Back on Earth

I feel like I've dropped off the face of the earth on this blog. But I'm back! Life has gone crazy with my family, and the only time I have to write is during my kids rest time and I've been joining them.

ANYWAY...Time to report. I've been doing great with my running, I'm actually going to bump up to the next step on couch to 5K tomorrow's run! I haven't been able to run 3 times a week for the last couple of weeks, because we've been out of town or doing activities, but I've been running every Tuesday and Thursday even when I really didn't want to and I've never regretted running; I'm actually glad that I did!

I've also started doing a Parent-Tot class at the pool with my two youngest while my oldest does swimming lessons! So I'm getting a little more exercise!

I love to swim, so It's been nice getting back in the water.

On the flip side, eating hasn't been that great. Actually to be completely honest, I've been really bad.... We went camping last weekend and I ate at least three cookies and didn't drink hardly any water. My food portions are awful during dinner AND I go back for seconds. When I'm home I will try to have a good lunch and I usually will have a water with me. What's been worse is, we found some chocolate bars from camping and I've had a lot of chocolate after 8... BUT I'm starting over again! I have some big life events coming up that will be announced at a later time, so I have to get control of my food habits now or I'm afraid I won't ever get control, especially after said event.

Plan:

Drink 1/2 my weight in oz. of water READ THIS!!!

NO EATING AFTER 8!!!

If I get the munchies, drink a whole glass of water and grab gum.

When camping, be apart of menu planning and bring healthy snacks.

Start with 1 cheat day every two weeks

Pre-make snacks on Sundays

Try Turkey Burger

My friend has this awesome blog that I love! She's made so many changes in her life and she does it without her husband and kids eating the same as her. http://www.livylove.com/ tells her story of her weight loss and she has some great tips on how she did it. I look at her story and know I can do this! Wish me luck!

Extra Info:

 People keep asking me what muscle I damaged in my back and I couldn't remember the name, and for good reason, it's a hard one! It's the Thoracolumbar Fascia. Basically it's a three layer muscle that connects to everything. So now I have to do extra stretches to help loosen it before my runs (which I still have to take slow... I'm running 1 minute and walking 1.5 for 1.3 miles). I've found some new stretches that I used to do in dance class and they work really well!

 These pictures aren't the best, but I was working with my computer camera and timer, so I did my best.

This stretch is a swastika stretch. It is the best stretch for my injury, it works the inside of my legs, my gluts, and lower back. 

I shift around and find the tight spots on my body.

I make sure I sink my belly button to my spine and use my abs instead of using my arms for support,

then pull my leg to the side to stretch the inside tendon.

After bringing my legs to my chest I stretch them out to a forty five degree angle, again couldn't make it work with the camera timer.

This is a good stretch for my shins and arches. I get shin splints and cramps in my arches really easy (I know, "This girl has issues!").

I never knew how stupid this looks, but it's really good for stretching my sides and lower back.

Again I sink my belly button to my spine, cross my ankles, and pump my arms. All sorts of muscles get worked here.

One last stretch before my run.

I cut in some random stretches changing it up every time I run, but these are the basic stretches that I do every time.

I love this Quote

And The Answer Is....

New Mommy-itis!!! (AKA Minor Muscle Damage)

Saturday I was finally able to go into a family friend Massage Therapist and have her look at my back. I showed her where the pain was coming from and she knew exactly what was going on! She even described some of the other random pains I would have too.  She pulled out a muscle chart and showed me a little tiny muscle that connects to basically every muscle in the torso and the buttocks. Lucky me, I messed mine up, so it makes everything hurt. She says she sees it a lot in moms with lots of young kids, with all the putting in carseats, high chairs, twisting, being pulled in every direction, ect. The bad news is, the pain won't totally go away until I'm done with picking up kids and let the muscles heal. And that's not going to happen for a while.

The big thing that will help me not to make the damage worse is to start rebuilding my core muscles. I was so relieved it wasn't, you can't do any exercise! So I'm going to start going back to my dance warm ups and building up the tummy I used to have before my babies. I will do this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday when Jon does his runs. I might try to convince him to take pictures of me doing the core exercise, so I won't be pulling so many pictures off the internet. And it'll help me see my progress.

 I'm going to be starting running tonight (Last post when I said I was going to do it, I had a major pain attack and couldn't even stand...), take it slow so I don't put too much stress on the muscles.

 I was taught some stretches that will help:

The Frog leg stretch helps basically everywhere. When I first did it, I realized how much flexibility I have lost since my dance classes. And I wasn't that flexible to begin with. Anyway... I felt it everywhere and it was wonderful!!!

Swing Stretch is grabbing my knees and slowly lowering my legs to one side and then the other with my shoulders still flat on the ground. When I feel the pull on the knots, pause and stretch it out and then move on. I struggle to not roll over, but it'll come with my core muscles.

The basic lunge. I honestly don't know why I didn't think of this before my appointment, but this helps the most out of all of them.

In addition to these stretches I need to ice and hot pad my back as soon as I feel the twing coming. 

Another tip she gave me was to get a massage during my next pregnancy to make sure my muscles are moving to where they need to be and get one six weeks after the birth. I wish I had know this with my other pregnancies, especially with how close I had our three kids.

I'm so ready to get life back in gear and slowly taking care of this problem while getting fit.

Food Portions

I was skimming through Pintrest and found this! I love it, because I'm always looking at portions and not wanting to measure out everything in a cup. How do you measure a chicken breast in a cup anyways? What I love about this, is it even shows servings for icecream. Perfect!!!


Just an update on my back. Still hurts, but not as bad. I'm actually going to try to go running tonight and see how far I can go, before the pain kicks in.

And just with trying to control my food intake, I've lost 8 lbs this week!!! YAY!

Update.

Running Schedule is still on a standstill... So far I've had a CT Scan, MRI, Blood Tests, and Urine Cultures, all coming back normal. So the good news is, I don't have something really bad that needs immediate surgery or hard core medicine! The bad news is, I have been referred to Doc #3 and I won't be able to see him until May 16th... 

I'm going to try an experiment and go to a friend who is a massage therapist and see if it's just a pinched nerve or a really bad knot in my back. I'm hoping that this is the case, so I don't have to go see another doctor, I'm really sick of doctors... Don't get me wrong, I feel so blessed to live in a time with so much medical knowledge, but I am tired of them telling me everything is coming back normal. 

In case you didn't know, I'm super inpatient.

Wish me luck!!!

Stuck Again...

Our family has been sick again... And my pain has come back.

Running hasn't been happening...