Challenge #2: Get Healthy

The Good Housewife Challenge #2 starts TODAY, and focuses on getting myself healthier and losing the weight sticking around from those beautiful babies of mine.  I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball starting this next Challenge of getting myself healthy--I'm sick (still? again? forever???) and I've been crazy busy the last week planning and executing Jake's 4th birthday party!  His birthday was last week, and his party was Saturday--it was just a family party, but with 7 grandkids in our family, that turns into a full-blown extravaganza anyway!  It was a really fun time that I'll hopefully get a post up about later this week.  Today, I want to get into the nitty gritty about Challenge #2.  I'm making a softer start than I had planned--I wanted to hit it with a vengeance and really get into it on Day 1, but with me feeling so crappy, I really don't have the energy or desire to add exercise to my days just yet.  I just want to get better, and I think sleeping will help more than getting up early and getting on my treadmill while hacking up a lung.  I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to let this illness derail my attempts to be healthier...like illnesses, life, and everything else have in the past.

my previous philosophy ends today!

Let's talk shop: Where am I on this health/weight scale?  I decided to just put it all out there, to help keep myself more accountable.  I am 32 years old, 5'3" (ish) tall, and after weighing myself yesterday, I am at 163 pounds.  A quick trip to the WebMD BMI Calculator shows that for a 5'3" woman my age, my BMI is in the overweight category at 28.9--obese for me starts at 29.9.  That freaks me out a little...I'm really close to being obese.  I know that I don't feel good about myself, but seeing the numbers to back up how I feel is a bit difficult.  Apparently with my waist size (currently wearing a size 10, but I was honest with the calculator--I put in 12, since that's what I should be wearing if I weren't too lazy/depressed to buy new jeans again...), I'm more of a "pear shape" instead of an "apple shape"--carrying more weight in my legs (aka, my thunder thighs) and rear end.  This is actually good news (according to WebMD) because the most harmful fats are the ones around your midsection, and apparently, my pear shape indicates that I don't store as much fat around my midsection (although if you could see my midsection, you would see that fat is quite happy to be stored there as well).  This whole section on WebMD about my waist-to-height ratio made me feel better, actually:

"Your BMI is higher than what's considered healthy, but your waist-to-tallness measurement indicates that you are healthy. Because your current weight is within normal limits, your goal should be to stay active and healthy, aiming for a dress size of no more than 12."

So it could be worse--it's nice to hear that WebMD thinks I'm healthy, even if I'm too large for my height.  I really do try to be healthy, although I definitely acknowledge where I fall short and that I have many weaknesses.  They (and 3 babies...) are what have gotten me to this overweight place!

just putting it all out there...

I really haven't had much of a chance to research tools for weight loss, although I knew I wanted to try a food journal again since that seemed to work for me back in October (and I found it really enlightening).  A friend of mine recommended an app for my phone that has helped her...but I don't have an iPhone, and when I downloaded the app, my phone ran out of space and I was unable to send text messages anymore...hmmm.  Not working for me.  So I thought I would just do my old school Word document journal, but when I was looking at the WebMD BMI calculator, I saw that they offer a free Food and Fitness Planner to track exercise and food intake...so I signed up!  They will send me daily reminders to log my intake and help me figure out if I'm eating the appropriate food and the right amount of calories to reach my goal.

Speaking of my goal...um, I went a little overambitious on this one.  I put that I want to lose 35 pounds, and get down to 128.  I don't think I've weighed 128 since my boyfriend broke up with me in 9th grade (by disappearing with another girl while we were all on a school field trip...ouch) and I didn't eat for like a month.  FYI, that's not recommended in any way, and I wasn't trying to lose weight--I just didn't feel much like eating as an overemotional 14-year-old.  Looking back, the guy had a mullet and spent hours a day playing Doom on his computer...not sure why I was so upset over that break-up!  So yeah, when I was 14, I weighed 128 pounds.  I'm now 32 years old.  That's almost 20 years ago.  Not sure 128 is a realistic goal (or one I could maintain?), but my motto often is Go Big or Go Home.  I don't like to get a haircut that no one notices, so why would I want to put in months of effort to lose weight and be healthier and not have the crazy good results to show?  So I'm going big...35 pounds big.  That's like more than Jake or Alex weigh.  I want to lose a whole kid.  What's scary to me is that even if I lost those 35 pounds (when I lose those pounds...must think positively), I would still be in the middle of the healthy BMI range for my gender and height--so BMI would want me to lose even more???  The healthy weight range for my height is between 104 and 141 on the BMI, but c'mon, people--if I weighed 104 pounds, I would scare my children and have the perfect Halloween costume year-round.  So 128 seems like the better number when I look at it that way.  141 might be more realistic, but I feel like losing 20 pounds won't be enough for me to feel really good about what I've done.  I want the wow factor, and I think the desire to achieve that wow factor will really drive me through this Challenge.

I'll post my plan of action tomorrow, to let you in on some of the things I'm trying to help me lose the weight.  I think I may try to do some walking over naptime today, just to get back in the exercise groove, even if I can't be more vigorous until I stop coughing.  Happy Challenge #2 Start Day--wish me luck!!  :)