Day 18

Another good day! Maybe not my best, but still wayyyyy better than where I've been. It was a crazy hectic day, so I decided to keep it simple--protein and fruit. While I probably didn't have the best balance today (no veggies...unless I could the celery in my chicken salad), it still was an in-control day. As soon as non-binge eating becomes a habit, I can focus more on what I'm actually eating to make sure I get the most nutrients for my body. Starting tomorrow I'm participating in a Biggest Loser competition with some friends. I would SO love to win (for the $$, and to prove to myself that I can do it!).

What I ate
Breakfast-Hard boiled egg on toast
Lunch- Chicken salad, nectarine, and a few bites of buttered egg noodles (I was SO craving something carb-y, so I had a few bites, then I decided I could come up with a better way to fix the craving).
Snack 1- Sweet potato
Dinner- Roast turkey
Snack 2- No sugar added ice cream (only 2 scoops!)

How I moved
Nothing formal today. Running around after kids, cleaning, mopping floors...but I have to get the real workouts in.

Day 17

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Day 16

It's been a GREAT two days. It's been easy. Of course that's the irony of writing yesterday about how difficult this is. Maybe the secret is taking it one day at a time, if I stack enough easy days together, this whole process will feel easy. Maybe. I'm looking forward to stepping on the scale in a few days.

What I ate
Breakfast- A few bites of cottage cheese, then I decided it wasn't doing it. So I switched to a hard boiled egg on a slice of whole wheat toast. Better.
Lunch- Chicken fajita and a delicious nectarine
Snack 1- Apple with peanut butter
Dinner- Beef stroganoff over cauliflower (instead of egg noodles...see, easy), and peas.
Snack 2- I didn't have it yet, but I'm thinking it will be a handful or two of nut/craisin trail mix.

How I moved
Not much. I'm letting the knee heal, but I did get up and about to do a lot of cleaning, straightening, and organizing. Tomorrow I'm going to try to do something that constitutes exercise.

Days 13, 14 & 15.

More of the same. More of not watching what I'm eating--probably more like eating with reckless abandon.

Today I recommit. It feels like Groundhog's Day. But I have two choices--keep trying to get healthy, or die. For me, the choice is obvious.

I don't have a role model in this. My mom was an amazing mom in all other areas of life--but she fought her own demons when it came to food. What I have is 30ish years of memories of a mom on one crash diet or another. What I know is that I will not--I can not--repeat that for my daughter. That much is clear. What I don't know is how. So, I keep trying. The saying goes: Insanity is doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results. Clearly, I'm insane. But I keep trying. And one day, trying will turn into doing, and then it will be easy.

Easy. In my mind this is so easy: Eat healthy foods, lose weight. I like healthy foods. I like feeling good. I like fitting in form fitting clothes. I even love working out.

But it's not easy, for me. Nope. For me this is very hard. It is hard because I don't want to have to think about what I eat. I want to be able to eat whatever I want and be thin. It's not so much that I want to be able to eat whatever I want--I want to be able to eat what I want if I want to eat it. And the fear of not being able to eat what I want to eat makes me want to eat it all the time. Does that even make sense? So now I put that out there. Hopefully I can move on from it. Hopefully now I can make better choices--the choices that will get me to my end goal.

So, I'm recommitted. I've had a good day so far. I'm off to the orthopedist to see what's going on with my knee. Tomorrow I'll get back to posting what I ate and how I moved.

Keep on keepin' on.

Days 11 & 12.

I'm not giving up, but I'm not on track. My knee is killing me, and to top it off I've had car problems and back to school stuff to run around and accomplish.

I have to find balance. I grew up with a mom who was on some-crash-diet-or-another for as long as I can remember. I don't want to be that mom, so I have to find balance. I don't know how, but I just have to.

I know what balance isn't.

It isn't eating a candy bar while waiting for my car to get fixed.

It isn't eating nothing when my whole family wants to go out to dinner where there are no healthy choices.

But what IS it?

Still searching....

Day 10

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Day 9

I'm dissapointed in my progress and tired of being fat. There, I said it. But still...I plug on. I have to tweak things to figure out what works. The hardest part is the I know it would be SO EASY to lose weight on a super restrictive or crash diet. I know it. If I give myself a rigid set of rules I will follow them. But I don't WANT to go that far. I want to find a way to get to a point where I just eat like a normal person, whatever normal means.

What I ate
Breakfast- Oatmeal
Snack 1- Vanilla Almond Luna Bar
Lunch- Pepperoni
Dinner-Omlette and a few bites of pancake
Snack 2- Sugar free ice cream (an actual serving size, not a whole big bowl!).

How I moved
I did Jillian Michaels kickboxing WITH my kids. It was a riot.

Day 8

Can it really be Day 8? Did I mix up days? Well anyway, today was a good day. Back on track, happy to be here.

What I ate
Breakfast- Oatmeal with banana and cashew butter
Snack 1- Pepperonis
Lunch- Egg salad with celery, strawberries dipped in cinnamon
Snack 2- Two chocolate dipped pineapple chunks
Dinner- Salmon and asparagus
Snack 3- Banana and apples dipped in hot peanut butter

How I moved
Bootcamp, 45 minutes of huffing and puffing, which included burpees, and I HATE burpees.

So...here is something I've learned, and I'm not sure what to do with this information. When I eat sweets, I want more sweets. Of course the obvious answer is to cut out sweets. But I don't want to cut out sweets. It is all about balance, but how to I find that balance? I don't know the answer yet, but I'll figure it out.

Days 4,5,6,7.

First the great news: I didn't fall off the face of the earth.
Now, the not-so-great news: I went away for a few days and did fall off my plan.

Life happens. We went away. I didn't do enough planning ahead of time, and I simply could not fly by the seat of my pants as well as I would have liked. But, its not all bad. In the middle of making some not-so-great choices, I made some much-better-for-me choices. I chose salad instead of fries. I ate sushi without gorging myself. I jumped in the bouncy houses with the kids instead of watching from the sidelines.

And I came back home with an even better support system because my husband is jumping back on the healthy lifestyle bandwagon, too!

So, I head into Day 8 with a renewed sense of determination and a stronger plan.

Day 3

Well, today was not the best food-wise. I just need to get that out there. We did a lot of running around and I did a lot of dealing with kids being kids--which is to say breaking up fights, calming tantrums, and holding a little girl that was demanding a lot of attention. So that's the bad news. The good news--I stepped on the scale out of curiosity and I'm down 3lbs already. I know, I know, I shouldn't get scale-happy (or scale-sad, for that matter), but I just wanted to know. I think it is relatively easy for me to lose weight at this point. I really think my body wants to shed these extra pounds. The tough part will be keeping it off and changing things up along the way as it gets harder and harder to make the scale budge.

What I ate
Breakfast- Bologna sandwich (I was packing a picnic lunch, ended up being short on bologna, so I made myself a sandwich, and packed something different for the kids. See, I said it was a weird day).
Lunch-Chicken salad, leftover potato salad
Snack 1- Luna bar
Dinner- Chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese YOWSA.
Snack 2- Crescent cinnamon bun

How I moved
I had two active periods today. First, I went geocaching with my three kids. Imagine this: It is 90 degrees out, you're 80ishlbs overweight, and you want to take three children on a hike of unknown distance to look for a hidden treasure so you put one in a hiking backpack on your back, and another one in an infant carrier on your front, and then you load up all of their gear (water bottles, diapers/wipes, snacks, bug spray)...and set off into the wilderness. That was me today and it was AWESOME. I felt so triumphant that we succeeded at this adventure--we found the treasure AND we had fun.  I also had a bootcamp class tonight. I was definitely a little more drained than normal, but I pushed myself as hard as I could. Then, due to a fiasco, we ended up picking up takeout for dinner. It was delicious, but the thought running through my head was I worked out WAY too hard to eat this bad. I had practically zero fruits and veggies today (meanwhile my kids ate a pint of blueberries, a pint of raspberries, 4 bananas, carrots, and celery)--and I felt it. Oh well, on to tomorrow. I have a big mom's group pot-luck so I volunteered to bring a salad to be sure I have something I can eat to stay on my plan.

Day 2

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Day 1

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What do I win!?!?

Rewards are important. I like winning things, and I'm motivated by treats. I spent a lot of time deciding whether to reward myself for the process (working out, eating healthy, sleeping) or the results (losing weight, getting in shape). My decision may not be the most popular, but for now I'm going to reward myself for the results--based on the pounds I lose. I made this decision because my ultimate goal is to lose weight, and even though I know the lifestyle changes are crucial, I want to keep my eyes on the ultimate prize. Doing so will force me to tweak my routine as needed to make sure I keep losing weight.

Without further ado, my prize scale:

10lbs lost-- Pedicure

20lbs lost-- New workout outfit

30lbs lost-- New every day outfit

40lbs lost-- Massage

50lbs lost-- Two new outfits

60lbs lost-- Night in hotel

70lbs lost-- Knee-high boots

80lbs lost-- New wardrobe

My tootsie toes are looking forward to that pedicure in a few weeks!!!

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALs!!!!

Everybody needs goals. I think it's a good idea to have both short term and long term goals. I'm posting some of each here to use as motivation and to track my progress. Of course, what's a goal without a reward? Besides, of course, the satisfaction that comes with meeting a goal, I'm going to reward myself at each milestone.

Overall goals:
(1) Get exercise at least 5 days a week. I love classes. I like working out to music, and I like challenging myself to beat other people at fitness contests. Classes give me both of these. Plus, since I pay in advance I feel a sense of obligation to attend. I've signed up for three days of classes (two bootcamp-style workouts, one stroller workout), and one session with a trainer each week. That takes care of four workouts; the fifth is on me. I plan to do a Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred  or Jillian Michaels Kickboxing tape, or do a run/walk at least one day a week.

(2) Eat a balanced diet. This is about my health, above all else. I am a mom to three beautiful children, and I will not raise them in a house filled with food issues. I want to retrain myself to eat when I'm hungry, enjoy what I'm eating, and focus on nutritious foods that taste as good as they make me feel. Nothing is off limits. In the early days I will be extra careful and focus on three meals and two or three snacks each day. I know that I can get myself into a carbohydrate rut, so I also want to focus on making sure I get some protein with every meal and snack. To do this I need to cook just about every day. I need to cook enough food to have leftovers that I can pack for lunches on the go. I need to plan and grocery shop for all my meals and snacks, not just dinners, so I have no reason to 'run out and grab something.'

(3) Sleep. I know, I have three children under four years old. Don't laugh at this goal. I'm a natural night owl living in a house full of natural morning people. But I've learned that when I'm sleep deprived, I make a lot of other bad choices like skipping workouts and grabbing fast food. So, sleep, I must, and I will. I'm going to aim to be in bed by 10pm, so I can read a bit before (hopefully) falling to sleep. When I succeed, I can get a full 8 hours of sleep, and I know that will help me meet my other goals.

Looking at these goals on paper...it seems pretty clear-cut and simple. I can do this!

Welcome to the MILF Project!!!

Welcome to the MILF project!!! Here, you can read about my journey to MILF status.

You may be asking yourself: What IS a MILF? Well, there are two meanings. The better known meaning is a bit crude: Mom I'd Like to F^&*. The lesser known meaning is: Mom In Love with Fitness.

I strive to become both. I'm doing this for my sake, for my husband's sake, and for the sake of my three beautiful children.

You may also be asking yourself why I'm putting this out there for the world to read? Simple: I know I'm not alone. I can use as much support as I can find. I would like to be a support to others on the same journey. I'm open to tips, tricks, and suggestions. And, I hope other MILFs-to-be can pick up some tips from me along the way.

How did I get here? Six years ago I was in the best shape of my life. I was a gym rat. I loved intense daily workouts. My health was my priority, and I made the necessary time and effort to keep myself in shape. It wasn't about my appearance; but squeezing into form-fitting clothes was a nice by-product. Then I began working as a litigation attorney and I got married. Quickly my husband and my career became bigger priorities. Workouts fell by the wayside, and I got into the (bad) habit of picking up whatever to eat whenever. Then I had 3 babies in 3 years. I never bounced back between pregnancies, and the pregnancy weight compounded. And now I'm here.

My exact weight doesn't matter. I know what it is, but I don't see the value in sharing that with the world. I have to start somewhere, and what does matter is where I go from here.

I plan to use this blog to document my journey. Each day I'll post what I ate, what I did to move, and my thoughts. I'll keep you posted on my progress, and ask you for help when I hit plateaus. I hope this will be a rewarding journey for all of us.