mercurial scribe

I, like everyone who has ever tried to lose weight, have a slew of excuses. I even have some really good ones for why I only exercised once this past week. (Yes, you read that right - ONCE.) I’m a new mother is my go-to excuse of choice. I mean, goodness, Miri’s 8 weeks old and more demanding than her mother! But seriously, I know I must take responsibility for my actions despite the fatigue Miri can cause - after all, one cannot change what one does not acknowledge, right Dr. Phil?

So I mulled between the diaper changes and baby cries and came up with the reasons I did not do my planned exercise routine every day last week:

1. I allowed my daughter to dominate my arms at all hours which led into…
2. … being exhausted from alternately no sleep one night to a full night’s rest the next night. (See the post I wrote at 1 am for details.)
3. I was also exhausted from eating crappy junk food at weird intervals instead of the good stuff steadily.

Problem #1 definitely leads into problem #2, so I’m going to treat them as one problem. This week’s focus will be on knocking out a workable solution to this problem of a demanding routine. After I accomplish solving the first problem this week, I will then turn to the second problem next week. My solution for this week will be to first give Miri more playtime and space to get comfortable sleeping and playing more on her own (with me near but not holding her) and to stick to a daily routine.

Alas, meet my daily routine:

• 8 am: wake up, breakfast for me and Zoe, calisthenics.
• 9-10 am: feed Miri, go for our walk and have a snack.
• Noon: lunch for me and feed Miri followed by her afternoon nap.
• 3 pm: supper for Miri, a snack for me and our afternoon playtime.
• 5:30 pm: first half of Miri’s dinner feeding, make dinner when it’s my day to cook.
• 7:45 pm: dinner with the family and second half of Miri’s dinner.
• 10 pm: Miri’s last feeding, feed Zoe, take my meds, shower and off to bed.

My writing will be squeezed in wherever and whenever I can get to it. The key to this, I believe, is to maintain this routine every day even on the weekends. This way I’m training both my body and Miri what to expect next.

This week’s exercise schedule:

• Tuesday: walk 35 minutes
• Wednesday: walk 30 minutes
• Thursday: rest
• Friday: walk 30 minutes
• Shabbat (Sabbath): rest
• Sunday: walk 35 minutes
• Monday: rest

Every day:

• 3 sets of 15 girlie pushups
• 3 sets of 20 crunches (one set straight crunches, one bicycle crunches, one reverse crunches)
• 15 minutes of yoga

This week’s stats:

• 216.6 lbs - +1.6
• 42D-47″-48″ - same as last week
• caloric balance = +200 (calories consumed - calories expended = caloric balance)

Must do better. 284 days before 26.2 miles.