Wake Up Call
Ugh. I woke up on Friday morning to discover that I had somehow sprained or strained something in my sleep. I wasn’t sure how but all I knew was that I was in pain and could barely walk, sit, stand OR lay down comfortably. This continued all weekend and made it very, very difficult to do anything.
Scarily, it also made it nearly impossible to properly care for The Little Empress who is a very mobile, climbing toddler. Luckily, The Hubster ™ was home along with my sister and a guest so I did have some help. Still, being rendered temporarily immobile was my worst nightmare come true.
Having struggled with my weight for years and knowing that health problems are on the horizon if not already here, I’ve always worried about my ability to keep up with an increasingly mobile, energetic toddler. As she’s learned to walk, run and climb, I’ve found myself hard pressed to keep up with her. I am tired, almost exhausted, much of the time. Sometimes it is hard to run after her.
But being practically immobile for much of the weekend was a very harsh wakeup call. I could barely move to help her get what she wanted or needed, much less to pick her up or do things with her. I could barely kneel down to change her diaper and there were more than a few times this weekend that I’ve seen her climb into a potentially dangerous situation and I could barely stop her.
While I don’t necessarily know that whatever I sprained was caused by my being overweight, I know that being overweight certainly didn’t help. I feel unhealthy and I worry about the health problems I’ll face. I know I need to get healthy so I can continue to be The Little Empress’ protector, to keep her safe from harm and play with her all the time. I couldn’t do that this weekend and that hurt so badly. I need to get healthy so it won’t happen again.
Read MoreWeight Loss Websites
Having been overweight since quitting smoking back in in 2001, I’ve made my rounds on the diet websites. Most people swear by Weight Watchers and for good reason. It is a damned good website, has plenty of tools and teaches you how to eat heathily within their POINTS system. Unfortunately, it is a paid site and costs a pretty penny to start up.
Calorie King is also another favorite of online dieters. I used this back around 2002 or 2003. I loved it back then because I had a Palm based PDA and Calorie King also had a Palm application. As I remember it, it was a great program and easy to use. The downside is that it is also a paid site and paid program.
SparkPeople is the site that I’ve used since about 2007 and I love it. I has a very comprehensive and easy to use food and exercise logging system with a huge community. A plus that they added within the past year or so is the ability to create custom meals, ie. if you eat smaller meals rather than three large meals a day. For iPhone users, there is also an iPhone app which is great for on the go though it doesn’t detect the extra custom meals if you’ve added them. SparkPeople also has a sister site called BabyFit which is geared towards pregnant women and post-partum mothers to help establish healthy eating and safe exercise habits during those important months. Best of all, both sites are FREE. 
Why am I mentioning all this? Despite being feverish and suffering from a bout of bronchitis, The Little Empress is hell bent on being mobile and getting into absolutely everything imaginable. And Mommy is having a tough time keeping up. I have zero energy by the afternoon and that’s when TLE is just getting started. I have about 60lbs to lose and I know if I lose even 15lbs that will make a difference with my energy level. I can’t let myself be the Mommy that can’t play with her little girl because she is too tired! So I’ve decided to start up my Spark People account again, keep track of my food, exercise and try to stay motivated.
So if anyone is interested, my SparkPeople page is here. My SP blog feed is available on the Mommy Misadventures sidebar or here.
Read More
Copyright
Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.