It's harder to set goals than I realized

I was so grumpy today. Well, not all day...I was so grumpy this morning. Having a newborn is tough. Having a newborn that still sometimes gets up 4-6 times per night is really tough. So today I complained about it. I mean, I get it. Babies can't sleep long periods of time. But last night, Charlie went to bed at 8, was up at 11 (fine), 12:30 (not a good one), 2:30 (fine), 4:30 (fine), 5:30 (not so fine), and at 6 we just got up. When he's up every 1.5-2 hours, I'm usually getting less than an hour in between. It SUCKS, especially because right now I'm not even sleeping well when I should be sleeping. But I assure you, I totally get it.  I know it gets better and (supposedly) I know I'll look back on this time and miss it... But it still just SUCKS. However, even with the lack of sleep that both of us got last night, Charlie spent the majority of the day in a great mood and took a couple good naps. We even took a good long walk with our neighbor friends Niki and Julia, which put me in a much better mood! :)

I wanted to outline my goals, my diet plan, and my workout routine in this post...but that's totally not going to happen.  It is hard enough for me to figure out what my actual goals are and outline them. I have all these jumbled goals in my head and I guess now it's time for me to sort them out. AHH! I just don't know where to start. I want to eat right. I want to work out. I want to feel better. I want to have fun. I want to be happy. I want to be a good wife and mother. I want to be healthier. I'm greedy.  I want so MUCH!

Ok, I'm going to start with life changes first, but maybe just a couple because I want to make sure I am focused on changing my life and making myself, my husband, and my son happy and healthy people.  I don't want the focus to be on how much weight I am losing, even though I am looking forward to that as an added benefit of being a happier and healthier family. I'm going to view this journey as ever-changing, so with the changing of our lives, hopefully my goals for my family and life will also be ever-changing.

Here goes...

Lifestyle goals:

Goal 1: Be a part of a church family
Short term:  I want to start going to church regularly again. I miss my church family and love them.
Long term: I would like to begin looking for a church where there are other young people who are in the same place in life as Chris and me, which is kind of not happening at our church right now  .

Goal 2: Be active and happy as a family
Short term: I want to plan one fun family activity per month.
Long term: I would love for us to spend at least one day/week being active as a family.

Goal 3: Be confident in my abilities as a mother and wife...
I'm not sure yet on this one....

Goal 4: Spend quality time with my husband and with myself (alone)
Short term: Plan small dates out with the hubs (baby-free) every other week or every week.
Short term: Spend one evening out alone per week
Long term: Maybe take a weekend trip away? That's probably really long term.

That was easy enough. NEXT!

Workout goals:

Goal 1: TRY to workout, in some way, every day...seven days/week.
Short term: Walk and/or go to the gym. Easy enough. Just do it. I need to do it and so do my dogs.
Long term: Walk, gym, and/or P90x it. Yikes.
Short term: Start running at some point soon...eww...
Long term: Run a 5k in October. Double EWW.

Goal 2: Find a workout friend who is at a similar physical level.

I would love to hear about some other workout goals from other people too.

So how about some weight loss goals?

Goal 1: Lose 75-90 pounds. Oh man, that's a lot, but I'm being honest...even if it is mortifying. It's going to take a long time to lose that much and lost it in a healthy way, so I'm going to break it up into smaller chunks with a date.
Short term: It's July now, so I'd like to lose about 10 pounds before I go back to school. I have a few weeks.
Short term: By Thanksgiving, I would like to have lost 20 pounds total...totally possible.
Short term: By New Years day, I would like to have lost 25 pounds total, hopefully making up for the inevitable mess I'll make of myself at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Short term: By April 7, which is the wedding day of one of my best friends on the Earth, I would like to have lost 40 pounds. This one might be pushing it.
Short term: By June 15, about the time we'll be going on vacation next year, I would like to have lost 50 pounds total.

I'm going to leave this one here, in case I have to readjust the numbers.

Lastly, Eating goals:

1. Eat healthy foods.
2. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables and meat.
3. Don't become obsessed and super restrictive.
4. Give in to temptation some times.
Those seem silly and really obvious, don't they? Hmm...maybe I'll work on them.

While I was pregnant with Charlie, I had gestational diabetes. I was able to almost completely control the diabetes through my diet after taking a class at the Mission Hospital Diabetes Clinic. I learned how many carbohydrates I could eat at each meal and each snack, how often I needed to eat to keep my blood sugar regulated, and what foods to pair with carbohydrates to get the most out of what I was eating.  I HATED it...mostly because my only pregnancy cravings were chocolate and fruit, both of which have lots of carbohydrates. I had fruit often, usually every day, but not much and I had to count it toward my totals. I had chocolate VERY rarely. I was very dedicated to keeping myself and my sweet baby healthy through my diet. Unfortunately, all of that went out the door after he was born and I stuffed my face full of carbohydrates in the form of chocolate, candy (Swedish fish...mmmm), bread, pasta, and soda. YIKES. The good things about the diabetic diet though, is that it is super sensable, it is not super restrictive, and it totally focuses on healthy eating habits that pretty much everyone everywhere should be doing anyways. That's why I'll be going back to this healthy eating plan.

Here were my carbohydrate totals.

Breakfast: 15-20 carbs (no fruit) paired with protein
Snack: 15-30 carbs (no fruit) paired with protein
Lunch: 45-60 carbs paired with protein
Snack: 15-30 carbs paired with protein
Snack: 15-30 carbs paired with protein
Dinner: 45-60 carbs paired with protein
Snack: 20-30 carbs paired with protein

Veggies count as very little, almost nothing, so I didn't usually count them towards my carbohydrate totals.

So a day of meals and snacks for me would look like this:
Breakfast: 1 piece whole grain toast (18 carbs), OR a high fiber, low cal, whole grain English muffin, 2 eggs, cheese
I didn't have a morning snack b/c we eat lunch so early in kindergarten.
Lunch: Peanut butter sandwich and 1/2 banana (15 carbs) and carrots
Snack: 1 medium apple (15 carbs) with peanut butter
Snack: 8 crackers (20 carbs) 4 slices cheddar cheese
Dinner: Chicken, 1/2 potato (30 carbs), broccoli with cheese, and 1/2 cup strawberries (15 carbs)
Snack: greek yogurt and spoonful of peanut butter

Now, I'll just have to find a way to fit ice cream in there...and we'll be golden.