And it’s about time! Jim-Jams is 3 months old as of yesterday. I only spent 20 mins on the treadmill and ran off to the restroom scale to weigh myself to get a base number — then I had to dash home and nurse the baby.
I’m 20 lbs overweight.
I’m also getting really fractured sleep. A typical night: Kids (4 and almost 2) go to bed at 8:00 p.m. but chat, fight and make up in their shared room for about 2 and a half hours. I clean up the kitchen, pick up the house, and nurse the baby while Husband pays bills. Then he rocks baby while I eat these muffins (seriously, this is WHY I am overweight) and we watch a little TV. Baby nurses again. I try to put him down and he wakes right up for round 3 of nursing. I put him down at 11 and crawl into bed. He wakes up at 4 to nurse. Then the 2-year-old wakes up and throws up in her bed — she gets so snotty at night that she gags almost every night. Husband cleans that up (bless him), unless I awake from the dead to help. Baby wakes up again to nurse. Toddler goes back down. By this time it’s usually 6:30 a.m. and we have an hour or so to drink coffee and get ready for the day. Usually at least one of the three kidlets wakes up if we try to go back to bed. In a word, our sleep is still pretty grim.
Most days I can push through the morning until the kids nap around 2 p.m., but if they don’t nap, all the wheels fall off the cart by 4pm, and I’m literally swaying with fatigue. …So I fuel myself with muffins, and have I mentioned that I’m 20 lbs overweight?
Still: I made it to the gym. I put on a too-small t-shirt and yoga pants, found my keys, drove through pouring rain, and got on the treadmill next to a girl who was running. (Me: not running.)
I made it.
What works for me? Giving myself half an hour and permission to be a lame walker on the treadmill. Permission to not feel guilty if the baby is a little late getting fed. Permission to be okay with moving the scale (ka-chunk) to 150 before twiddling the little weight marker from side to side. (Okay, I’m lying — I hate that part.)
What counts: I made it!
Yeah, so this morning I woke up just before 4am. And I’m still awake! Frankly I do not know how I have managed to stay alive this year on so little sleep, averaging far less than 5 hours a night. Last night I freakishly slept 8 hours. Today, my body is back to its old tricks. No sleep means I crave energy from food. It means my friends without kids think I’m a flake when I forget to respond to emails. It means a door is open wide for that flood of anxious and depressive thoughts that we all get in the wee hours of the morning.
Last week’s totals: 3 days at the gym, all of them early in the week (Sun, Mon, Tues). I have such bad morning sickness, even though I’m taking the Zofran. Some days the pills work, and some days they seem to have no effect, leaving me feeling (w)retched. It’s like having a perpetual flu for months on end. Couple the nausea with the usual antepartum depression and it’s like my own personal cocktail of failure. This week, despite the great start, I felt increasingly bitter and petulant about being tired, nauseated, and depressed.
So I made it to the gym today, got on the treadmill, and managed a half hour of brisk walking and –wait for it –one full minute of running. I would have gone longer but 
A new year, a new you, right? It’s said that goals written down are the ones that are reached most faithfully. I know it’s easy to say “I’ll lose 20 lbs” and get lost in the clouds of such a general goal. My specific goal for Jan 2009 and beyond? Getting to the gym 5 days a week. I’m still rehabbing the broken foot so I’m not doing serious running at all, just trying to stretch the ankle and hip and get back into the exercise habit.
In honor of 
And this brings me to my list of LA Fitness peeves: Why don’t they enforce time limits on the cardio equipment, especially in Jan/Feb, when everyone and his dog is at the gym? Why do they open so ding and also dang late on the weekend? My kids don’t sleep in; ergo, I don’t sleep in. I do, however, get up at the same time I always do Monday through Friday, and yes, early morning is still the only time I have to work out. Grrrr.