Not a New Year's Resolution.

I have been pregnant or nursing almost constantly for the past 14 years and I am done.  I think our family is complete, so I am not planning on getting pregnant again (I am alway open if the Lord has other plans).  

Also, I weaned Zelda a few weeks ago.  She was biting me and then I needed to take some medicine that I couldn't take while nursing, so we unexpectedly went cold turkey.  She hasn't even missed it.  

Now, I am in the process of retraining my body how much food and exercise it needs.  When I was pregnant or nursing, I would get so ravenously hungry and I felt like there was a bottomless pit in my stomach.  I could eat and eat and eat.  It is amazing that I am not heavier than I am.  Also, I felt a responsibility to protect my body that was sustaining another life, I didn't want to do any exercises that I could get hurt.  Bike riding was out (I am not a good bike rider and so the possibility of me crashing is great), and I had also developed Plater Fasciitis, but I have been wearing Orthotics for 2 years now and my feet don't keep my from doing anything anymore.  

I am ready to reclaim my body.

One of the Christmas presents we got was a family membership to the YMCA.  I can exercise without the kids interrupting me or climbing on me.  Wow!  It takes longer since I have to drive there, find parking, get everyone out of the car and checked into the child care, etc.  But I am not nursing Zelda anymore, so I have some extra time.  (She regularly nursed for an hour at a time a few times a day.)  I also get to take any of the exercise classes they offer.  I have been going to a yoga class twice a week and love it.  

Along with all of this exercise, I have been tracking and limiting my calories with www.sparkpeople.com.  

I watched two of my sisters do it and their results were amazing.  I am not planning on doing it forever, or for even very long.  It takes a lot of time!  But it is a great tool for retraining my body how much food it needs,  learning portion sizes and being aware of the food choices I make.  I don't know that I have lost any weight yet, it has only been 1 1/2 weeks, but I have so much energy and some of the extra fluff around my middle is not so fluffy.  My face doesn't look puffy in the mornings like it was starting too.

The last part I should mention is that when I was starting all this, we had a lesson in Relief Society at church about repentance.  It was taken from Elder Christofferson's talk The Divine Gift Of Repentance, from the last General Conference.  One of the things he says in it is, 

"Without repentance, there is no real progress or improvement in life." 

I thought to myself, I want to make real progress, so I am going to repent.  I took my desires to make changes to my eating and exercising habits to the Lord and asked for help to take care of the body that he gave me. 

I have been so blessed.  I have not felt very hungry (certainly never ravenous) and I haven't felt deprived even though I am eating considerably less than I used to.  I often end the day a few hundred  calories short of my minimum.  It has been really fun to look a the numbers and see what I didn't get enough of that day, fat, protein or carbs and then find additional things to eat to balance it all out.  Some nights I have to eat a serving of ice cream because my fats are too low that day, and I really could use the extra calcium.  Another unexpected delight is that food tastes so good!

This happening right around new year is all coincidental because I don't really make new years resolutions, but here is to a new me!