no gym so far, I had a few things to do in town today, so we took a big walk with the kids, two hours! I had a pretty bad day all day. Something with my mood, ups and downs swapping constantly - more downs though. The kids must have sensed it, they were a bit fussy too. But it's almost over, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's gym session. I will do the weightlifting1 plan, as Tom suggested, then for the next day (Thursday) I stick in the cardio day. Then there will be two days 'off', and I will be in the gym again on Sunday, doing the weightlifting2 plan.
I was reading Tom's comment with great interest, never heard of the after burn effect before, so I googled it. There are lots of good articles about it, and I found that 'industry fitness' is not the same as personal training. I guess it's something like the commercials on TV: you get the same spots over and over again and you should think that these are the best, most valued, most tested and proved things on the face of the Earth, but if you dig in a little, you find out that the pink bottled stain remover is totally useless, while a non-branded stuff is actually working. Here is a link about the after burn effect in a nutshell or if you would like to dig in a bit deeper, read this.

I'm having a terrible pain in my back, at the right side, down quite low. This is the area that is most often affected when I do something with the baby. When I get him out of his cot, when I put him in his trolley, when I pick up the trolley to move it down the steps, when I bath him, always the same area. Today it was so bad that I had to sit down while I was bathing him. If I bend down for something, I can't even lift back the weight of my own upper body. I hope the gym session tomorrow will ease this pain somehow.

Day 1 - High hopes and new training plans in the pocket

The first thing I did this morning was to get on the scale. I was 198 pounds - 90.1kg. I decided that I will be weighing myself every morning. Normally it's not a good idea, but in my case it sounds reasonable to see if I seem to reach the one pound weightloss by the end of the week or not. I'll see if it stands even after a couple of weeks. This week I will be in the gym on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.
I received the training plans from Tom today, and although I did not expect, there are plans for home and for the gym too - does this mean I will have to do something every day? And something else I did not expect was that there is no room for cardio training in the plan. Before this, when I wanted to lose some fat, the main part of my training was the cardio bit (aerob, fatburning zone), and after that I did some weighlifting or other excercises to build some muscle. In this plan, there are only body excercises.
I was away almost all day, so - what a great start - I will skip today's programme.
On the nutrition factor: for breakfast I had two slices of toast with butter and marmite, a cup of coffee (with sugar and milk), a few pieces of strawberries around 11am, a ceasar salad with two toasts and two slices of pizza for lunch, and a bowl of my husband's blended muesli with some banana slices. Ah, and while I had a nice stroll in town with my mum, I had two scoops of ice cream too! :)
All day I felt that there is less breastmilk than usual, and I'm not sure why. I am drinking a can of alcohol free beer at the moment, apparently that boosts the milk producing.

So I'm starting the plan tomorrow. I'm a bit skeptic about not doing any cardio but I will stick to Tom's plan, and see how I'm getting on. Wish me luck! :)