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!

(ps — find that cute image here.)

Today I’m in that screw-everything mode where I yell at myself and say FINE. I WILL JUST START GETTING UP AT 4AM!

If I’m up with no hope of going back to sleep, I’ll just eat at 4, do a little devotional reading, and hit the gym when it opens at 5. 

Wish me luck.

But today’s Sunday — a new day, the beginning of a new week. I’m back from church, and I feel forgiven and cleansed from the week before. I’m looking forward to a fresh start, and I plan to add some resistance training to my day. What I need is a regimen I can follow while blogging! I’ll look around for some simple exercises I can do with resistance bands. You know what I’m talking about: handle on each end, stretchy tube in between. Nothing my kids can drop on their feet and hurt themselves with.

Food: I can’t seem to want to cook green vegetables myself, but I’m actually doing better on the veg front and have been downing Indian dishes like mutter paneer and aloo saag — the spice keeps my nausea in check and I can eat loads of spinach and peas along with some basmati rice. The saag was hot as the fires of hell but I drank milk to help cancel some of the heat. Other cravings: pico de gallo made by the market near me, which has a bunch of Latino guys working behind the counter. They make a mean cuban sandwich — and Lord help me if the market ever closes and I lose my supply of pico de gallo! When I’m pregnant my salsa cravings know no bounds. I will practically upend a jar into my mouth (what a lady!). And the other day I did a u-turn to bounce into the Wendy’s line for a Frosty. I ate the whole thing driving the 2 miles from Wendy’s to my house, and if that’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Any ideas for resistance band workouts? I’ll do a YouTube search.

I did dig up a pair of maternity pants for today — baby #3 just wants to bump out early, I guess! 

My goals for this week: continuing the treadmill sessions. And I have got to eat more vegetables. I eat fruit, but I crave protein and carbs like krazy. I’ve been dreaming about saag paneer and other veggie-intense Indian food lately. Mmmmmmm…

So I’m realizing that for full accountability with this plan that I need to actually plot a serious and for-the-real course of exercise, weight management, etc…. So upcoming posts will show stuff like (gulp) my weight over the next year as it rises through pregnancy and hopefully falls again, my gym goals and how I’m doing hitting my targets, and other stuff like diet issues.

I started working out 2 weeks ago, weighing 148 by the gym scale. I made it to the gym 4 days this week, one short of my goal. I MUST do better about weekend workouts — usually I can make it on Saturday, but Sunday tends to be my day of sloth rest. Anyway, as per the gym scale a few days ago, I weigh 146. I’d weigh less, I think, if my pregnancy cravings didn’t tend toward, for example, last night’s pie and ice cream.

Also: please don’t be hatin’ when I post numbers like this. Everyone has her optimal weight, and I know mine is about 130, which I can reach when I do about 45 minutes of brisk walking (or 30 of running) on the treadmill, 5 days a week. At that weight, I feel strong and healthy. Your healthy set point may be more or less than that, and you may have more or less to lose than I do. The point is to encourage each other, and my numbers are just one easy way to measure success.

Meanwhile, I’m popping Zofran every 4 hours to try to keep the nausea at bay. (I’m one of those people who is pregnant the whole 9 months, throwing up every 20 minutes or so otherwise. Fun for minutes!) Trying not to beat myself up over my scandalous pie and guacamole cravings. I’m serious — I’m dreaming about avocados and blackberries.

Anyway… I need to figure out how best to track my goals. A spreadsheet? I’ll check my fitness magazine sites, too….

Still — ever on, ever upward. And I made it on a Tuesday, my roughest day of the week! So you know: yay me!

I made it to the gym this morning! As usual in January, it was crowded, and somehow I got onto a treadmill that had a display that was waaaay off – putting it on 3.7 mph ran me off my feet, and 2.0 was a very brisk walk. So even though I walked longer and faster (and even ran for a minute), I couldn’t really gauge total distance or calories burned.

Running felt good but I don’t want to push it too soon. I need to add some weight work to get my leg muscles in better shape — stress fractures occur when there’s a lack of cushioning muscle to absorb shock, and I do not want another one, ever! Okay, I lied. When I ran I felt my tummy BOUNCING. And I don’t mean the internal organ, I mean my belly fat doing that chuggedy-chugga thing. That’s what I get for wearing low-waisted pants on a treadmill. Oh, and for eating a pan of brownies unwisely this week.

So this brings this week’s exercise total to Monday, Friday and Saturday — only 3 days out of my 5-days-a-week gym goal. I’m really determined to make next week a better one. The good news is that I have a few friends who have joined the same gym recently so I’m going to try to meet up with them at various times on different days. Sometimes guilt over not showing up when a friend is involved is a good motivator!

(lazy kitty pic from icanhascheezburger, of course)

Saturday: treadmill, just under half an hour. Lame, but the gym was incredibly crowded.

Monday (MLK day): treadmill, just over half an hour. A bit faster on ye olde treadmill!

Tuesday was a bust — no sleep yet again, and the kids barely napped. I’ve got to fix this. At least I didn’t eat a bunch of sugary carbs to help my fatigue. And I went to an inauguration playdate!

Today (Wed) I have no childcare since my sitter is sick, so I’ll either hit the gym tonight when my husband gets home or drop the kids off at the gym daycare for a bit later this afternoon. (Last time I went, they fed Toot’s bottle to someone else, though. It’s a nice clean daycare and the kids are only there for an hour, so I’m not sure why I don’t use this more frequently. I get a bit nervous about it.)

Plans for Thursday, Friday and Saturday: I’ll probably only make it to the gym on Fri/Sat since Thursday is such a busy day (morning and evening Bible studies, no sitter, etc).

I know — it doesn’t sound very exciting but I’m hoping to walk further each day and start ramping things up weekly. Does it count that instead of a brownie for an afternoon snack, I ate a pear and a babybel cheese? (My other goal is to substitute hot chocolate for the brownies I’ve been eating all week. I make it from scratch, so it’s much better than the little packets.)

Writing down my goals and holding myself accountable works for me! Let me know your exercise goals in the comments!

1. Look at your company health plan. Does it cover gym or other fitness costs? At the very least, are you using your HSA plan to reduce medical/health spending?

2. Buy exercise equipment on Craigslist, Kijiji, or Ebay. Large equipment like treadmills and ellipticals go fast on Craigslist, so when you see, it, grab it. Look especially in January/Feb and around typical moving times (early and late summer).

3. Work out to DVDs – they’re cheaper than a gym membership and you can easily Netflix or borrow from the library. Or trade with friends.

4. Work out to the FIT channel. There is something for everyone there, I promise.

5. Get outside! Get outside! GET OUTSIDE!!!

6. Actually USE the gym membership you’ve been paying for about a year now. Yes, I’m talking to you.

7. Make a weekly menu plan. Stop throwing away those veggies! Pull them out of your crisper drawer and put them on an eye-level shelf. A plan keeps your spending in check, and it can help mindless eating since you know what and when you’ll eat again.

8. Improvise your own weights: water bottles, cans, etc. or buy a resistance band.

9. Look for cheaper fitness apparel – Target’s Champion line is fab — but don’t skimp on a few crucials, like shoes and sports bras.

10. Downsize your plate: split an entree when eating out, or just order an appetizer for your meal. American restaurant portions are so out of control that sometimes I literally get ill just looking at my plate.

11. Barter services with a personal trainer — any PTs out there in need of a writer?

12. Go for low-gear fitness: running, yoga, pilates, walking. If you walk around your neighborhood you don’t even need actual workout wear — jeans and sneaks are fine.

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.