Week 22 of Healthier Living in 2015

6/17/2015
For week of 6/10 - 6/17/2015
Weigh in Weight:  157.0 lose of 2 oz.

Week 22 of my healthier living journey in 2015 was very busy and very stressful.  Some of the stress was good and had to deal with Vacation Bible School which was awesome, yet again this year.  Some of the stress was not good and had to deal with death and dying.  So the fact that I lost a little bit of weight while being stressed and pregnant was quite amazing, especially since I had gained so much weight the previous two weeks.

I did pretty well with my goals for week 22.  I even managed to write in my journal a few times, which is a goal I had not written down for the week.  My daily exercise was to run after my toddler who wanted to participate in everything that had to do with VBS, as well as walks around town to do errands.  We managed to somehow fit in a play date at the park, which ended in us all going for a walk around town.  So I definitely stayed very active this week.  But I did take advantage of some of the down time in the morning and afternoon to put my feet up and completely veg out while my toddler watched his favorite movies over and over again.  I'm looking forward to getting out of that habit now that VBS is over, but it was okay for this week since most of it was very hectic.

Somehow despite the chaos traveling to Flathead Lutheran Bible camp over the weekend, and VBS, I managed to remember to get enough water and other mostly healthy fluids to drink.  I drank about 80-100 oz of water a day.  My constipation is still occasionally an issue but my water retention has not been too much of an issue during week 22.  My legs don't hurt and I lost a few ounces of water weight.

As for eating low-sodium foods and meals, that is something I will need to continue to work on.  Especially the last few days of week 22 with VBS, I haven't eaten as well as I should.  At least I can correct a lot of my eating habits for week 23 so I'll be keeping this as one of my goals.

I'm not sure if I will have access to a scale for weeks 23 and 24, since I weigh in on Wednesdays.  I will be traveling to Minnesota with my family to visit friends and my family there, but my mom might have a scale I can use.  Every scale I step on gives me a different weight, so I'm tempted to wait until we get back on July 2nd to weigh myself then and not weigh in for week 23.  I do plan to blog whether or not I weigh in for week 23, I just won't have a weigh in weight to post.  Therefore, I will set some goals for myself and do my best to stick with them on vacation.

Goals for week 23:
1) eat low-sodium foods and meals
2) get at least 7 hours of sleep a night
3) journal at least twice a week

Weeks 20-21 of Healthier Living in 2015

6/11/2015
Weeks 5/27 - 6/10/2015
Weigh in Weight: 157.2

The last few weeks, we have gone somewhere over the weekend and then we play catch up all week.  I have gained a significant amount of weight in two weeks.  I am slowly losing my excess water weight from too much sitting and not eating as well as I normally do while away.

I need to drink more fluids too because I've been dealing with water retention and constipation, two things that can happen to pregnant women.  Something about the increase in blood levels and so I need to drink more fluids, particularly water to prevent too much water retention and constipation.  It is something I am very aware of and am working on.

I desperately need to start walking again.  Today my son and I went for a walk with some friends after we went to the park for a play date this morning.  Despite the heat, it felt so good to walk around.  Of course the heat pretty much tired me out for the rest of the day, but my legs are starting to feel better.

Unfortunately, all of the progress I've made since Monday might go to crap starting tomorrow because we are going to be in the car for a while tomorrow and then again on Saturday as we head up to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp.  My husband has meetings both days, so my son and I will be hanging out by the lake and hopefully walking around and getting some relaxation and exercise at the same time.

Pregnancy and excessive heat are a killer.  It just zaps my energy so in the afternoon I just want to sit and not move very much.  But what I should do is go down to the basement with my son and exercise, or find a way to stay cool in the limited shade outside and be active with my son.  I also need to figure out how to make time to do my speed walking, either outside or on the treadmill.  Either one will work, but it needs to be done.  Activity helps with the water retention and constipation along with drinking more fluids.

So my goals for week 22 are healthy eating and physical activity related.  I do need to keep working on my mental and emotional health as well, but working on being physically healthy will help the growing baby inside me, help my body be less achy, and help with my mental and emotional help as well.

Goals for week 22:  6/10 - 6/17/2015
1) Work on being more active daily and get some form of daily exercise
2) Drink 80 - 100 oz of water daily
3) eat low-sodium food and meals daily

Weeks 14, 15 and part of 16 of Healthier Living in 2015

5/2/2015
For weeks of 4/15 - 5/2/2015
Weigh in Weight:  152.6 gain of 1.6 lbs.

So it's been a while since I posted about my adventures in healthier living in 2015.  I had intended to post on April 23rd once I got to Minnesota for our brief vacation, but I didn't have access to a scale and frankly I forgot.  So then, I was going to make sure I posted on April 29th, so it would only have been two weeks between posts, but again, it was not on the radar.  So, I am finally posting in the middle of week 16.  We don't have any more vacations planned for a while, so I will be posting weekly on Wednesday or Thursday for the foreseeable future.

Considering I've been on vacation off and on through the month of April, I'm surprised that I haven't gained more weight than I have.  I'm not the greatest at paying attention to my exercise and diet all the time when I am away from home.  But I am not alone in this.  Most people gain weight when they travel.  I personally retain a lot of water when I travel.  Whether by car, train or plane, I retain water, mostly in my legs and tend to have problems with constipation no matter how much water and other fluids I drink while traveling.  Luckily, I bounce back quickly once I reach my destination and those problems go away with lots of active movement and water.  Activity and a lot of water helps me to get rid of most of my water retention and my weight goes back to what it was or pretty close to it.

So travel tip for all of you who have water retention problems like I do, a lot of movement, a lot of activity like walking or playing in the park with your kid(s) and drinking at least 80 oz of water a day while on vacation helps get rid of water retention and just plan makes you feel better in every way. :)

I've decided that even though I didn't weigh in until today, I am going to start fresh with week 16 on April 29th and post again on May 6th, so I can be back on posting schedule.  So until my next post, Keep on keeping on! :)

Goals for week 16:  4/29 - 5/6/2015
1) Some kind of daily exercise and activity
2) Drink at least 80 oz of water a day
3) Declutter and organize my stuff (will ruminate on this more in my next post)

Week 1 of Healthier Living in 2015

1/21/2015
For the week of 1/14-1/21/2015
Weigh in Weight for 1/21/2015:  152.6 lbs.  lose of less than 1 lb.

I decided a long time ago that I was going to weigh myself once a week, instead of several times a week.  So every Wednesday morning I stand of the scale and weigh myself.  On 1/14, I weighed in at 153.4 lbs.  Not a great week for me.  At the end of December, 2014 I was weighing in at 150.2 lbs.  The average healthy weight for a person my height on the higher end is 135 lbs.  So clearly I have a long way to go.  Personally, I made the decision that I'd like to get to 145 lbs before I get pregnant again.  But I might get pregnant before I get to that weight, I might not.  And that is a blog post for another time.

My goals for the week of 1/14-1/21 were to drink more water, eat more low-sodium foods and get exercise in whenever I could.  The exercising portion did not go very well.  I was home most of the weekend by myself with my 2 year old son and he wasn't feeling the greatest, so I settled for being as active as I could and not sit around very much.  The diet portion of my goals went much better.  I stuck to eating meals with low-sodium content and I drank as much as 64 oz of water a day.  I moved to drinking 0% milk because it has less than 5mg of cholesterol and I would have that in my cereal in the mornings.  I am working on finding creative ways to get some moderate exercise in my daily routine, especially when I am on my own with my son.  I can't exactly speed walk on the treadmill when I'm home with my son.  He's not old enough for me to do that yet.

One thing that I have learned to do very well over the last 2+ years is to read food labels.  The key to reading food labels is figuring out the serving size because then the percentages on the rest of the label make much more sense.  It helps you to determine how much of something you can eat as far as cholesterol count, carb count and fat.  It also tells you the amount of sodium and protein too, which is very important.  We cook a lot of our own food and don't eat very much packaged food, but learning how to read labels allows you to approximate when you cook unpackaged foods too.  Which in turn always you a better sense of what you are putting into your body, which in turn keeps you eating healthier.  It is a complete lifestyle way of living.  It kind of makes me want to become a hippy farmer (a term I picked up for my good friend Heather.)

Ultimately, the purpose of me chronicling my healthier living journey this year is to work on changing my lifestyle to live a healthier life for myself, my family and my friends.  Like everyone, I have grand goals of weighing less and being more active with a daily exercise regimen, but sometimes life gets in the way.  I might take on more commitments than I have time for so exercise might be hard to get in daily.  I might be on my own with my son for a few days and need to focus on making sure he's well taken care of.  The winter gets in the way of doing a lot of fun activities outdoors.  (I am not a winter sports person at all.)  Things come up in life, but this year long journey is a chronicle of how I deal with the ups and downs and in the end learning what it means to live a healthier life in every way.

Goals for the week of 1/21-1/28/2015
1)  Fill half my plant at every meal with fruits and/or vegetables
2)  Get 7-8 hrs of sleep each night
3)  Continue working on eating no/low-cholesterol foods and no/low-sodium foods