Finding “me” again… #thinkingslimmer

Life can be a crazy place to be at times – juggling all the commitments, raising a family and running a home. We have high expectations of ourselves and rush around in a busy spin. Obviously at times things can slip. One thing I have let slide is looking after me. I think this is something lots of women probably do to an extent when they have children, as your priorities change and you don’t have the time anymore, I can think of a million and one excuses. Anyway, I have been essentially eating and drinking without really thinking about it; cake with coffee, calorie laden snacks and of course that hard earned glass of wine (and nibbles) at the end of the day. I think sometimes I am still following the breastfeeding diet but I don’t have the baby to help me get rid of those extra 500 calories a day! And the result is obviously the weight has piled on! 

Thinking Slimmer is a revolutionary way of losing  weight that turns the world of dieting on its head and I have been following for program for around four weeks now. Here is a great post by Kate on Thin Ice which describes how it works but essentially you make your weight loss (realistic) goals, write down three positives from the day and listen to the “slimpod” every day (I listen last thing at night). Then you just smile, relax and see what happens!

When I first started I have to admit to being a little skeptical as it is hard to believe you can lose weight without depriving yourself of your favourite foods and making yourself thoroughly miserable. However now I can see small changes that are really positive. Before you can actually lose weight you have to sort out lots of underlying issues you may have with food such as using eating as a way of coping with stress which I know I do quite often!

Here are just a few of the positives I have noticed since following the program:

• clothes are looser and I feel more confident
• can’t finish meals that I used to easily be able to polish off
• sleeping better so feeling better and with much more energy
• can easily turn down cake (shock, horror!)
• choosing healthier options without realising it
• drinking more water
• going shopping I don’t buy the chocolate and biscuit offers that always ended up in the trolley as a treat
• clarity in my thinking and reasoning (strange one I know but I attribute it to Thinking Slimmer!)
• skin is clearer and softer

It is actually quite spooky how it all works slowly on the unconscious but I am now feeling really positive about it!

I will be tracking my journey “back to me” on my blog and hopefully I will have a body worthy of a bikini by July when we go to Rhodes with Mark Warner!

9 Things I never knew about Go Ape #weloveforests

We visited Go Ape at Sherwood Pines last week.

• You don’t have to do it as a team – most of the other parcipants were couples or a parent with child/ren.
• You are very safely secured to the trees/structure BUT it is totally your responsibility t0 make sure you are. It all kicks off with an excellent training session.
• Hence you double and triple check the harness and ropes before making the leap.
• On the tricky balancing bridges, swinging across as far as you can is a fantastic tip (given to me by a co-Go Aper who was aping around with his teenagers.)
• On the zipwires you will definitely land on your bottom at least once (or everytime in my case!).
• The scariest thing by a mile was the Tarzan swing. I didn’t think I could do this, but I did!
• It would be nice to have someone on the ground taking pictures of your bravery! If you do take a camera it has to be physically attached to you so it doesn’t get accidentally dropped on anyone from a great height.
• You definitely shouldn’t wear a skirt! Also don’t wear your best anything as it will get pretty trashed!
• You feel so pleased with yourself at the end that you actually survived it!
• Book a treat for afterwards! We went to Aqua Sana at Center Parcs which was a fabulous way to unwind after such an adrenalin boost 🙂

I would definitely recommend it to anyone as it was good fun. I am now looking at doing the Go Ape Tree Top Junior with the kids!

 

 

Floating boats, sinking ships

This week I am joining in with a great new linky where you look at the last week and think about those Floating Boats (highs) and Sinking Ships (lows)! It is a great way to put life in perspective a little!

Here goes..

Floating boats

Date with hubbie (which is a very rare occurrence)! Went swinging through the trees at  Go Ape (literally) and then to Centre Parcs for lunch and Aqua Sana spa. It was bliss!!

Sunshine – cannot fail to put you in good spirits! The kids love being able to play out in the garden till bedtime.

Noah’s graduation from preschool!

Sinking ships

As always I moan about the hours hubbie works but he is under lots of pressure at the mo! Last night he got home at 5.20 am!

Noah and I did our last Surestart session (Messy Play) and it was the last week of the Parklife course we have been doing which involves doing tons of cool stuff in the park. It makes me feel sad as I have been going to the Surestart sessions with one or the other for the last six years.

To see more highs and lows of people’s weeks click on the link below..

 

Setting some Goals…

I am finding that my life is whizzing by and I am not really achieving much outside the daily routine of school run, tidying, cleaning, washing, shopping, cooking etc. Do you feel like that? Noah is in nursery for 15 hours a week and I don’t have a job so there is plenty of “free time” in theory to do lots of things. I am going a couple of gym classes a week and have been going into school to listen to reading. Ethan actually informed me I am known as “Reading Mum”  (there is also “Baking Mum” and “Learn-its Mum”)!

I haven’t been doing much of the breastfeeding support volunteering at the hospital due to confusion with the week’s when I go and twice I went and someone had been the day before so my being there felt a bit of a wasted journey as there weren’t many new mums to see. It made me feel quite cross really as there was plenty of other things I could have been doing  but then I probably shouldn’t be volunteering if I feel like that! Anyway, I will get back into it as I do really, really enjoy it when I go (and feel like I have been useful).

Anyhow, I am going to set some (realistic) goals for myself each month and review the progress at the end of the month ..

May goals!

• Get a plan together for finally sorting out this blog.. theme, badge, blogroll.
• Learn some Italian (for holidays in August)
• Investigate courses for me – creative writing, teaching and wordpress theme development for a starter

And just a couple for the boysicles,,,

Ethan — Find out where he is with swimming and what he need to learn to progress. I think it is handstands in water. Boys don’t tend to so these in day to day life (or mine don’t anyway) and it is quite hard to explain how to do them!

Noah — Successfully get him to say Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum as opposed to F-tee, F-ti, F-tum! This is a target with his speech therapy..

Wish me luck! x

My love affair..

My love affair with blogging has a rival. I still love blogging just as much as ever but I have had my time and energies diverted elsewhere in the last six months.

The object of my affections raises my heartrate, makes me sweat buckets and has me gazing in awe at firm buttocks. Yes i have joined the gym!

Now my little babe is at nursery, I drop him and head to group cycling (spinning) class, body pump, circuit training or some similar form of torture.

I haven’t actually lost any weight and my clothes don’t fit any better but I haven’t changed my eating habits significantly either. In fact every time i get on the scales i seem to have put on 10 kilos! It is all a blur! I do feel healthier and sleep tons better though and the next step now is to adopt a healthier eating strategy to lose weight and tone up.

On Saturday I did my first Bootcamp class. I knew it would be tough.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The class was mainly female participants with male instructors.

It involved a lot of running (which I hate) and competitiveness (ditto). It also involved leaping and frogging, forward rolls and bunny hops. It reminded me if school sports day! We left with our dignity in tatters.

But is was good fun. The next day I ached which felt good and I have booked onto next week (which I may still cancel!).

So there we go, perhaps some balance is restored in my life?!

Here are some ways I have kept motivated:

I arranged to meet friends at classes meant I was less likely to cancel and let them down.

Choose a variety of exercise types to keep you interested.

Give yourself non exercising days to allow your body to recover.

Do you have any tips to add?

Home visiting with Surestart

Today I went to Surestart and had some training on doing home visits after the birth of a new baby. This is where you, as a volunteer,  go to someone’s house who has consented to the visit and basically tell them about the services Surestart offers such as baby massage, tummy time, breast feeding support group and other baby groups. At the moment this is a job carried out by Surestart staff, but (I think) possibly due to the work and time pressures on Surestart centres, they are utilising volunteers for such tasks. It also could be argued that some people may be suspicious of the authorities (and class Surestart as one) whereas a volunteer is “neutral”. Who knows! Anyway this visit is usually when the baby is about two or three months old. I actually thought about getting involved as an extension from the volunteering I do at the hospital whereby I get consents to phone breastfeeding mothers when their baby is about 72 hours old  (which is commonly the time when mums give up breastfeeding – tired, emotional, baby very hungry and milk  just arriving).

Personally I would have loved to have had a breastfeeding peer supporter come and see me at home when my firstborn was around 72 hours old. I can safely say I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and although my midwife was very patient and helpful, she no doubt had a list of calls to make that day and not enough time to spend with every new mum struggling. This is unfortunate but it is the way things and articles like this make depressing reading. It also isn’t likely to happen with this home visiting as once the baby is two months old the mother will be pretty settled with the way she is feeding her baby.

Anyway, I digress! The course was mainly covering guidelines for undertaking home visits and obviously the importance of  not putting yourself at risk when on a visit.

We talked at length about the potentially dangerous situations you can find yourself in and ensuring your safety. It was quite gritty stuff – drink, drugs, domestic violence for example. I’m not sure how I would react to someone with a knife threatening their partner, a child or me. These situations are thankfully rare but no doubt happen. It was food for thought – even thinking what to take in your bag had to be considered. Kids (even stranger’s children) are always drawn to a new bag and think nothing of emptying out the contents!

One interesting tip was if you are driving to park your car in the direction you want to leave, ie not facing the end of a cul-de-sac, basically in case you have to make a quick escape! I love this and will bear it in mind every time I park up somewhere I think. Also sit as near to the door as you can, or alternatively facing the door so there are no surprises. We discussed lots more common sense practicalities such as ensuing you have a fully charged mobile phone with you and that someone know where you are and when you will be back. I was actually quite surprised by how little information about the families the Surestart staff have before they go on a visit.

Anyway, I am going to have a think about if I would like to do some home visits for Surestart. To start off with you go with a member of staff so safety in numbers! You never know in the future there may be an opening for peer supporters to go and assist new mums that want the help. I think it is vital that new mum’s who can, and who want to, breastfeed, get as much breastfeeding support as possible. It is really sad that despite all the recent evidence, the government is cutting back on maternity services and throwing money out of the window (or in the direction of the infant formula companies who are clearly benefiting from this!).

What do you think?

Kindle Love

 

I read lots. I love books, and book buying. An afternoon in Waterstones browsing through the shelves was perfectly normal behaviour to me (pre children!). Since having babies the library has been our favourite haunt and I have taken to borrowing books from there to save money and still get the reading fix.

I thought the Kindle was a “gadget” and although I could see the positives about one, I never thought it would replace the book in my heart. However, having married to a gadget geek, I was bought a Kindle for my birthday.

I wasn’t convinced but after using it for a couple of months, think I am just about converted!

I love the way..

• you can send books to your Kindle directly downloaded from Amazon from your laptop
• Daily Deals offers great value and you are introduced to new authors you perhaps wouldn’t normally pick up.
• you can fit 100s of books onto your Kindle meaning no matter how fast you read or whereever you are you are never short of something to read.

Books I have read in the last few weeks..

Pines – This book was a “daily deal” and cost 99p, I hadn’t read anything by the author before. I thought this book was going to be a thriller and I was gripped from the first few pages. It turned out to be more science fiction (not a genre I would normally read) but it was addictive reading. I didn’t put it down on the flight from Lapland to East Mids – is definitely helped pass the time on a 3 hours flight.

The one hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared. This was another new author to me, I think I paid 20p for it but it had great reviews so I was intrigued.It tells the tale of a man’s amazing life jumping from the past to the present. Again a fabulous read that had me hooked!

A Winter Flame – I love everything Milly Johnson write and paid full price for this. It is a fabulous wintertime/Christmas read and I polished it off in a few days!

My next read is The Half Life of Hannah which was another 20p buy!

 

The Gallery: The Eighties

The Eighties, aka the decade that style forgot, saw me turn from being 8 to 18! Wow!

My 3 year old and I had great fun looking through old photos. Here are a selection of them though probably the most amusing will remain safely tucked in the album forever (which is a kinda shame!)…

If you would like to laugh at see more similar posts click on The Gallery badge below.

The Gallery:Fitness

Apart from the usual running around activities that come with two young and energetic children, I have struggled with getting a regular fitness plan established.

Since that “special” birthday part year however the weight has piled on so I have started to do Davina’s fab workout vid… (eating less is not an option!). It consists of two 30 minute workouts and several short targeted regimes. It is pretty good!

It enables me to fit a workout in between school/ nursery runs without leaving the house. I feel so much better when I have done the workouts and it give me an energy boost and I sleep much better at night.

What are your secrets for fitting exercise into the daily routine?

This post was inspired by The Gallery. For more details click on the logo below..

Babycakes goes to preschool

My little home birth baby Noah has now started preschool, going three days a week from 9-3. He has settled amazingly well, and the nursery have been exceptionally accommodating offering lots of settling in sessions and making thoughtful arrangements for him. He has made some little friends who he looks forward to seeing and goes swimming on a Wednesday.

It is now very quiet in our house with the eldest at school as well. We have settled back into the routine really well and it is actually quite nice to get some order to proceedings! I am loving having some time to myself although saying that have started decorating the entire downstairs of the house! So no rest for the wicked! Plus we are planning a house move which also means school move and no doubt a whole load of upheaval. But it will be good and looking forward to the change.

I do miss him lots though, which has surprised me as I felt like I was ready to move forwards. It is the little things like fetching the post for me when it’s delivered and he always knows where my car keys are!

I can’t quite believe that this time next year he will have started school. He will be one of the youngest in the year (being a May babe) so I just hope he gets on ok. One thing I have learnt though is how much children can surprise you with what they deal with.

I am going to plan things for us to do when we are together and make the last year of “just us” time.