No Excuse Mom (NEM) 12 wk challenge

So I had the baby.  She was 9 days late and induced.  There's a story behind that, but I'm not going into it now.  I really liked the different hospitals policies about delivery and baby care.  Will NOT see or recommend my doctor to anyone even though she came highly recommended to me.  We named the baby Angelina Louise and she weighed 8 lbs 11 oz.  But that is not what this post is about.

This post is about weight loss/total body makeover/life changes etc...  I was excited with this pregnancy because not only did I only gain 25lbs instead of the usual 40, I also ended up (entering the hospital to deliver weight) nearly 10lbs lighter then any of my other babies (except Isabelle, that entire pregnancy turned out to be an extreme aberration from my normal deal).  So I should end up at a lower rate too right?  Wrong.  I lost about 23 lbs in the first four weeks without doing anything. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas happened and I gained 11 back.  Usually the numbers keep dropping right?  But nope, after week four (Thanksgiving week) they started creeping back up again.  I'm breastfeeding and started doing my Chalean Extreme workout again in December but none of that seems to matter this round as the pounds aren't budging...at least not in the direction they should be.

(I've briefly considered that maybe there is something really wrong with me like a thyroid problem or something with my hypothalamus or something, but probably not.  Probably I just eat too much crap.)

Anyway.  So I've been following Maria Kang on facebook ever since her "What's Your Excuse?" pic of her in workout gear with her three kids started making the rounds.

 Unlike some, I didn't think she was fat shaming and instead rather misunderstood by the media and rather had it right.  The only reason many of us are big is because we make up some excuse about why WE'RE the exception and WE aren't like THEM..you know, THEM?  The people who workout and eat right and talk about crossfit all the time and look like they could tear you apart with their bare hands if they needed to and then hike up a mountain afterwards?  Well, my excuse had often been having the kids so close together.  Mine were months farther apart then hers were.  I knew this and found her inspirational.  Anyway.  So recently she announced that she had written a book that would soon be published and any who pre-ordered said book got links to free workouts/recipes/and were signed up for a 12 wk No More Excuses challenge starting January 12th.  I ordered the book and started the challenge.

As part of this deal we have to make a fitness calendar where we chart our progress and workouts for the 12 wks.   We also track our eating habits and calories and shoot for a 30/30/30/10 balance of carbs/proteins/healthy fats/other in our meals.  The goal is to eat 5 small meals a day, do cardio at least 3x/wk and also include her core training videos at least 3x (or some other ab exercise....actually I think the goal is just to EXERCISE...somehow, doesn't matter what, just do SOMETHING 3x/wk).   Anyway.  So I had already been doing my Chalean Extreme, which has three days of heavy lifting and two days of interval training along w/ abs on one day and yoga on the other.  The point being  I wouldn't have to change what I was already doing in that area.

So I decided to do the challenge.  Around this same time I happened upon a post titled; 14 Things You Didn't Know About Celiac's Disease.  You hear so much about gluten intolerance these days that I clicked on it out of curiosity.  One of the categories listed some non-digestive symptoms including; "an itchy skin rash called dermatitus herpetiformus."   For those of you that know me, you know I've been struggling with an extremely itchy rash that appeared our of nowhere about 10 years ago.  After seeing several doctors, including a dermatologist and an allergy specialist they generally agreed that i have excema.  The dermatologist seemed annoyed that I wanted her to "fix" it and explained that this is just something that you have and I should get used to it and treat flair ups as they occur.  The allergy specialist to whom I was referred to (since excema is an allergic reaction) by the dermatologist put me on allergy shots for five years (would have gone longer, but I quit) and sometimes proclaimed that I "didn't have dry skin" like I should for excema and how I should see a dermatologist to take care of it.  Anyway I had given up at this point.  I have a high dose steroid cream that I'm to use "as needed" which really means every day because I have never in ten years NOT had a patch somewhere. So this dermatitus herpetiformus sounded promising.  I looked it up.  It said that it typically appears in adults in their 20's for the first time and is the skin manifestation of Celiac's Disease (wheat intolerance).  I had some blood work done last year that was supposed to test for food allergies (I think the test was crap for several reasons one of which being that it didn't actually test for food allergies just food "reactions") that said I had a very high reaction to wheat.  The "doctor" that went over my results with me is a chiropractor that has some ideas that seem a little "off" to me so I didn't pay this much mind.  But then the wheat thing came up again and I really, really want my rash gone. So I thought I'd try it.  I haven't managed a day TOTALLY wheat free, but I've come pretty close and in just four days one of the worst patches is almost gone.  So I'm combining the exploration of a wheat free diet with this 12 wk challenge.

Yesterday I did pretty good.  I went over my calories, but I didn't eat too much junk and I did my exercise.  Today I ate pretty good "food" and did my zumba video for some cardio, but I had a chocolate attack and ended up eating 1108 calories of crap. Symphony Bar, Reese's, donuts, a marshmallow, mint chocolate chips, junior mints.  It wasn't pretty.  Annoyingly enough, if I had refrained from this indulgence, I would have been 300 calories under my goal.  I just re-read my posts from my attempt to give up sweets for lent  and was reminded that I tend to grab sweets when I'm hungry.  I think I'm craving chocolate, but really I just need to eat something.  So tomorrow my goal is to have healthy snacks ready to eat when I need them and not go too long between my mini-meals.  Today I was an hour past due for my first afternoon snack and I think that was the catalyst that started the chocolate frenzy.   So maybe I'll keep this blog updated for some kind of accountability and see how it goes.