Halfway!!!!

Yay for being half-way!  Today was Day 15.  I decided to start the day off early by loading the kids up in the stroller and walking the 1.1 mile distance to the Community Center for Creative Play Time.  CPT is basically just a couple of hours each morning, M-Th, when the Community Center opens up a couple of rooms full of toys, art projects, and whatever, for parents to bring their kids in to play.  So, the kids got to play for a couple of hours.  We followed playtime with a stop at the library, a walk in front of the Elementary School so Lily could see what a school looks like (I'm still trying to find a motivation that will work for potty-training-she's stubborn like her daddy!), and then we walked through our neighborhood a bit.  To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how far we walked today, but I'm guessing it's just over 3 miles total.  I was actually a little sore when I got home!  But, it was a good sore, so no complaints!

Oh, I can't tell you how excited I am that so many of you are joining me for the next 15 days!  It makes me so happy!  Seriously, you can't imagine how much the last 15 days have changed me and how much happier and healthier I've felt!  I'm actually excited to get going on our walk each day, instead of having to force myself to go.  I can run up and down our stairs in our house without getting winded now!  I can run after Leo without losing my breath and collapsing at the end of the day!  It's kind of funny....people talk about how much work it is to lose weight and they fight and battle it so much.  And eventually, they give up.  But here I am, with no desire to know what number would pop up on the scale at the moment and the "work" is becoming fun and exciting.  It's something I feel good doing instead of cursing and crying over!  Don't get me wrong, at the end of the 30 days, I'll definitely be interested in knowing what number pops up on the scale.  But until then, I don't want to know.  I want to just concentrate on how much better I'm feeling, how much happier and energetic I am.  I'm so happy that you're all going to share the rest of the journey with me and will get to feel all of that too!

I need to head to bed a bit early tonight.  We have plans for a playdate tomorrow morning, bright and early.  We're meeting a mom and her little girl at Lake Calhoun for a walk around the lake.  The only problem I've had with walking lately (including the blisters that popped, but were so tiny that they haven't even caused me pain) is that Leo gets a bit fussy.  I think he gets cold, but he refuses to keep his hoodie up.  So, I've crocheted him a hat very quickly tonight and plan to strap the thing onto his head!  Until then, I think I'll go cuddle up to him and get some rest!

Getting down and dirty...

I'm hanging my head in shame over the picture I'm about to post.  But I'm posting it anyway.  Because there's something that I think people need to understand (Heidi and Wendy, I'm talking to you-and quite a few others too!).  So, here it is, my living room on Day 14 of my challenge:

Notice the toys scattered everywhere?  The yarn piled on the couch?  The sippy cup in the middle of the floor?  The unvacuumed carpet?  The general chaos?  Yup, figured you would.  My house is NEVER like this!  I hate that I'm sharing this and if someone asked to stop by my home right now, I'd make excuses and bar them from coming in!  Not how I usually am.  I'm usually one to welcome others with open arms, throw the door wide, and offer them refreshments while they sit down and relax in my cozy little home.  Want to know my point in sharing this?  Notice that not once during the last 14 days have I said that I couldn't go for a walk because the house was dirty and needed to be cleaned?  The housework is on hold until my walk is over.  Now that is a huge change for me!  Housework used to be one of my many excuses for not exercising. "Sorry, honey, can't go to the gym tonight.  The laundry needs to be done."  Or the dishes, or the vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, dusting.  You pick, I've used them all.  During my challenge, I'm learning to put my own body's needs first.  Because you know what the reality is?  The house is not going to have a heart attack if I don't pick it up every day and vacuum the floors every time they get dirty.  My body, on the other hand, just might have a heart attack if I don't give it exercise and treat it better.  It's as black-and-white as that.  A dirty house may not be something to be proud of, but it's not nearly as bad as poor physical health.  Your kids will not remember that your floor was steam-cleaned daily, that everything had its place.  They will remember if you took them on walks everyday and taught them to love nature and the beauty they could find outside their front door.

Tomorrow is my half-way point!  Reaching this point has inspired me to ask a question of all of you.....who wants to finish the challenge with me?  15 days of activity.  It doesn't have to be anything big.  Heck, I'll be happy if you all put your brooms down and walk around the block just once each day!  If you want to walk around the block 10 times, even better for you!  I promise you, if you do join me in the last 15 days of my challenge, you won't regret it!

Day Thirteen!

It is absolutely amazing how much can change in such a short time!  First, let me tell you this....I've never understood people who run.  The ones who actually enjoy running, who think it's fun.  Seriously?  How could anyone think running was fun?  Why would they think it was fun?  But....I think I'm starting to get it.  I'm not up to running yet.  Just walking.  But I'm starting to understand how people can get really into exercising.  I'm starting to enjoy it!  Don't get me wrong, it's still hard to get myself going sometimes.  Especially when it follows a night like tonight, when I'm stuck waiting up until 11:30 for a blood sugar check for Lily (lots of plummeting at night lately!).  Tomorrow is going to be tough.  But, once I get going on a walk with the kids, I start getting excited.  I start to feel better, my muscles loosen up, the soreness all melts away.  In fact, there have been a few days where I've actually intended to "take it a little easier".  Day 10, for example.  There's a free zoo not too far from our home.  Just down the road from the zoo is a small lake.  Lake Como has a walking path that works out to be 1.67 miles all the way around.  I decided that I didn't feel like doing the walk around Lake Calhoun (3.2 miles) and the kids had been so phenomenal on my walks that they deserved a treat.  So, I packed the kids off and we drove off to Como Zoo:

They had a blast!  Leo loves monkeys.  And big cats.  He "oh oh"ed and "roar"ed at the animals.  Lily very animatedly told me about all the things the animals were doing and everything she could see.  She was a bit stumped in coming up with an explanation for this one though:

Yeah, that's what I thought too....Only a mother, right?  Anyway, after they were done looking at the zoo, we went over to Lake Como for our walk.  I bought them ice cream cones to keep them occupied and then planned to do one lap around the lake, 1.67 miles.  I was sore and meant to take it a little easier, remember?  So, I walked.  I got about 3/4 of the way around the lake and decided, you know, rather than finishing the 1.67 miles, I'd turn around and go back the 3/4 of the way that I'd just walked.  So, instead of walking just 1.67 miles, I walked 1.5x that!  Before starting this challenge, I never, and I mean NEVER, would have chosen to make things harder for myself or do more than I had intended to do.  And would you believe, when I was finished with the walk around the lake, I decided that there was no hurry to get home and I might as well walk up the path into the hill so the kids and I could take in this view:

My way of thinking is definitely changing.  Instead of taking the easy way, I'm challenging myself more, I'm pushing myself.  Perfect example: My wonderful husband bought me a new pair of running shoes yesterday.  I was so excited about them that I decided to wear them on my walk today.  Totally forgot about breaking the darn things in.  I have blisters on my heels to show for it.  But you know what?  I have no intention of letting that stop me from walking tomorrow!  It would have stopped me before.  Now, I'm planning on padding my heels with some fantastic bandaids, strapping my old shoes on my feet, and walking just as much as I have been!  I think I'm afraid that if I take it easy, I'll revert back to my old behaviors and habits.  So, I'll just keep going and challenging myself until I'm not afraid anymore, until I know there's no way I'll ever revert back!

Oh, and almost forgot...pictures of Como Lake:

Little side-fact...when I was little, I wanted to get married in that pavilion!  It's gorgeous!  I wish I would have taken some pictures of the houses around the lake though.  Victorian, old, and beautiful!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Pure honesty here....I'm not entirely sure why any of you bother to read any of what I write!  Really, I don't think I'm that interesting of a person and I'm pretty sure I'm not saying anything profound.  But I appreciate all of you reading and leaving me such encouraging and positive comments!  You can't imagine how much your comments mean to me!

A quick warning.....this post isn't going to be pretty.  In fact, I think if people take what I have to say tonight in a certain way, they could be down-right offended.  Please understand that I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but I do wish to be brutally honest with this post tonight.  I'm hoping that by sharing my own little epiphany, maybe others will have one of their own.

Here's what I want to tell you tonight: The absolute greatest injustice my mother has done to me was done by modeling for me the lifestyle that she did.  I'm not blaming my mom for the lifestyle I've led.  Ultimately, I know it's been my choice to live the way I have.  Just as it was my choice to not be the type of parent that my parents modeled for me.  My mom was a stay-home mom when I was little.  Her afternoons were spent watching soap operas.  Our mornings were spent watching Sesame Street.  She didn't clean house much, but she did prepare a complete from-scratch dinner every night.  She had a secret stash of treats for herself that we weren't allowed to eat.  I remember that whenever we went to the store, we stopped at Hardee's (the ONLY fast-food in town) for lunch.  For as long as I can remember, my mom has complained about her weight, held-off on buying new clothing, signed up for every fad diet that came out, worn clothing that was too small and too tight and uncomfortable just to avoid going up a size.  But never, not once, did she take on an exercise program.  This is the lifestyle she taught my siblings and me.

Here's my epiphany:  Every behavior, every habit, every attitude we display is something we are modeling for our children.  Our children look to us to know how to act, how to respond, how to live.  They learn how to eat, how to exercise, how to be kind or how to be rude.  All from us.  And here I was, teaching my children the exact same lifestyle that my mom taught me.  When that realization came to me, I cried.  I sobbed.  I DO NOT WANT MY CHILDREN TO LIVE LIKE I HAVE BEEN!  I don't want them to learn how to sit down and watch tv for hours.  I don't want them to learn how to stock their cupboards with things that should be for occasional indulgences only.  I don't want them to learn to eat out of boredom and stress.  I don't want them to learn to sit on their rear-ends all day long without ever straining their bodies, challenging themselves, or just taking the time to treat their bodies as they should be treated.

Realizing that has changed me.  That's why this is no longer about losing weight.  My 30-day challenge is about creating a new habit, building a new life, being a better model for my children.  The absolute worst thing I could do to my children is to teach them to live the kind of life that I've been living.  Knowing that is a powerful motivator.  Knowing that is making me challenge myself to create new habits, break old ones, and be a healthier person.  Because when it comes down to it, I don't want to look in my child's eyes and see the unhappiness, guilt, and pain that I've seen in my own eyes.

That is as honest as it gets!

Reflections....

Today was Day 11!  Eleven straight days of walking, 2 or more miles every. single. day!  I've been avoiding telling my family about my new venture.  I finally cracked and told my mom that I'd been walking every day for a couple of miles each day yesterday.  Oh, did that remind me of why I was trying to not mention anything!  I love my mom.  Really, I do.  But sometimes, I don't like her very much.  Please don't think badly of me for that one!  I really do love her.  But as I've gotten older and become a mother myself, it's opened my eyes to a great many things.  You see, almost everything in life is a competition for my mom.  Not because she's competitive, but because she sees what other people have, what other people do, and wants to measure up to them.  She can be very hard to please.  She's on her third marriage now and has a tendency to complain about her husband quite a bit.  Which makes me very sad.  No person is perfect and I expect her husband isn't anywhere near perfect either.  But neither is she.  And he absolutely adores her!  That should count for a great deal.  So...my mom's response to me walking for 10 days...."have you lost any weight?"  It's only been 10 days and to be honest with you, I don't want to step anywhere near a scale just yet!  I knew before I told her what she would say.  I'm not surprised by it.  But, I am a bit disappointed.  Isn't it funny how no matter what age we are, we still look for our parent's approval?

I want to share something with you tonight.  My life in weight.  You see, I never intended to weight what I currently weigh.  I never would have imagined that I would be the size that I am.  You're all curious what my weight is, aren't you?  Two hundred and fifty-eight pounds.  It's less intimidating to write it out that way than to put a 2 followed by a 5, closely followed by an 8.  It's a scary number!  So here's the cliff-notes-version of how I got to where I am...

I was 9 lbs even at birth.  From that moment on, I was always on the smaller side.  I barely registered on the growth charts.  My mom often called me "Skinny Minnie" growing up.  Common nickname, I know.  I HATED it!  I was always the skinniest kid in class, one of the smallest girls.  I was diagnosed with diabetes 3 months before my tenth birthday.  I weighed 45 lbs at diagnosis (I'd lost 9 lbs in the process of getting sick with diabetes, so my weight at the time was 54 lbs).  At 14, I weighed just under 100.  At 15, I was 110.  I was thin and a perfect size 6.

I'm the one on the end, in the blue and green coat.  You want to know something though?  I hated being that size!  Not so much because of the size though.  This violates every ounce of humility and modesty that I have, but....I hated being that size because of the attention it got me.  I was the quiet kid.  The shy one.  I was probably every teacher's worst fear come to life when I was little.  I was so incredibly, painfully shy that if the teacher spoke my name or called on me in class, I turned bright red and clammed up.  So you can just imagine how well it went over when one of my sister's boyfriend's friends (who happened to be over 21) told me that he thought I was gorgeous and going to be a heartbreaker.  Or when boys in school would make cat-calls down the hallways or try to snap my bra.  It was painful for me.  And then, a year later, at 16, it all stopped.  Puberty hit.  My metabolism came to a screeching halt.  I weighed in at 145.  Not a huge amount just yet though.  The next year, I was up another 15 pounds.  I walked my high school graduation weighing 176.  Off to college I went.  I only managed to last for a semester during my first attempt.  I put on the Freshman 15 plus an extra 10.  I was 19 and weighed 200 pounds.  And I stupidly resorted to the worst thing a diabetic can ever do to themselves....I manipulated my insulin in order to lose weight.  It worked.  I dropped down to 175.  Until I woke up one morning and couldn't see.  I started taking care of myself and my weight went back up to what it was before my stint as an idiot.  When I decided to go back to college, I chose to stay home (much to my mom's frustration) and attend our local community college.  I took up a student-worker position as the ungodly-morning-hours supervisor of the student fitness center.  I started at 6 every morning.  Luckily, more often than not, it was just a couple of little old ladies who came in to use the facility.  This meant that I could spend my "work hours" working out on the equipment.  My weight stayed pretty stable for the next couple of years.  When I graduated with my Associate of Arts degree, I chose to transfer to the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis.  Huge, huge campus.  With very limited parking.  This actually worked in my favor.  Parking, affordable parking...was a good 4 blocks from campus.  My first class was just inside campus.  My second class....was on the opposite bank of the Mississippi River!  You wouldn't believe how much walking I did for that entire year!  It was nuts!  I finally dropped back below 200.  But I hated the University.  It was a great experience for me because it finally cracked my shell wide-open.  I stopped caring what people thought.  I realized I could be whoever and whatever I wanted to be and who cared if there was someone who didn't like me?  It was right around that point and just after that realization that I met my husband-to-be.  I was in the process of contemplating transferring to Bemidji State University.  But Jake was a student at Minnesota State University-Mankato.  So...I chose to transfer to be close to him.  The smaller campus and the fact that I started stress-eating, eating out more often (on dates, usually), and eating convenience foods didn't do anything for me.  My weight slowly crept up over the years.  College graduation, full-time employment, buying a house...through it all, my weight crept up just a little at a time.  By the time I got pregnant with Lily, I weighed 230.

During my pregnancy, I made a lot of changed.  I started trying to eat mostly protein-based foods in order to control how much insulin I would have to take.  By the end of the pregnancy, my daily amount of insulin was close to 100 units!  Lily was born severely tongue-tied.  She wasn't able to nurse.  But I was so determined that she be fed breastmilk in order to protect her from the threat of diabetes (haha, joke was on me for that one, huh? but at least I did everything I could and don't have to doubt or dissect what I did).  I pumped, exclusively, for 10 months straight.  Oh, I can't even tell you what hell that was!  I developed an amazing appreciation for dairy cows!  Breastfeeding is not meant to be done by machine!  Pumping is an awful thing to do to your body.  Seriously.  I produced for the pump instead of for a baby.  Which somehow equated to producing enough milk for quintuplets (that is NOT an exaggeration!).  But, breastfeeding by pump also had this wonderful side-effect....the weight literally melted right off of me!  In ten months, I lost 50 lbs!  And then I got mastitis.  I started the treatment for mastitis and before it had cleared up, I was also battling thrush.  Pain doesn't even begin to explain how that felt!  I quit pumping cold-turkey.  Within a couple of months, I was pregnant again.  And putting the weight back on very quickly.

By the time Leo was born, I was back up to my pre-pregnancy weight from before Lily was born, plus all the baby weight from Leo.  Leo was an excellent nurser, from the very beginning.  But nursing didn't have the same effect this time around.  My weight slowly crept up again.  Seven months after Leo was born, Lily was diagnosed.  My nights of very little sleep turned into nights of no sleep.  Sleep has an amazing connection to how well your body processes food and insulin.  The less sleep I got, the less energy I had, the more weight I put on.  It's a bad, bad equation.  Add into that comfort-eating, stress-eating, and boredom-eating.  It's not a pretty picture.

So, here I am, just a little more than a year after Lily was diagnosed.  Things feel like they've finally settled, at least somewhat.  I'm still not getting much sleep.  But I'm recognizing the ways my life needs to change.  I'm seeing my part in getting to where I am now.  And I'm terrified of teaching this lifestyle to my children.  I've decided on a challenge for myself.  It takes 30-40 repetitions in order to form a new habit, for most people.  So, my goal is do 30 days straight of walking or exercising for an hour each day.  I've done 11 days so far.  The last couple of days, it's been a bit tough to do.  I've been feeling a bit sore.  In fact, the last two days, I've started the walk with the intention of taking it easy, doing a shorter walk.  But once I started, I felt the need to keep going!  It's incredibly how that happens!  So, it may not be an easy thing to do, but I'm going to keep going and hope that I can make it the full 30 days!

In order to end this in the most positive way possible, I'll share one more thing with you.  My husband usually comes home from work while I'm cooking dinner.  He has a habit of coming up behind me, while I'm cooking, and giving me a hug and kissing my cheek.  Yesterday, during this ritual, he gave me the best compliment ever.  He hugged me and said, "wow!  You feel firmer already!"  Screw focusing on the weight-loss part of this.  I'm going to focus on the being-in-better-shape part so I can get more compliments like that from him!

Hot tip on a new D-product!

My husband came home with a new little something the other day.  He works for Medtronic and has a couple of co-workers who also have children with diabetes.  There are some huge benefits to this, including that they share new products with him.  So, he came home with this:

This little thing is AWESOME!  It's a new lancing device, with teeny tiny little lancets, a much quieter click, and a whole lot less movement.  Lily loves it!  Just after we tried it for the first time, we went out for a walk and I had to test Lily with the spare meter.  She got mad that I was using the old "poker"!  I tried it on myself and I honestly would have sworn to you that I hadn't even poked myself!  The only "bad" side to it...you HAVE to use the lancets that are made specifically for it.  And honestly, that's not such a bad thing.  Especially when it comes to saving those teeny, tiny, itty-bitty fingers of our little children just a little bit of the pain and discomfort they already have to deal with!

A sneak-peak for Joanne!

Normally I'd wait to post these pictures until Joanne has received the hats.  I'm mailing them out today!  But, I'm so excited about how the hat for Elise turned out and I can't wait to share the pictures!  I made a monkey hat for new baby Mattias and a pretty little pom-pom hat for Elise with a cute little flower-button detail on it.  I'm hoping Elise will like it!

Now I just need to finish up the one for our very own Portuguese Princess and then I'll be all done with my current, paid-for orders!  I just have to say....thank you so much to anyone who ordered!  I've enjoyed making them and the fact that all the money is going to diabetes makes it that much more fun and fulfilling!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!