Mom On The Run

Wow!  Everyone did a fantastic job in Week #1 of the Healthy Challenge! 

Getting the results took a little bit longer than I had expected, so for that I apologize.  There was a four way tie for first place between: Amanda, Colleen, Kia and Sylvie!  Way to go ladies!  Because there was a four way tie, I had to use Random.org to choose a winner:

Yay!  The winner is Colleen from http://kennedyandzach.blogspot.com/ ! Way to go Colleen!  See – eating your fruits and veggies gets you free stuff too! I’ll contact you via twitter for your address so that I can send you one of these cute water bottles:

Week #2 will be finished tomorrow night – I also want to remind you that this is a week by week contest.  Each week you start fresh, so don’t worry if you didn’t get all of your servings in all 7 days, you can try again fresh each Monday.  Also, if you are new to the Healthy Challenge you can still enter for Week #3.  

Here’s how you can participate:
1.  Complete the form on the original post.
2. I’ll send you an email next Monday asking you how many days you were able to eat all 7-8 or 8-10 servings of fruits and veggies (Monday to Sunday). You will have 24 hrs to respond. If you do not respond then I will assume you aren’t participating.

Good luck everyone!!!

Here are the results.

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And the winners are….

#9 – Tricia of http://www.desperatelyseekingsilence.com/
#1 – Kia of http://bodhibear.blogspot.com/
#7 Keita

Congratulations ladies!

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This morning got off to a scary start. I woke up in my daughter’s bed still in my work clothes from yesterday at 6:20 am. She and I looked out the window at the beautiful, fresh fallen snow, and my hubby’s car tracks in the driveway. He had already left for his business trip to LA. Sierra went downstairs to watch TV while I stayed behind to check in on Brooke. I looked first in her crib – no Brooke. I looked in her “big bed” – no Brooke. I looked in the master bedroom – no Brooke. I called down to Sierra – no Brooke there either! My heart began racing and I frantically began searching the house. I looked all over the main floor, then down in the basement – no Brooke. I ran back upstairs to Brooke’s new “big bedroom” and kicked our Rottweiler off of Brooke’s “big bed” fearing that Molly was laying down on top of her and suffocating her. Thankfully, Brooke wasn’t there. Where could she be? Fearing the worst I began screaming her name; “Brooke, Brooke”! Then out of the play tent in her new “big bedroom” I heard a tiny, sleepy, voice cry out “Mommy?” I swear, that will forever be the sweetest voice I have ever heard in my life, and I pray this morning will be the scariest morning of my life.

What’s the scariest thing your kids have ever done to you?

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As you’re all well aware, I’ve been trying to eat healthier and to influence my family into making healthier food choices.  It hasn’t been an easy road because my husband just doesn’t naturally gravitate towards fruit, veggies, dairy etc… The more processed it is, the more likely he’ll crave it, buy it and bring it into our house to tempt me.  Burgers, hot dogs, fries, pizza… He doesn’t go out of his way to sabotage my efforts, in fact he’s being as supportive as he can given my lack of cooking skills.  He’s put on a brave face and tried everything – though I have caught him making a burger at 9 pm to fill himself up.
I have tried lots of things these past six weeks – some things were a big hit (ie: green beans sauteed in bacon fat) and some things were a big miss (ie: Tofu and veggie stirfry in a peanut sauce..).  This has lead to my new nick name:  “Captain Janice, guardian of good eating” and all of my cooking efforts have been nick named: “Adventures in nutirition”… (This may sound familiar to you because of the Playhouse Disney mini-show Captain Carlos).
My adventures have been fun and frustrating.  I’ve been trying some exotic meals but have found that all in all my kids actually like nutritious food and will eat it if presented as an option.  Sometimes they have even chosen it over junk!  When I really started paying attention I realized that they do eat pretty healthy – as long as it’s fruit or dairy abnd they prefer raw stuff over cooked veggies, so maybe I should just stop trying so hard?

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This is my Mamavation post for February 15, 2010.

Two weeks ago I was struggling. Hubby was travelling, I injured my calf, I was PMS‘ing, my weight loss was hitting a plateau… There were so many excuses and reasons to give up. But I didn’t. At the encouragement of the Mamavation Sista’s, I kept on pushing through and this past week I stepped up the intensity of my 1/2 marathon training by running each run FAST and getting up early to swim two mornings this week. I should have gotten injured this week with all the training, but I didn’t – you know why?

Yummy Veggies

I ate. And I ate well. You see, we’re having a Healthy Eating Challenge at work. We’re tracking how many servings of fruits & veggies we eat each day as we strive to meet the amounts reccommended by Health Canada: 7-8 servings for women and 8-10 servings for men. I met the reccommended amounts every day this past week. It wasn’t easy – I’ve eaten an enormous amount of salads, bananas, carrots and other fruits. The toilet and I have been best friends

I’ve trained for, and ran several marathons and half-marathons before, but I’ve never ever paid attention to the role nutrition plays in my training. I figured I was burning tons of calories training and could eat whatever I wanted. I never realized until this week how much fuelling my body properly helps with recovery and keeping my legs & mind feeling “fresh”. Every run this week has felt effortless! In fact, on Wednesday I set a personal best that I shared in my first vlog. I ran 6km at a pace of 5:16/km. I’ve only maintained that pace for that distance once in my life – and that was over 6 yrs ago (when I was much younger, and didn’t have any kids).

The increased running intensity, swimming, yoga and healthy eating MAJORLY paid off this week: according to Wii Fit I lost 4.6 lbs last week!

My weight loss progress

(BTW-here’s instructions on how you can create one of these charts for yourself)

I totally broke through my plateau and I’m well on my way to continuing the journey to my wedding weight! I only have 6 lbs to go! I can possibly finish losing the whole she-bang by our anniversary! Yay!

I couldn’ve done this alone. I know a lot about health, nutrition, training etc.. But I struggle with motivating myself to apply my knowledge. I’m human too. I have stress, emotions, PMS and all that other stuff. I’m so thankful to have all of you helping me! All of the Mamavation Sista’s have been so supportive and inspiring! Reading everyone’s progress, struggles and triumphs each week has helped me in a way that I just can’t put into words. I’m so thankful to everyone for helping me become the best me that I can be! Thanks everyone!

To challenge and inspire you, I’m having a Healthy Challenge!
Read THIS POST to learn more and enter.
Good luck!

PS – Have you entered my SADE “Soldier of Love” CD Giveaway yet?

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As a mom I feel it’s my job to make sure my girls are never embarrassed by showing up unprepared.  If its library day at school – it’s my job to remember to pack the library book Sierra borrowed the week before to return, etc…  I know at some point that I will need to transition that responsibility to her – but she’s only 4.  Over the next few years I’ll slowly introduce her to the process of thinking about what she’ll need for the day.  That said I’m also all for tough love – having her show up empty handed a few times will reinforce that the ultimate responsibility is hers, though she’s still a bit young for that.

This week my responsibility was Valentine’s Day.  More specifically to make sure Sierra and Brooke had Valentine’s Day cards to hand out to all of their friends.  This seemingly simple task is complicated by the fact that Sierra needed to bring cards to both her daycare class, and her Kindergarten class.  (She goes to full day Kindergarten Tues/Thurs and generally every other Friday).  Her schedule is a little wonky to say the least.  I needed to make cards for close to 50 kids for Sierra and another 21 kids in Brooke’s daycare class.  Due to the volume of cards, I didn’t even bother addressing the cards – I simply wrote “To My Friend”.  Now this where we get to how mommy screwed up.

Wednesday night at 11 pm, I was dog tired from 3 busy week nights but I was up in my PJ’s addressing cards, slipping tattoos into the corners of the cards and taping heart-shaped lollipops to the cards.  The Type-A part of my personality simply won’t allow me to just have the kids show up with the bare minimum of what’s required for the event.  Oh no – they need to have the best cards and something a little extra for their friends.  On his way to bed hubby hugged me good night and I got all pissy on him.  Why should I be up doing this while he gets to sleep?  They’re his kids too!  Anyways, he goes and looks at the schedule and tells me that Sierra has Kindergarten (big school) on Friday.  This meant that all of the three Valentine’s Day parties were going to be on Friday and none of the cards were due the next day.  I happily packed everything up, went to bed and didn’t give it anymore thought – I finish all of the cards Thursday night.

The schedule Sierra’s Kindergarten teacher sent home was wrong and Brooke’s class changed their schedule… both of their class parties were on Thursday. Only Sierra’s daycare class party was Friday.

Both girls came home sad Thursday night – ‘cause mommy screwed up Valentine’s Day.  Sigh – this parenting gig would be a hell of a whole lot easier if the school and daycare would at least send home accurate schedules.

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