We’re All A Little Mad Here-

So two weeks ago I started the Insanity Program. Just in case you do not know the Insanity workout is hosted by Shaun T. and he is evil. However the workout is sound and I know some people that have had some really amazing results with it so I decided to give it a go and up the ante on my workouts. Well actually anything would be upping the ante as I haven’t had a proper workout since before the wedding and trust me the scale let me know. Anyhow I love cardio and I like it when a workout feels like a workout and I want the suffering to be short and sweet. Thirty to forty minutes isn’t much to give really…unless it is the last hour of a work day before an extended holiday weekend in which case it is an eternity. So Insanity won me over in the fact that it would be short, intense, and I would not need anything but my own person to accomplish the task. 

Today was The Fit Test second go around, and all I have to say is…ouch. I did okay by my own personal standards and was sweating buckets by the end of the 26 minutes. It was beyond intense but did give me a good measure of where I am and some serious hopes for where I might be in sixty days. I snapped a shot post workout just to give you an idea of how awesomely awful it was! 

Yes that is mascara running down my face, I workout after work and had no idea that I would sweat to the point that my whole face would go running down my cheeks. But I’m kind of proud of it too…I mean no one can deny that I worked my butt off! Now the plan is to stick with this program for the next sixty days, I don’t plan on each blog post being a recap of my workout during that time, as that would most likely get pretty tedious, but I do want to occasionally check in and maybe even do a before and after type thing once the whole thing is said and done…or progress pictures as I go along…it all depends on what I actually remember to do!  

Hotter Than Hades

The Post title is a phrase my mom has adapted for this scorching heat! I’ve been dealing with the heat just like everyone else lately…by hiding inside and watching movies and/or reading blogs! I do not deal with the heat well. I would be perfectly happy in sweaters and jeans for the rest of eternity with crisp fall air or even nice fluffy snow. I love the cold. My parents keep it 62 degrees in the house and that used to suit me just fine. 

 

Now living with my husband and paying my our own utility bills we keep it at about 70ish….or at least we had been trying to. We had noticed that it wasn’t very cool in the house lately but dismissed it as just the way it is when the heat is at over 100. However yesterday it became crystal clear that it was too hot in the house. We were sitting around doing nothing and yet sweating. TOO HOT. Also the electric bill came the other day and it was outrageous. We knew it would be high, but this was ridiculous. 

 

So my husband called the landlord to have him come fix the A/C, and hopefully that will actually happen…I have my own opinions about things getting fixed around our place but I will keep them to myself…Anyhow. My husband suggested just turning the unit off until we got it fixed and using fans to keep cool. Um…ick. I slept with an ice pack last night kids. Literally I had an ice pack curled up with me as I lay in bed watching the hours tick by in the miserable sticky hot. I did not complain however since I knew that the dear husband couldn’t do anything about the weather, but trust me I was not a happy camper and continued to be an unhappy one as I got ready for work this morning. Getting dressed in work slacks and trying to put on makeup when the humidity is pressing down on you is overwhelming. However I sucked it up and got to work, thankful that I am now on 8 hour days again or I would never have made it out in time!

The Scary Hour

There is one hour of my day that is the most difficult hour to get through. It’s the hour after I get home from work. This hour is usually the time when all the good things I’ve done through the day, the eating well, the focusing on my goals, the keeping it together, everything just falls apart. I suddenly feel the urge to eat anything and everything in the house and I get frustrated when I have purposefully not stocked the house with “snack” items. There are no cookies in the pantry, no pint of ice cream in my freezer, no chips; there is very little junk food in my house. I do this on purpose because I know what will happen if those things are there. I will binge eat them and I won’t register that I am full until half the contents are gone and then I am sick and have gone way over my calorie limit. 

I used to think this was just weakness on my part. I just couldn’t handle eating well, I couldn’t keep myself away from these foods, the foods were stronger than I. I felt like a failure. The being constantly hungry the minute that I walk in the door felt like the end of the world. I couldn’t control it and when I would fight off the urge I would just beat myself up for being so weak. Even without the junk food I was still falling into a trap…and an unhealthy one at that. 

So finally, finally, finally, last week a thought came to me. Well why do I feel like this in the first place? What am I not dealing with??

Well there’s an eye opener. Could it be that I was eating emotionally? Was there something that triggered the sudden need for comfort in food? (Food has been my go to for comfort for a long time, something I am still working on) What was I avoiding, what didn’t I want to feel? 

Well I came up with some answers that surprised me, and thankfully I do have some solutions in mind!

1)      I am currently on ten hour days and am exhausted by the time I get home and more than a little hungry (like actually hungry): Solution: Put a mid afternoon snack in at about 3pm. I am good about a mid morning snack but the afternoons are busy and I forget, I need to stop forgetting! 

2)      I am overwhelmed by the clutter on my dining room table- I didn’t even really think about this until my subconscious decided to clue me in. My husband uses the dining room table for work two days a week and it is also the catch all for mail and other random papers that seem to be reproducing like bunnies in our home. It stresses me out to see a mess the minute I walk in the door and I want to purge things desperately but I cannot get rid of his important work stuff which unfortunately I don’t know what qualifies as important or not. Solution: Filing station, I am going to get a set of file holders and put them up in the dining room and ask my husband ever so nicely if he will keep up with them, or else I will just start putting anything that isn’t mine into box for him. Also I will use the mail divider that we received for our wedding for bills and important documents. I will also get all my stuff divided out and labeled. 

3)      Lack of planning- I literally never know what we are having for dinner. I am terrible at meal planning and I loathe it when the first question I hear is “What do you want for dinner?” Solution: Stop complaining and sit down and actually meal plan. I may not like to do it and I may not be that great at it, but like doing a budget it is something that is crucial to a happy home.

Now that I have identified some of my triggers and actually have solutions planned I hope that the scary hour will turn out to be a lot less scary. Also I have started working out right after work in order to get that last little bit of energy I have going so that once I shower I am done and can feel completely content with just doing a few little chores, eating dinner, and then relaxing the rest of my evening. This will turn all those negative thoughts away because all I will think about is how awesome it was that I worked out and how much stronger I will get if I keep going. Gotta turn those negatives to positives! I will not hate my body; I will not punish it or myself. I will be thankful that each day it does what I ask it to without complaint. I am only human and I will make mistakes, but as long as I am trying then I have a reason to be proud.

New Blog; New Start

A new blog! Well now that things in my life are finally starting to settle into a routine I can finally get back to blogging again! My first post is just going to be a quick one about the name of the blog and then more posts to follow! I have been writing posts like crazy lately and no blog ready for me to post them! So here is the new blog and now I will get busy posting!

Chaos- Ah chaos, Glorious Chaos! (insert wicked cackle here) My life is made up of a lot of chaos. Most of it just the everyday sort of living mess that happens to us all and sometimes it is on a much grander scale if only in my own personal imagination. I am currently working on cutting down on the chaos in my life that I can control (i.e. clutter) and learning to roll along with the ones that I cannot. As a newlywed trying to fit my life into part of another person’s life, there is a lot of chaos going on. The joining of two lives has created quite a little mess in our new shared home. Also living with someone who is not an immediate family member can get slightly flustering at times. We all have particulars and pet peeves, the trick is learning to balance them so we can get on with it and get to the good stuff. (That’s the Comfort and Cocoa bit) Chaos can be overwhelming but it can also be a blessing, for without the chaos, how would we ever find new things to add to the comfort pile?

Cocoa- is quite possibly one of the best things ever. It can soothe aches and pains or it can be a welcome companion on a new adventure through a fantastic book. Also there is very little that chocolate cannot cure, I have done extensive research on this subject, trust me. Also for a time when I was younger my mother could not get me to eat anything except cocoa. She tells me that I would look up at her and simply say, “Cocoa Momma!” all the time. I even liked to eat the little granules, minus the warm milk to make it into actual cocoa. Now I don’t do this any longer but I can tell you this…cocoa is divine in any form…but always better with milk. Much like life I think.