What is wrong with me? I’m not having any problems keeping up with my workouts. I feel good when I do them, and I’ve been doing them regularly for long enough now that they’re just part of my daily routine. Thank goodness! Because I’ve been doing a terrible job on clean eating for over a week now. I just want to eat everything unhealthy in sight! And I really have no idea why. It shouldn’t be hormonal–wrong time of the month. I am weaning off of Wellbutrin. Could that be causing this? Or have I just gotten lazy? I have been overly busy (but what’s new) and not doing as good of a job at planning as I was in the past. I don’t know, maybe a combination of factors, but they’re all just excuses anyway.

 Someone kick me in the pants please!

It’s a beautiful day here in H-town (OK, a little overcast and humid, but it’s better than the non-stop rain and roller coaster temps we’ve had the last few weeks). So I got out there this morning and cut back my crepe myrtles. For me, this is the first sign of Spring. Every year when I do this, I then start feeling motivated to weed, plant new plants, and generally take care of the outside of my house again. Oh, and getting some exercise without feeling like I’m “working out” is a HUGE bonus.

 I know this is WAY early for many of you, but here in Houston, it will be in the 90’s by early May, and between now and then it can vary anywhere from 30 to 85, so we take our Spring in the spurts we can get it in!

…but I’m back at it. I was really sick for a full week. Couldn’t believe it took so long to recover! I’m never sick, and when I am, I get better quickly. By the time I finally got over my illness, I had coughed my way into a pinched nerve in my neck that prevented me from doing much of anything from the waist up. I tried really hard to eat clean during those couple of weeks, but I can’t say I did a very good job.

 But I’m still here, and as of this past Monday, I’m back at it in full-swing. All CE’s all the way this week, and I started NROL4W over again. I had been doing it for 2 weeks, then 2 weeks off. I didn’t see any point in trying to pick up where I left off, so I just started from the beginning. I’ve been doing it in the gym this time (I was working out at home to avoid the New Year’s Resolution crunch at the gym), and I can definitely tell I’m getting a better workout with the better and more varied equipment available at the gym.

My training log is all up-to-date: http://forums.jpfitness.com/training-log/29217-my-nrol4w-challenge-training-log.html

 I’m on my way now!!

Well, now I just feel like I got hit by a small car. I’ve developed a nasty cough, and yesterday I maintained a steady 101 fever most of the day. I am seriously not a good sick patient. I have NO patience for it. I want to be better NOW!! I have eaten fairly clean, although not perfectly so because I just don’t feel up to standing there cooking a whole meal. But I stocked up on Lean Cuisines and low-fat turkey, so I’m making do with turkey sandwiches and LCs.

 I’m seriously itching to get back into the gym this evening, so that is a good sign. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. Maybe I can swing a light workout!

That’s what I feel like today. We took DH to the airport yesterday afternoon, stopped off to pick up a few things at Sam’s on the way home, came home, got ready, and went to our neighbor’s house for a crab boil. Last night definitely wasn’t clean, lol–the crab legs were probably OK, but the wine, jambalaya, and bread pudding weren’t! But they’re new neighbors, really nice, and it was worth the cheat to make some new friends. Got home around 9 p.m., put the kids to bed, and then went to see if I couldn’t find some chick flick to watch on TV. Around 10:30, I realized my body just ached. Neck, back, shoulders, elbow and knee joints. It literally came on in a matter of a few minutes.

 I put myself right to bed, hoping it was because I wore heels all night at our neighbors’ (and knowing it wasn’t–I wear heels all the time). But I woke up feeling the same this morning. And here I am, home alone with 3 kids. Thankfully, they’re being really good today, although my house is beginning to look like a tornado blew through, and I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. This is the weirdest thing. I have no other symptoms, no cold symptoms, my stomach is fine, no fever, I just ache from head to toe, and I think if I didn’t have the kids to worry about, I could sleep for about 12 straight hours. Hmm!

I have been eating clean today, although probably not as many calories as I should. I don’t have the energy to make too much. After a lunch consisting of an ounce of turkey and a teaspoon of fat-free mayo on two slices of Ezekial bread, two ibuprofen, and a bottle of water with an Airborne tablet dissoved in it, I do actually feel a bit better. I just really hope I’m much better by tomorrow. My two older kids are off from school, I’m off from work, and I really want to take them to go do something fun! I wouldn’t dare drive today, the way I feel.

OK, OK, I’m finally getting to this. It’s been a busy week, and I haven’t posted, logged, or blogged as I should. But I have kept up the CE’s, RT’s, and CT’s, and that’s the most important part!

 So, about me. Here’s the “fascinating” story!

My name is Carey. I’m 38 years old, and I’ve been married for 15 years, which frankly seems impossible! Where did the time go? We have three kids: a 9-year-old daughter, a 6-year-old son, and a 3-year-old son. My family is really important to me (duh!), but I’ve found that I still have to have a “me” side, too. I know a lot of moms who live for their families, but that just sucks the life out of me. I would do anything for them, but I’m much better to them when I don’t forget that I exist, too.

I was born in Baltimore and moved to Houston in 1978 when I was 9, in the middle of the city’s biggest boom. I’ve never lived far from Houston since that time, but only because that’s just the way it worked out. I love to travel, and I would consider moving to a new city a big family adventure. But that doesn’t mean I want to any time soon, either–I love my home!

I attended Texas A&M University and have a degree in English. I’m a technical writer, and I’ve worked in a lot of different fields. I work from home for a small technical publications company, and it is a GREAT job. Best of all worlds–I’m here for my kids when they get off the bus in the afternoon, get to attend nearly all their school functions, don’t usually have to burn a sick day if one of them is sick, and still get to stimulate my brain with a lot of technical information that would put most people straight to sleep. My company has had me contracted to HP (formerly Compaq) for most of my nearly 13 years there. I currently work for HP’s server division, writing manuals on how to install servers into enclosures, rack ‘em, cable ‘em (without electrocuting yourself with massive voltage in the process), and get them up and running. See what I mean? You’re yawning already! But I really find it fascinating. On the side, I also run my own technical editing company: www.writeitright.org.

So, fitness. I’ve played at it for many years, but in a lot of ways, I’m still pretty new to it. I grew up in a house where exercise was a chore: wash the dishes, bathe the kids, exercise, take out the trash, etc. My dad was the only non-athletic member of his family of 5 kids, and I think he kind of rebelled against sports in some ways. My mom grew up poor as dirt in inner-city Baltimore and didn’t really have any opportunities to play sports. From the time she was 8, when her parents divorced, she came home from school to babysit her younger sister and brother, get dinner on the table, and generally take care of everyone else in the house. So it wasn’t really a priority for my family. Still, I attempted some participation when I was a kid. I was on my junior high track team and basketball teams, I dabbled in drill team in high school (SO not my thing, LOL!), and I joined my first gym when I was 18. (BTW, I sucked at every sport I ever tried, but it didn’t stop me from trying.) The first college PE course I ever took was weight training, where they promptly put all the women on machines, and I never thought to question it. I was always a thin (very thin) person, so exercise as a health benefit didn’t really ever cross my mind.

My husband, on the other hand, is completely athletic. Name a sport, he’s tried it and done well in it. Everything from basketball to bowling, baseball, football, intramural volleyball and tennis in college, car racing, he’s done it all. We started dating in college when we were 18, married at 23. So 20 years together now, and I can’t think of a week that’s gone by in all those years when he hasn’t hit the gym at least once or twice. He lives for it, and to him it’s his fun time. He’d much rather do that than hit a bar or sit around watching sports. In fact, if you ask him how any teams are doing, he’ll tell you he has no clue because he’d much rather being playing a sport than watching one. I follow a lot more teams than he does.

So, after spending all those years together, I guess some of it has rubbed off on me, finally. Other than the years I was pregnant (where I threw up non-stop for 9 months every time), I have pretty much always belonged to a gym, but I haven’t always used the membership to its fullest value. About 3 years ago, a new YMCA opened up close to us, and I decided it would be a good thing to get a family membership: my kids go to YMCA day camp all summer anyway, my son plays soccer (DH is coach, of course!), and they have an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, AND a water park. Hey, it’s Houston, we need access to water in the summer! They also have a rock climbing wall, and it turns out that all of my kids think that’s the most fun thing they’ve ever done–they’d rather do that than go see the latest Disney movie! There’s also a full-facility gym there, so I figured maybe I should take advantage of that, too. They have a great program where you can track your entire workout and see how far you’ve come, etc. I once again hit those machine weights. I would go regularly for awhile, then drop off as I got busy. Pick back up, drop off again. You get the picture.

Then a couple of years ago, my MIL gave me a copy of The Schwarzbein Principle. Now, my MIL is famous for getting all enthusiastic about various alternative treatments, and then getting all screwed up from it and quitting. So when she first gave me the book, I rolled my eyes, (in my mind only, of course) and set it aside. But, as a technical writer, I am also an obsessive reader. Name a cereal box–I’ve read everything on it, LOL! So eventually I found myself with nothing better to read, and I picked it up. Wow! It was amazingly technical and boring. But in between all the techno-BS, there was a bunch of stuff that made so much sense! It explained why the low-fat diet my doctor put me on in the mid-90’s to lower my cholesterol had not only NOT lowered my cholesterol, but it hadn’t done one thing for my weight, either. In fact, I’ve slowly but steadily gained, with the help of my pregnancies, more than 20 lbs. since the mid-90’s. Only problem with that book was, the diet is so strict, it’s nearly impossible to follow. But I began to at least incorporate many of the principles from the book into my eating habits.

Then I stumbled onto The Eat Clean Diet. Another excellent book that made sense. But again, a diet that was insanely strict. I have a family of 5 to feed, including two incredibly picky eaters. My table cannot be all lean meat and veggies all the time, no matter how much it makes logical sense to do so. Still, I picked up some more great tips, and some more great recipes. Next came The Sugar Solution. This one included a 4-week diet plan, which I thought would be really helpful. It also explained a lot of the same principles as Diana Schwarzbein did, but in English. But I discovered that following a 4-week diet plan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I didn’t like all of the recipes, and, like most diets, it has you eating something different every meal, every day. That’s a lot of food to buy, and if you don’t like it, waste. On busy weekdays, I prefer to eat more or less the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day, then mix it up for dinner. And I mix up the breakfast and lunch on the weekends. Maybe not ideal, but it is sane when you’re a busy working mom.

Then I stumbled onto The Abs Diet. Finally, one that not only made sense (again, using the same principles as Schwarzbein and The Sugar Solution), but I could actually follow it, too! That became my bible, so much so that I actually sought more information on the Internet, leading me to the 52 Day Challenge. Wa-hoo! Other people interested in getting fit who didn’t find it as natural as brushing their teeth, like my hubby does! (He’s great, but he does NOT get that this can be a struggle/chore for some people.) AND, that led me to The New Rules of Lifting, which in turn led me to The New Rules of Lifting for Women. My new (other) bible!

So, I’m currently in Phase 1 or NROL4W and following a “clean” diet comprised of bits and pieces from The Eat Clean Diet, The Sugar Solution, The Abs Diet, and NROL4W. That gives me some options I can live with, and it seems to be working great. I’m not far enough into NROL4W yet to determine if it will undo the damage I did over the holidays, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t.

Now my only problem is, I still feel like a total doof in the free weight section of the gym. But that’s a blog for another day.

Bored yet? I promise the next one will be shorter, and hopefully more interesting. But I found it really helpful to put my whole journey down in writing. It just caused me to go back and remember a few things that I should pull back into my repertoire. And it allowed me to see how far I’ve come, mostly by accident, but also by perseverance!