Where does the time go!?

I miss writing. I know I say it every time I take a good long break from the blogisphere but I do!  My brain has turned into complete mush over the past year and a half. Granted we have been BUSY but I also haven’t wanted to come here. With my personal time I have been watching trash youtube videos and Bravo TV. I just haven’t wanted to write or organize or be every semi-productive with my time. With that being said, today I woke up at 5:20am due to a little girl shaking her gate and decided I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I came downstairs and did what I have been doing every day for the past 8 months…I opened my computer and started up (or down) the youtube rabbit hole. There was a little voice all morning long saying to me “do something worthwhile” and another voice telling me “you deserve this time to do as you please”. It’s the only time in my day away from my kids where I actually feel awake and calm and like doing something. But alas, I don’t do anything and just wait anxiously for someone to come down the stairs. You see, it’s been so long that I can actually count on a few minutes to myself in the mornings that I think I feel like a kid in a candy store. I get overwhelmed and know that I only have a few precious minutes and don’t want to start something because inevitably I’ll have to stop once the kids get up and that frustrates me to no end so I choose to do nothing. For example, I opened up this computer today around 5:55-6am and I’m not even joking you, the second I started my first sentence I heard Aubrey get up!  I went to grab her have continued to write. In the meantime Both Campbell and Emmett have come down and it’s now 6:12am and I need to wrap up shop. Anyhow, this felt really good just to write about nothing this morning. I’ll end with a few updated photos.

2017!

Time to dust this thing off and get to work amiright!?  No, I’m not serious and you know I’ll throw a couple posts up and then won’t return for several months because that’s just the season of life I’m in (or have been since starting this blog!).  But I wanted to just wish everyone a very happy start to 2017!  A lot of people thought 2016 was the worst.  But I have to disagree.  I mean for the country, yes, it was probably the worst and will only go down from here.  We even considered leaving the country and seriously looked at our options after this election because we just don’t want to see the downfall of a Trump nation.  But that didn’t even happen until November of 2016!  We lived a full 10 months prior to this country going to shit and in that 10 months it was great for our little 5-some.

Let’s reflect…In January we prepared for the worst and ended up having the most amazing little baby girl a family could ask for.  She had her heart surgery at just 2 days old and made a full recovery.  In February we got to bring that baby girl home and learn to live as a family 5.  In March we celebrated our Campbell Bean’s 2nd birthday.  In April we celebrated Emmett’s 4th birthday.  In May we continued the celebration and had a huge party here at our house for him.  We also got our surgery date for our sweet baby to have her lip repaired and finished out the NAM taping, something I was not sad to see leave our lives AT ALL!  In June Campbell started her preschool one day a week and Emmett started summer camp one day a week.  We had the actual lip repair completed for Aubrey and watched in amazement as our baby’s face changed drastically over the first few days after the surgery.  In July and August we did countless summer activities including pool trips, zoo dates, botanic gardens, nature and science museum trips, camps, trips on the lightrail to play in the fountains downtown, movie dates, playdates with friends, mountain trips with family, 4th of July celebrations, park dates after the sun went down, dog walks, theater in the park, and basically all things fun that you do in the summer like eating ice cream and popsicles non stop!  In September we took a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks and Emmett started back to his last year of preschool before starting Kinder next year.  In October we had fun decorating for Halloween and really getting into what the kids were going to be for Halloween.  We walked the neighborhood every night pointing out all the fun Halloween decorations that people had put up on their houses.  We trick or treated and laughed and stayed up way too late on the night of Halloween.  In November, despite the election results, we still pulled ourselves out of bed and managed to stay positive and do fun things at our normal hotspots while the weather held out due to global warming.  We celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and I even got to get our on a few mom dates myself.  In December, it truly was the most wonderful time of the year this year.  I made sure to jam pack our schedules with the most festive things I could find including Santa coming from the North Pole to the mall (we watched him arrive at night), our neighborhood tree lighting, zoo lights, botanic gardens lights, Santa visits at multiple locations, driving around looking at Christmas lights, putting up our own lights and trees and decorations, baking cookies, holiday shopping for teachers, school celebrations and eating all. the. sweets.  We made our way to Kansas City for Christmas and spent time with both sides of the family.  We saw people from my side who we haven’t seen in years and introduced Aubrey to them.  We laughed, we got sick a LOT, we lost sleep (I got to know my kids really well with all the time we spent together at night), we gained a new appreciation for the nights we do sleep, and mostly we just had fun.  December was the perfect cap to our 2016 and we definitely went out with a bang.  It was a year to remember for our family and we all came out of it in one piece, together and healthy-ish.

Every year seems to go faster than the last.  I just wish I knew how to slow these years down.  The good though is that every year that goes by and we get a little older, we do get a little wiser and we get to spend that much more time here on earth with the people we love.  Life is so damn short and I’m just happy to be a part of this life each and every day.  Happy New Year everyone!!!!

The Fetal Echo

And we are back!!  Hopefully I can finally finish Aubrey’s journey and start blogging about HER!  This summer was crazy for us and it’s so hard to blog with all 3 kids home all the time!  Now that 2 out of 3 are back to school I am finding a bit more time to myself 🙂  So without further adou, here’s the story of the fetal echo we had of our perfectly imperfect baby’s heart prenatally…(I started this post over 3 months ago and this post is almost a year after the actual fetal echo!!)

This title, the fetal echo, is just a fancy way of saying an ultrasound of the baby’s heart.  Echo is short for echocardiogram.  This is an in depth ultrasound of the baby’s heart.  It looks really closely at how the heart pumps blood through all arteries and veins and through the valves and so forth.  Anyways, the appointment was made for Wednesday October 7th at 2pm at the Kaiser Maternal Fetal Health center where I received my amnio and also where they confirmed the cleft.  These were now my new docs for the remainder of the pregnancy.  I had my dad come over to watch the older two kids and decided that it would be fine to go by myself to this appointment because I was convinced that there was nothing wrong with her heart.  This is a standard procedure for cleft kids since, as I mentioned before, it’s considered a midline defect.  The heart is also midline so they need to do extensive checks on the heart as lots of cleft babies also have heart issues.  I just knew that my baby’s cleft was isolated but also knew I needed to go to this appointment just to “make sure”.  I even emailed the doc. the night before the appointment explaining that I thought it was completely unnecessary that I show up to this appointment.  She talked me back into coming anyways.

I showed up without Chad figuring we’d just be looking at the heart and I’d be sent on my merry way.  The ultrasound tech came in and did her thing.  This was a great appointment because it coincided with my test on the heart in my A&P course.  The ultrasound tech couldn’t tell me what or if the baby had anything wrong with her heart but she could tell me exactly what she was looking at.  So with that we reviewed the heart in depth.  I think she is partly to thank for how well I did on my practical exam.  Anyways, it wasn’t a completely relaxing appointment because when we started the appointment and were just looking at the structures of the heart the ultrasound tech was super cheery and helpful.  Then we got into the more detailed structures and there were lots of pauses and her facial expressions started to change.  I knew something was wrong or not totally normal based on how her demeanor changed.  I just wanted the appointment to be over.  After what felt like hours, the doctor came in and sat down and picked up the ultrasound wand.  She placed it on my stomach and began.

They don’t really sugar coat much here at this place.  She began with “well the baby is looking good and growing fine but…”, and there it was.  My heart absolutely sank.  She explained that my baby had what looked to be a narrowed aorta.  The aorta is the large artery that pumps blood out of the heart.  This is kind of a critical artery because without we would die.  She didn’t go into detail because she didn’t want to scare me.  She explained that the baby’s aorta is about the size of a piece of spaghetti at this point and she wasn’t even sure my baby had this narrowing or if it was something we should even be concerned about because she wasn’t a cardiologist nor was she in fetal medicine.  Everyone at this clinic basically just specialized in maternal/fetal health and diagnosed the issues.  So she recommended that I get a better, more in depth look at our Children’s hospital and have another fetal echo. done there to either confirm or deny their findings.  She also told me that if the baby had to have a defect, this is the one we would want her to have because it’s very treatable and in the grand scheme of heart surgeries, “pretty easy” to do.  OH great!  So basically I was told that my baby may or may not have a heart problem and that I would need to wait even longer to get this confirmed for me.  And of course because I had already been given this information I was left not knowing whether or not to worry.  I decided not to worry about this heart thing because at this point I was still convinced that she didn’t have a heart problem and the doctor even helped confirm that with her vague diagnosis.

BUT of course we couldn’t just leave it at that.  There was something else “of mention” in the ultrasound that couldn’t be ignored.  The doctor started like this, “We also see a small amount of blood in the baby’s feces.  There is a 99% chance that this is due to the fetus ingesting some blood through the amniotic fluid after your amnio and that she’s still trying to get rid of it BUT it could also mean that your baby has cystic fibrosis or CMV, an infection that could cause severe developmental defects in the fetus.”  WTF!?  First of all I had never even heard of CMV and second of all why was this the first time they had seen blood in her bowels!?  All I could think was that this HAD to be because of the amnio!  I asked the doctor what we had to do now.  She said that if it were her receiving this news, she would want to rule out the CF or CMV possibilities and advised for me to get a blood test to see if I was a carrier for CF or if the fetus has CMV.  I obliged because what’s one more test at this point?  I was sent with orders for a blood test to rule out these other debilitating problems that again, could forever change the course of our lives. I went straight from that appointment to the lab to get my tests done asap.  It would be another week or so before I would receive the results.

I went home that night and did more crying and researching on what cystic fibrosis actually is and the prognosis isn’t good.  I know more about cystic fibrosis now than I ever thought possible.  I also now know that CMV is one of the scariest things out there and that if you’re pregnant it’s EXTRA scary.  Ok actually it’s not at all scary for you if you’re not pregnant but want to know who the most susceptible people are to get it and spread it?  Toddlers ages 1-3.  Guess what I had TWO TODDLERS AGES 1 AND 3!  It’s not at all deadly for them either and you’d just chalk it up to a nasty cold and move on with your life then they become immune to it and that’s that.  But if you are pregnant and have never been exposed to it then your fetus is at a huge risk.  I was tested to see if I had been exposed to CMV and if I had antibodies already in my system to fight it off or if I’d never had it before or if I had had it any time during my pregnancy.  The CF test is an easy blood test that just tests your genes to see if you’re a carrier or not.

So that’s how my fetal echo went.  More on the results from my blood tests (ok obviously I’m not a CF carrier which I found out before the results were even in in some other paperwork from a previous doctor for my previous pregnancies (I had already been tested and tested negative) and the CMV test showed I had never had the infection.  I was terrified knowing that I had never had the infection before and still had so much longer to go with my pregnancy but my doctor told me that after 20 weeks gestation the infection is far far less likely to harm the fetus.  Amen.

One Year

I started this post almost 2 weeks ago but wanted to document how important time can be for people waiting on news.  Expecting the worst.  Hoping for the best.  Never expecting the unexpected.  One year ago…

Today, August 31, my husband’s birthday of all days, marks the one year anniversary of our 18 week anatomy scan of Aubrey.  Little did we know that 24 hours later we’d receive a phone call that rocked our universe.  Little did we know that a few days later we’d opt for a level II ultrasound and that a cleft lip would be confirmed.  We knew nothing one year ago about clefts or hearts or had any clue that we’d be lumped into the category of having a “special needs” baby.

Would I change anything?  Of course I would.  I would never ever ever want my baby to go through what she had to in her first 5 months of life nor would I have ever wanted to go through the emotional struggles and anxiety that my pregnancy brought both me and my family.  But I can’t change anything.  I can only move forward, expect the worst and hope for the absolute best.  You know what?  The power of positive thinking is so freaking important.  I learned through this baby and these experiences to be a more positive and upbeat person.  This baby has completely changed my mindset on everything.  I mean EVERYthing.  I know I have expressed my gratitude for this baby in previous posts but my heart is just so much bigger than I could have ever imagined now.  I’m so grateful for what we have gone through with this child. These experiences have not only shown me that I’m so much stronger than I ever thought possible but they’ve also opened up my mind and my heart to those families who are going through so much worse than what we have had to go through.  It’s shown me that the smallest person can have so much strength.  If ever I run into a challenge that I can’t see myself overcoming I think of my newborn baby having open heart surgery and while she didn’t have any say in whether or not she was going to have this surgery she has shown me so much strength.  I always think of her when I hit a wall and know that if she can do what she did and come out more than ok then I can over come my shitty day or hard workout or conflict with a friend.  This baby has made me so much more compassionate towards other’s situations and has also opened up entire worlds to me that I never even knew existed.

We have survived one year and hope to survive many more.  My sweet Aubrey bear, what would I do without you?  Thank you for choosing us a million times over.  I needed you so badly and you have saved me in more ways than you will ever know.  I love you my sweet baby girl.

After a Sugar Detox…My thoughts

So obviously I didn’t do a full blown sugar detox.  I still had my 85% dark chocolate most days and probably too much fruit and substitutions but I decreased my sugar consumption by a considerable amount for me so I’m calling it a sugar detox.  This was hard for me.  I love sugar.  I am a self proclaimed sugar addict and while I did feel better during the day and think I slept better at night, I still don’t want to cut the stuff out of my diet.  It was a good experiment to bring me back down off my sugar cloud but the fact of the matter is that it makes me feel happy and I feel like a prisoner when I limit what I eat.  I don’t like the feeling and I actually really look forward to my daily treats.  I love my salad and eggs and veggies as well and when I’m super hungry I want to fill up on that stuff but I also really like the habit of eating something sweet after my meals to finalize them and move on with my day.  Yes, I called this a habit because I don’t need to do this but I really like to.  I also don’t like making substitutions for my sweet treats.  All 10 days I was trying to substitute my sweet snacks for things like shakes made with only coco and banana and almond milk or super dark chocolate that really wasn’t satisfying or some sort of treat that I’d made with only bananas and a few other none sugar items.  It wasn’t working for me and wasn’t making me happy.  This life is too short to not feel happiness everyday.  Some may argue that food shouldn’t make a person happy and that there’s something else psychologically going on.  Ok, maybe there is and I’m ok with that!  In these intense times in my life I really love having sugar as my substance of choice to go to and make the world right again.  Sure I may pay for it with mood swings and poor sleep but I may not.

Here’s the thing, after the 10 days I totally blew off everything I learned and did.  Ok, maybe not everything.  I was still conscience of what I was doing and eating sugar wise but I ate real cow’s milk ice cream and have pretty much every day since last weekend.  I don’t do my mindless snacking on M&Ms and TJ’s boxed chocolates still but who knows, that will probably be back at some point.  I haven’t done any baking either except for an amazing paleo treat that I’m trying very hard to resist eating every last bite because paleo or not, they are incredible (and SUPER high in calories).  So I have cut back and I’m trying really really hard to only eat my treats after the kids go down but even that has been a challenge for me because I really just like sugar.  It’s the same with coffee.  I will never give that up and I don’t care to.

So where am I at now that a week has gone by?  Well I feel like my sleep is honestly the same and my moods have actually continued to be steady.  I really don’t think you need to completely give up sugar at all to feel the benefits.  I think that if you just cut back on sugar and take in the recommended daily amounts of sugar you’ll be fine.  I’m sure you’d be fine even going over that limit if you exercise.  I do exercise and pretty intensely at that so I feel like my sugars get used up in my body so that maybe I don’t feel the effects like some people do.  Who knows, I do know that when I eat way too much sugar I do feel it.  I definitely am more tired when I consume nothing but sugary treats all day and I’m more on edge.  But that also happens when I don’t exercise.  So who knows.

All in all I can say that I’m glad I did it for the small amount of time that I did.  At some point I really really really want to try to stick to and do a Whole 30.  I have read the book and the cookbook and done a ton of research on Whole 30.  I love the idea but again, I just don’t want to cut sugar out for that long.  I do know just after doing my little experiment that it does work and I could gain more energy and sleep better and all that but I’m just not ready to give up my treats.  Maybe I’ll do a Whole 30 with a night time chocolate treat 😉  I’m sure the authors would love that, especially after writing about my experience.  Anyways, bottom line is that you need to do you.  And I highly recommend That Sugar Film which can be found on Amazon Prime.  Wow, it was eye opening and such a great documentary.  I loved every second of it.

I’ll end with saying that I’m now much more aware of the added sugars in things that don’t even need sugar.  My kids are better without sugar too.  Why would I cut sugar out of my diet and not theirs?  I want to always teach them that sugar isn’t the enemy but portions are and I just want them to be aware of how much sugar is in our food.  They can make their own choices.  I loved doing this and I hope that some of my habits (not eating a treat after breakfast) stick around but to give up sugar completely is a crime and, at least for me, would take out a lot of the joy in my every day life that I experience.  I love rewarding my kids with special dates to get cupcakes or donuts and I just can’t/won’t deprive us of those special memories.

Sugar detox, Day 10…The Final Day

*This was supposed to publish on 8/22.  Oh well.  Here you go…It’s now 8/27.

Alright so full disclosure, I have probably not been on the same “detox” that a lot of people deem a real sugar detox but that wasn’t the point of this in the first place.  I went into this with really only the expectation that I could get rid of processed sugary foods like cakes, muffins, cookies and candy.  I really didn’t care if I eliminated hidden sugars in my diet because truth be told I really don’t use hidden sugars in my diet so that I can eat all. the. processed. sugar.  Anyways, I’ll write a full report when I’m done with day 10.

Today I woke up and was TIRED.  I slept on my daughter’s floor from 2am until I decided to leave her room at 5:15am.  Well joke was on me because at 5:30am she noticed I wasn’t there anymore and started crying and just got up for the day along with my other two kids.  It was a horrible morning and definitely not a recipe for a good day.  That being said I did jump on the treadmill somehow and pump out 7 miles.  I knew that if there were any day of the detox that I was totally going to snap it was going to be today because of the lack of sleep situation and the cold that was in full blown effect now.

Breakfast

I was starving when I came up from my run so I snacked on some roasted pecans while I made my breakfast.  I made egg whites with chopped red peppers.

Mid-morning snack

I was trying to get us out the door earlier than the previous day so I really don’t remember eating anything (I’m writing this post on Sunday and trying to recall everything).

Lunch

I sliced two cucumbers and mixed them with 1/2 an avocado.  I brought some sugar free caesar dressing in a container with me and used maybe a tablespoon but that’s probably being generous.

Mid-afternoon Snack

I came home from our outing and was starving.  I made myself a shake and also snacked on my homemade banana ice cream.  Oddly enough, this was all I wanted.  I didn’t even need anything else to be satisfied.  I was so happy about this!

Dinner

Chad was going out to dinner with friends so I made the kids some organic chicken nuggets and sliced red peppers.  I also had a few nuggets along with some sliced manchego cheese and seeded crackers and then finished my dinner with some plantain chips and guacamole.  It was a super snacky dinner but it was delicious and one of my favorite types of dinners.  The kids were all in bed by 6:15pm and Chad left so I was on my own to create something.  This can end very badly.  I really really really really wanted some ice cream but not the dairy stuff we had in our deep freezer.  I wanted vanilla ice cream with something chocolatey.  So I did the best I could do and made a coconut vanilla ice cream with honey as the sweetener.  I technically wasn’t supposed to have honey on my detox but I just really wanted it and so instead of eating twice as much food to fill the craving with other stuff I didn’t want I caved and made vanilla ice cream with coconut milk, vanilla extract and honey.  I also made these brownies which didn’t set and were actually not great but they totally hit the spot probably because I haven’t actually had sugar for so long.  They were more like a thick chocolate sauce than a brownie but they were perfect for what I needed.  I had a few bites of both the ice cream and the brownie and I was done.  That’s all I needed!  I was surprised because in the past it would have taken much much more to get the same satisfaction. I was happy and went to bed happy and to me, that was all that mattered.

Notes on today:

*I felt horrible today.  Like the worst I’ve felt in a long time.  I am sick and irritable BUT I was flat.  The kids fought so much and were so annoying today but I didn’t blow up once.  Was that the fact that I had given up sugar and my moods have been more stable or was it the fact that I was so sick that I just didn’t have the energy to deal with them?  Who’s to say but I almost always spark and yell at them when combined with little sleep and being sick and I just stayed totally calm and flat today.

*I’m so glad I “broke” the sugar detox tonight.  I have never been happier with a decision and I actually felt free.  I went to bed with an entirely different outlook on how I’m going to continue on with my life with less sugar in it.  It really is all about moderation and I needed to run this experiment to get myself back on track with a healthier lifestyle.

Sugar detox, Day 9

*I had actually set up days 8-10 to be published this past week so that I wouldn’t have to do anything with my blog but the publisher didn’t work!  UGH.  Anyways over a week later and here is day 9…

And I’ve made it to Thursday!  Only TWO more days before I hit my goal of staying away from processed sugars for 10 days!  I’m only going to blog about the first 10 days but I’m going to continue to eat like this as long as I can.  I really like what I’m seeing in terms of how different I feel day to day.  It’s so good!

Started my day off at 5:17am when Aubrey woke up and I had to feed her.  She went back to sleep so I came downstairs and had a few extra moments to myself because no one was awake so I blogged and had my black coffee in peace.  These are hands down the best mornings and basically why I go to bed so early.

Breakfast

I ran on my treadmill for 7 miles and still in the back of my mind was thinking about my weight.  I hate that my weight can get the better of me but it actually really helped me make good choices today and really think before eating something.  I came up and made myself a huge bowl of frozen kale, egg whites, ground turkey and salsa and topped it with a scoop of cottage cheese.  This bowl is SO Filling.  So much so so that I was stuffed and wasn’t even thinking about food all morning.  I was able to get all my chores done without thinking about a sweet or something to eat.

Midmorning snack

Like I said, I wasn’t really thinking about food but Chad came home for lunch with a few bags of chips so I did have a few handfuls of those.

Lunch

We went to the Nature and Science Museum late today.  It was 12:15pm before we even left the house.  We almost never do this but Aubrey napped until 11am, at which point I actually woke her up finally and Cam slept in until about 9am so I figured we did have some wiggle room for nap skipping.  I packed our lunches and we ate around 2pm today.  I made myself a similar cauliflower bowl that I made for the art museum with riced cauliflower, ground turkey, 1/2 an avocado, salsa and a scoop of cottage cheese.  It was better than yesterday’s but still not great.  Again, I just need to make meat with taco seasoning.

Mid-afternoon snack

I had a larabar and needed it.  I usually am home all afternoon and I think this is what gets me into trouble.  When we are out I actually listen to my hunger cues and never need something sweet or even crave it.  This even happened to me prior to cutting back on sugar.  When I’m home it’s my ritual and it’s been a damn hard one to break.  Today I was starving so I had my bar and actually reached for a few bites of the kids bagel and cream cheese that they didn’t eat for lunch because I was so hungry.

Dinner

It was so amazing to be hungry for dinner tonight.  I picked up some organic freezer burritos for dinner and sautéed some zucchini in olive oil and salt and pepper.  The kids got red pepper slices since neither like zucchini.  I had made 4 different burritos and cut them all in half so we could try each of them.  I had one and a half.  Two halves were chicken and one was a potato/bacon/egg one.

After dinner snack

I made the kids strawberry “ice cream” which was a total hit by throwing frozen strawberries, 2 bananas and some unsweetened almond milk in the food processor.  I put a few shakes of sprinkles on it for the kids and they LOVED this!  I totally tricked them and love doing that, esp. with desserts.  I ended up having my usual 2 squares of 85% dark chocolate and then making myself banana “ice cream” by blending bananas, coco powder, almond milk and vanilla extract and then I added some cacao nibs for some crunch.  I sat down and thoroughly enjoyed this while watching my secret obsession, Bachelor in Paradise.

Notes on Today:

*I was really tuned into my hunger signals today which felt really really good.

*I still had heartburn at night and figured out it was the xanthin gum I was putting in my afternoon shakes.  This stuff makes the shake a creamy consistency but I still have yet to find out the perfect “pinch” of the stuff that most people are talking about.  I have read that it can give people horrible bloating and indigestion problems.  Totally the case for me and I’m going to stop using the stuff.

*I feel myself starting to get sick so I’m hoping my healthier lifestyle will pay off and either ward off the cold or at least diminish the length of time I’ll be sick.

Sugar detox, day 8

I seriously can’t believe I have gone this long without any processed sugar.  Heck, I can’t believe I have gone this long without baking chocolate chip cookies or some sort of paleo treat with maple syrup or honey either!  It’s crazy to me and I am still feeling better than ever.  Today is my true test because I got very little sleep last night.  So today is Wednesday.  I’m going to be honest about today.  I woke up in a really bad mood and very tired and didn’t get my usual morning to myself because I slept with Emmett and then Campbell and then my own bed (guest room bed) and then Emmett all night last night.  It was horrible and I was thinking I’d just sleep in but Emmett woke up seeing that I wasn’t in his room at 5:30am and freaked out and so I got up a little later than normal but with Emmett.  Aubrey and Chad actually beat us downstairs so there was no “me” time to help me prepare for the day.  I did get to go on a 7 mile run which always helps and I went outside and by myself so that helped but as I write this it’s 10:21am and I’m tired and grumpy and want to be sleeping right now and don’t want to do the mom thing today at all because I’m moody and have no energy and hot.  It’s so damn hot.  I’m so over summer I could cry.  I just wish it would cool off for a few days.  I hate sunscreen and sweating and pants when it’s hot and sweaty armpits all the time and sunburns.  I forgot to mention that on Monday I even tried to take my kids to our rec. center’s indoor pool and as we drove up in the parking lot there was a sign that said “Pool closed until further notice”.  Seriously!?  We ended up going to our outdoor pool which was too crowded and I had to deal with all the things I’m hating right now.  Anyways, rant over.  Let’s get to the bulk of the day.

Breakfast

I ran 7 miles after drinking my black coffee.  I came home and was starving and myself some chopped up red peppers with egg whites and a chopped chicken apple sausage.  This breakfast hit the spot  and was great.  I also had more black coffee in hopes that it would bring my mood up.  It did not.

Mid morning Snack

Some sugar snap peas while making our lunches and an iced coffee with unsweetened almond milk from home while driving to our morning activity.

Lunch

I made lunch to go because we went to the Art museum today.  I made myself riced cauliflower, 1/2 an avocado, ground up turkey and topped with salsa.  I thought this was going to be way better than it actually was.  It most definitely tasted very much like cauliflower and nothing else.  It was pretty gross but I was hungry and it’s all I brought for myself so I ate it.  I think it lacked seasoning from the meat.  I have made this in the past and it’s actually been really good and the flavor of the cauliflower has been completely masked.  I think it’s because I didn’t season the ground turkey.  I think for tomorrow nights dinner I will make some ground beef with taco seasoning to have on hand and see if that helps this situation out.  It was super filling though so that’s definitely a win.

Mid afternoon snack

I almost got through the afternoon without this.  I wasn’t hungry at all and had I not been home I could have easily waited to eat until dinner.  Annoying.  I had 2 squares of 85% dark chocolate and I thought that would be enough but I was feeling super super snacky.  I made myself some unsweetened almond milk with cinnamon and vanilla extract and it was actually really really good.  I think it would be great as a blended drink too.  After that I had 2 bites of a kids leftover banana muffin (recipe from the other day) and a 1/2 a pecan pie larabar then I made the kids dinner to keep myself occupied.

Dinner

I had a sugar free whole wheat, low carb tortilla with colby jack cheese and a smoothie made with unsweetened almond milk, 2T cocoa, vanilla extract and a banana all over ice and blended.  I topped this with a handful of cacao nibs and oh my word it was SO GOOD.  It felt like I was eating ice cream because I ate it with a spoon.  I could TOTALLY do whole 30 with this creation.  I mentioned it before in a different post but adding the cacao nibs just puts an entirely new spin on it.  I had this because we were getting ready to go to an ice cream social at C’s preschool and I wanted to try very hard to resist the temptation.  I told Chad that if the ice cream happened to be from a local ice cream store then I’d have some but other than that it really wouldn’t be worth it.  And guess what…It was from Nuggs, a local ice cream store and guess what?  I didn’t even want any of it!

A weird thing is that I was having heartburn for the majority of the evening.  It sucked and I’m still trying to figure out why and what caused this.

After dinner snack

I was this close to skipping this.  I should have gone to bed but I was watching Bachelor in Paradise and old habits die hard.  It’s so annoying because I really really really didn’t want to give in but I actually was hungry once the show ended.  We ate at 4:45pm last night (wtf!?) and so it was no wonder that by 9:15pm my stomach was growling.  I’m a huge proponent though of eating when you’re hungry so I had about 4 or 5 mini tangerines and a string cheese and iced tea and put myself to bed.  No sweet treat type things!  I was in bed by 9:30pm.

Notes on today:

*Today was hard but I’m glad I had the motivation I did because it could have easily turned into a very bad day considering I was so tired and moody and when those two things are combined I usually reach for the good stuff aka processed sugars.

*So I weighed myself today because I was scared that I was the only person on the face of this planet who gave up eating processed sugars and gained weight and low and behold it was TRUE!  This totally could have contributed to my bad mood.  Never ever ever weigh yourself if you’re already in a bad spot.  Why do I do this to myself!?  Well for starters I thought I’d be pleasantly surprised and either stayed the same weight or dropped a pound.  Now let me remind you I did not do this to lose weight.  I actually wanted to reap the health benefits and just figured weight loss could be a side effect of it all but I most certainly didn’t want to gain weight!  I really like the weight I’m at and am really happy with my body so weight loss or gain isn’t something I’m at all interested in but CLEARLY I need to scale back on all the non processed snacks I’m eating throughout the day.  I’m glad I weighed myself because it made me be honest with myself.  I’m eating way too many replacement foods when I’m not hungry and those are out of habit.  I’m eating a ton more nuts and a ton more high calorie nutrient dense foods to replace the sugar that I was once eating and while I do feel a TON better I am also putting on a few pounds in the process.  The idea isn’t to replace this stuff but to eliminate it all together so I’m going to work hard on just getting rid of it rather than replacing it and I’m going to listen to my hunger signals more often instead of eating out of habit.  I need more water and less food.  I definitely don’t want to throw in the towel and go back to eating how I was eating because I feel like a new person now but it’s hard to look at my old diet of all the sugar and happiness (aside from being low on energy and tired all the time) and not want to go back to eating like that to get my 3 pounds off.  Who would have thought!?  I found a way of eating in the past that works for me calorically so it will just be hard to find a new way I guess.

Sugar detox, day 7

Sugar detox day 7 I was back on track.  I can’t believe I’ve made it through 7 days of zero processed sugars!  Actually, I haven’t even had my staples when I do paleo which are maple syrup and honey!!

I woke up with a renewed sense of motivation.  I felt disgusting after my casein disaster from the night before and I was ready to start fresh.  So it’s now Tuesday and I get to start over so let’s begin.

I felt tired though.  I woke up at 4:57am because one of the kids cried out and it woke me up right before my alarm went off at 5am.  I also woke up to a text right after I dozed off for the night at around 10pm which made my heart race and made it tough to fall back to sleep (my phone is always on airplane mode but I forgot to turn my iPad off) and one of the kids cried out at 1:17am which woke me up and that’s when I experienced a bout of terrible heart burn and couldn’t fall back to sleep.  Even coffee wasn’t doing it for me.  I just felt tired and I’m not sure why.  Is my body detoxing?  Hard to say.

I didn’t have time to run today because we had a doc. appointment super early for Aubrey.  I still set my alarm for 5am and had plenty of time to workout but hadn’t taken in a break in a long time so I decided this unplanned rest day was probably a good idea.  Plus, I haven’t really had the energy or excitement I usually have for a run and this is usually a pretty good indication that I need a break or a day off.

Breakfast

I had cauliflower oats with a 1/2 banana for some added sweetness and some cinnamon and egg whites for protein.  It was a pretty decent breakfast and kept me full all morning.

Mid morning Snack

I don’t really think this counts as mid morning but it wasn’t lunch so that’s how I’m categorizing it.  After the doc. appointment I went grocery shopping and by the time I was done I was so hungry that I was starting to get moody and short fused.  I grabbed some applegate deli turkey slices and that helped.  I grabbed an iced coffee with unsweetened almond milk from home and left to keep running errands.

Lunch

I didn’t get to eat until about 2:30 because we had to pick Cam up at PDO and it took forever and then we always come in hot after that.  Aubrey was hungry and so were E and C so everyone was yelling at each other and Aubrey was screaming her head off so I grabbed a quick tiny tupperware of leftovers from the night before and put E and C in front of the TV with leftover spaghetti and chicken sausage which was cold and then went to feed Aubrey and put her down for a nap.  I came down after that and got Campbell and put her down for her nap and then finally made myself some frozen broccoli, sugar free marinara sauce and turkey meatballs.  I felt my blood sugar come back up and then of course wanted something sweet.

Mid afternoon Snack

This is always the worst time for snacking because I’m stuck at home and even if I wanted to I can’t leave.  I had a few tangerines to start but that didn’t touch my sweet tooth so then I had a nut butter truffle and cheat alert, a few bites of pumpkin flavored noosa yogurt.  Oh well, there are worse things I could have grabbed for.  Luckily neither of the girls decided to nap so the rest of the afternoon was spent holding them and trying to manage 3 very grumpy children.  Hey it kept me from eating.

Dinner

I wasn’t hungry because I had eaten lunch so late so I just picked at some roasted chicken and dipped it in Brianna’s cesaer dressing.  I knew I’d be back for something later so I was fine with doing this.

After dinner snack

And here it is…I was back for more and wasn’t even hungry.  This is just my nasty habit.  I wish I could just go to bed and forget this part but the truth is that it’s my only time with my husband without kids in the entire day and I just want to hang out and decompress. Unfortunately that comes with eating.  Because of the night I had previously with the casein I didn’t want to blow this so I grabbed a small bit of 85% chocolate and then I had a wonderful creation!  I mixed my banana chocolate chia seed creation with some plain yogurt and topped with cacao nibs and that totally did the trick completely!  I was so satisfied!!!  I ate that and then made some iced tea to sip on during the next few days and I went to bed!

Midnight snack

Ugh.  Of course this is the night that my son gets sick and wakes up at 11pm with a croup type cough and freaking out because he is sort of like his mom and is a hypochondriac.  I can’t blame him.  He was scared and crying and coughing and probably couldn’t breath very well and the only thing that was going to make him at least think that he was better was for me to do his nebulizer.  Of course as soon as we started it up he miraculously got better and calmed down.  Placebo effect or not it worked but then he was hungry and wanted a turkey sandwich.  I wasn’t hungry at all but because he was eating and it would be selfish of me to have him eat alone I decided to join him.  I grabbed a bunch of Mary’s organic rice crackers and some manchego cheese slices while he ate his sandwich.  He’s the slowest eater on the planet so I ate more than I’d like to admit.  I also had several turkey slices while making his sandwich.

Notes on today:

*I’m not happy with myself for my midnight snack.  In my normal life with sweets I do pretty well with only eating when I’m hungry and even then I can usually put that off until the next meal.  I think now I’m trying to overcompensate.

*I still felt pretty good all day despite eating at odd times.  I never felt that afternoon slump and it was pretty stressful yesterday having to run around doing errands and appointments and lack of naps from any child.  I’m not sure I would have handled a day like that with such grace had I been eating sugar all day.

*My husband had some ice cream after the kids went down and I didn’t even want any!  That’s HUGE for me.

Sugar detox, day 6

Monday.  I survived the weekend.  Last night was the best night of sleep I think I have ever had in my life.  I went to bed at 9:30, woke up never, and then woke up to my alarm at 5am.  That NEVER happens.  I always wake up throughout the night whether it be because of kids crying out or a baby or just myself being super hot.  It’s always something so you can imagine my surprise when my alarm was going off and I thought I had set it for 1am.

Breakfast

I went for a fasted run (had coffee) on my treadmill for 5 miles.  I really wanted to take a break but opted to run because I had a feeling I wouldn’t be running the following day.  For breakfast I made myself eggwhites with turkey, 2 slices of sugar free toast, and 1/2 an avocado.  I was really itching to try something “sweet” so I also had a few bites of Campbell’s oatmeal.  It was made with almond milk, a 1/2 a banana, oats and walnuts.

Midmorning snack

I wasn’t hungry but dang that sweet tooth.  I ate one of my truffles from baking yesterday and a 1/2  a banana muffin that I also made yesterday.

Lunch

I packed lunches for the kids for the pool and almost didn’t pack anything for me which I new would end poorly so I packed a lunch too.  I had 2 spiraled zucchini with sugar free marinara sauce and a chicken sausage from the other night.  I was satisfied but new that I would be eating something else when I got home.

Mid-afternoon Snack

And eat I did.  Guys, this was just a bad day for me.  I wanted nothing but sweets.  I just couldn’t get my mind off of them and it was a hard day.  Nothing I ate satisfied that sweet tooth or the urge to just go get that ice cream out of the deep freezer.  When we got home the kids wanted some snacks so I also had some stuff.  I had some strawberries and while sweet didn’t take the edge off.  I also gave the kids some truffles which they both tried and then left on the table so I had a few bites of those too.  I also had a few slices of frozen banana with almond butter.  I still wasn’t satisfied so I had a few macadamia nuts then I remembered a great smoothie recipe that tastes like a Wendy’s frosty that I used to make a lot.  So I made that and was finally satisfied.  It’s made with a banana, 2T of cocoa powder, 2t of vanilla extract and about 1.5 cups of unsweetened almond milk.  Add ice and blend and you have yourself an amazing sweet milk shake type beverage for less than 200 calories.  Genius.  I will be making this more often starting off rather than finishing my “binges” (if that’s even what you call this).  Emmett also asked for a snack so I made him some chocolate “pudding”.  While looking for dinner recipes I came across a sugar free version of pudding and immediately knew I had to make it.  It was 4 bananas with 4T cocoa powder.  Throw that in a food processor and bam!  Pudding!  I also threw in about 4T of chia seeds for added nutrition which I won’t be doing again.  I thought the pudding tasted great prior to the chia seeds and didn’t think the chia seeds would change it all that much but they did.  Now we have a ton of this pudding stuff in our refrigerator waiting to be thrown away.

Dinner

This dinner was so random but so delicious.  I made 91% lean grass fed burgers, roasted sweet potatoes in coconut oil, grilled zucchini in olive oil, minced garlic and salt and pepper, this sesame ginger carrot salad and avocado slices to go on top of our burger patties.  I wasn’t starving for this dinner but I ate every last bite anyways.  All the flavors came together beautifully and I was happy with the end result.  We didn’t have any leftovers. The sugar monster was also alive and well and all I could think about was dessert and what in the world I was going to fill that void with.  We went on a walk and I thought that would help but it didn’t.

After dinner snack

I almost lost it here guys.  The kids were all in bed by 8pm and this is the time I want to be “bad”.  Us parents are so good all day long and have to put our best foots forward.  This is like my one vice.  Sugar.  I love to put the kids down and then just go nuts on the sweet stuff.  Tonight was proving to be extra challenging for some reason and my will power was seriously waning.  So I grabbed a small amount of 85% dark chocolate which is quite a bit sweeter than the 90% if you could imagine and ate that super slowly.  It did sort of do the trick because I didn’t want very much.  That’s the point I guess.  But when I put it away I just wanted that ice cream in the deep freezer.  Chad suggested I made some sort of “dessert” with his casein cake batter flavor protein powder.  I really think this totally defeats the purpose and plus all that stuff is is chemicals and fake sugar.  I don’t eat fake sugar anymore and have completely given it up with the exception of a diet coke every now and then but I was dying.  I needed something.  So I experimented and made my own version of “cake” with this stuff.  The good news is that all the experimenting took time and by the time I was done it was bedtime.  The bad news is that it all pretty much tasted like shit.  It wasn’t what I wanted at all and because I didn’t follow a recipe it was a total flop.  HOWEVER, this all prevented me from reaching for the real stuff that keeps me up and makes me feel like shit so I suppose Chad gets a point here.

Notes on today

*Today was by far the most challenging day I have had.  I don’t know what sparked the ugly sugar monster but today was tough for me.

*I was totally rested and again, no slumps what so ever.  I was low on energy though.  My body just felt tired.  While I was never sleepy I just felt off.  My run even suffered.  I barely could get through miles and I pushed to get those 5 miles in.  I should have listened to my body and taken a break.

*I had horrible horrible heartburn after I ate dinner.  I really didn’t feel it until we got home from our walk.  It was awful.  I was trying to think about what would have caused this and I still have no idea.  All I can come up with is that I overate and this was a natural reaction to that and not from what I ate.

*I went to bed a little after 9:30 and fell asleep immediately but woke up with terrible heartburn.  I actually went to bed with terrible heartburn too.   I’m still trying to figure this out.

*The good news about today is that I don’t have the sugar cravings anymore after waking up to day 7 (I write these posts the morning after).  I don’t feel gross but I want to avoid what happened last night because I have my motivation back.  I don’t want to feel that way going to bed and I certainly don’t want to wake up with heartburn in the middle of the night anymore.  I can only attribute this to just going off the wagon a bit by eating too much fruit in the afternoon and eating fake sugars before bed which are known to cause gas, bloating and indigestion.