New me eating new stuff

Its been a while.

2012 was a banner year for the Biggs's, with our oldest, the Daughter, going off to college, the Middle One getting a full time summer job and the Youngest, Vladmeir Baxdendalle, disappearing off into the neighborhood with his friends before the start of high school. We also added a new member of our household, at least part-time, when Penelope's friend moved in with us over the summer before she went off to college too. I always thought there would be a gradual tapering off of neediness by my kids but what happened instead was they all walked out the door at once (and of course left it wide open for all of the dirt to blow in).

The cats seem to be the only ones who depend on me anymore, since I remember to buy the cat food (most of the time).

Don't worry, we're all still incredibly lazy, we're just spread out more.

Herself, at school

When Penelope left, I became a bit obsessed with what she must be doing 3000 miles away. Fortunately or unfortunately we live in a modern world which makes it possible to stalk your kids quite easily, but something just wasn't right about me constantly checking to see if she was on Gmail, looking for her to post on Facebook, and stalking her Tumblr blog. That last one felt like the ultimate invasion of privacy, even though, you know, she put it on the INTERNET. Cause she didn't put it on the internet for her mom to see.

It was a bit of a rough time for me, not knowing what she was up to and not being able to do anything about it anyway. She's not a big communicator, so there wasn't a lot of calling home (there was actually NO calling home. She called me on Thanksgiving because my sister who was hosting her for the holiday suggested she should, and she called me on my birthday.) I told myself no news was good news but if I was going to keep my sanity I needed to find some other way to spend my time besides internet stalking my oldest.

So I started making myself do 5 push-ups every time I found myself pulled towards her online profiles. Soon, 5 push-ups seemed kind of easy. Sometimes I went ahead and did 10. I still wondered what she was up to, but started to navigate to healthy eating websites, instead of to her Facebook page (which she rarely posted to anyway). I started to play on Pinterest and see healthy recipes that looked really appealing.

I decided I'd let go of what was beyond my control and focus on what I could control. For me that boiled down to getting healthy. With the girls safely tucked away at college (I had to assume) and the boys roaming the city with their own lives to lead, I decided to fix my attention on my weight, which had gotten all out of control, and my fitness level, which was unimpressive to say the least.

I don't have many pictures of myself from "before", since I wisely avoided the camera. I was 5' 4', about 200 pounds (I had not been on a scale for a long time), and actually not in too poor shape since I was at least playing soccer a couple of times a week. But on the soccer field I was slowwwwwww, and my clothes were really uncomfortable. I didn't feel good about my body or my looks and was generally -- how do they say it-- letting myself go. When you're over 40 and you start to let yourself go, you go quickly!

Shortly after I got back from the college drop-off, my friend from work, Corie, told me about an app she was using called My Fitness Pal. It helped keep track of what I was eating and how much exercise I was getting. Corie also whipped me into shape in terms of my wardrobe. She is always impeccably dressed and coiffed and made up and she raised the bar on me. We started encouraging each other and became "get fit" buddies. We never called it weight loss, since we were looking for a healthy life transformation, not a quick diet.

This is me at my niece's wedding in October, about 6 weeks into my efforts. 

So that this isn't a million pages long I will stop here (also, Game of Thrones just started) and talk next time about how and what progress has been made. And what the kids think. Or if they have even noticed.