Right Now - September 2017

Reading:
I've been struggling to get through 1984. It's really hard to get into it, but everyone says once you really get into the thick of it, you can't put it down. I'm starting to understand why my professor only had us read excerpts from it. I picked up Al Franken's Giant of the Senate to read while I was on jury duty, but I was dismissed early and didn't get passed the first few chapters. I purchased Lena Dunham's Not That Kind of Girl. I'm really going to try hard to read it by the end of the year.

Watching:
I'm binge watching How I Met Your Mother (currently on season 3). It came up as a NetFlix suggestion and I remembered how much I enjoyed this show. It was really good, although it stayed on too long and should have been wrapped up a year or two earlier. I'm trying to determine when it jumped the shark.

Listening:
I'm still rocking along to my I heart 80s station. Every Sunday morning they replay Casey Kasem's American Top 40. It's like travelling back in time and reliving history. Last week an upcoming band from New Jersey made their debut on the chart. Casey thought they might hit it big. Spoiler Alert: They did. It was Jon Bon Jovi

Drinking:
I'm trying not to drink my calories, so I'm not drinking much alcohol or anything else that has superfilous calories. I struggle drinking plain water, but I need to be careful with Vitimin Water or Bai Antioxidant infusion water as they each have 5 carb grams per serving.  Unfortunately, Coke Zero (Now Coke Sugar Free) has zero calories and zeros carbs, so I've been drinking more of it after I successfully kicked my habit. I still follow the rule that I won't buy a 12 pack to keep at the house, but I'll occasionally purchase a 20 oz bottle. I'm trying to let the fact that it's such a rip off to buy that size discourage me.

Eating:
Whatever I want as long as it falls within 105 carb grams, 61 fat grams and 120 protein grams and 1485 calories. I started working with a nutritional consultant at our gym to track my macronutrients. I've become one of those people who logs everything thing I eat into the My Fitness Pal app and carries around a mini food scale. It's been working as I've lost 7 pounds in just under 3 months.

Wearing:
Padded bras. Of course, I'm wearning more than that at the moment, I was speaking in general you perv! Sheesh! So I mentioned that I've lost a bit of weight. Yeah, it was all from my boobs. I look in the mirror and see an ironing board as my reflection. I've regained my teenage angst and insecurity about my chest size. I hadn't gotten around to googling boob jobs yet before I saw on my Moms who CrossFit Facebook page that some women who had breast augmentation reported that they couldn't do pull ups after their surgery. I realised that I've worked too hard to be able to do pull-ups to lose them when I can wonderbra it. So I subcommed to stuffing.

Loving:
My padded bras. LOL, just kidding. No seriously. I am loving Kate at this stage. Her vocabulary is exploding and she's developing into such a sweet and smart little girl. I'm trying to savor these moments and recall them for when she is a pain-in-the-ass teenager.

Anticipating:
Our trip to the East Coast to visit my parents. I'm looking forward to taking Kate to the beach, we're going to the Zoo and we're meeting up with Myrtle.

Hoping:
That Kate sleeps through the night tonight.

Following:
I haven't been watching the news much this week due to my binge watching HIMYM. Shameful, I know...

Wondering:
How Kate is going to be on our up coming flight. We have a lay over. I've been working on packing snacks and games to sustain us. I'm also bringing my portable DVD player and I borrowed a copy of Mamma Mia!

Trying:
To be better about sharing Kate photos with my in-laws. I recently sent them some of her art work from Day Care which they really appreciated.

Worrying:
About how much is getting fucked up by the Trump administration behind the scenes.

Planning: What to pack for my trip. Specifically, what to wear to try to make Myrtle jealous of my weight loss.

Contemplating: Accepting a position to be clinical site lead at my job. More on that later.

50 Questions You've Never been Asked

01. What’s your favorite candle scent? Anything vanilla (I know, boring)
02. What female celebrity do you wish was your sister? No one. I love being an only child and don't give a shit about celeberties.
03. What male celebrity do you wish was your brother? See Above
04. How old do you think you’ll be when you get married? I was 30 years old. Married in 2006
05. Do you know a hoarder? Not personally
06. Can you do the splits? Once upon a time I could. Will work on it.
07. How old were you when you first learned how to ride a bike? I'm pretty sure I was 5. I was kind of surprised to see my 7 year old nephew is still using training wheels.
08. How many oceans have you swam in? 2 -Atlantic and Pacific
09. How many countries have you been to? 10 -Austraila, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Germany, France
10. Is anyone in your family in the army? My maternal grandfather served. A WWII Veteran.
11. What would you name your daughter if you had one? Kate Victoria
12. What would you name your son if you had one? Jack William
13. What’s the worst grade you’ve got on a test? I've failed a few
14. What was your favorite TV show when you were a kid? Probably Growing Pains. Yes, I'm that old.
15. What did you dress up as for Halloween when you were 8? I think that was my Cyndi Lauper phase. Orange hair spray.
16. Have you read any of the Harry Potter, Hunger Games or Twilight series? None of them
17. Would you rather have an American accent or a British accent? Mine is a hybrid
18. Did your mother go to college? Yes and then grad school in her late 40s
19. Are your grandparents still married? Yes at the time of their deaths.
20. Have you ever taken karate lessons? No, but I want to introduce it to Kate as martial arts are helpful for teaching discliping and building self confidence, especially in teens.
21. Do you know who Kermit the frog is? Uh, yes.
22. What was the first amusement park you went to? There was a small park near where I grew up in Connecticut
23. What language beside your native language would you like to be fluent in? Spanish and ASL
24. Do you spell the color grey or gray? Grey -the British way
25. Is your father bald? Nope full head of hair.
26. Do you know any triplets? An old hockey teammate was a triplet (nautral conception)
27. Do you prefer Titanic or The Notebook? Titanic, never saw The Notebook
28. Have you ever had Indian food? Last night!
29. What’s the name of your favorite restaurant? Crogan's -our local pub. We got a free round of drinks on Saturday just for being frequent patrons.
30. Have you ever been to Nandos? Yes. This is a British questionaire. To others who were wondering, Nandos is a chain restaurant that features different styles of peri-peri chicken and different sauces.
31. Do you belong to any warehouse stores (Costco, Bookers, etc.)? Costco
32. What would your parents have named you if you were the opposite gender? Edwin (after my maternal grandfather)
33. If you have a nickname, what is it? N/A
34. Who’s your favorite person in the world? my daughter Kate
35. Would you rather live in the countryside or the city? City girl
36. Can you whistle? Sort of
37. Do you sleep with a nightlight? No, but I need to fall asleep with the TV on sleep timer
38. Do you eat breakfast every morning? Yes, I'm a breakfast is the most important meal of the day girl
39. Do you take any pills or medication daily? Calcium and Vitamin D supplements since I switched off dairy
40. What medical conditions do you have? Borderline high blood pressure. I had to go on meds during my final transfer and was on treatment during my pregnancy, but went back to normal range at my post partum visit and was still normal at my physical last year.
41. How many times have you been to the hospital? 3 ER visits (needle stick, finger laceration and cellulitis) and 1 admission to deliver Kate
42. Have you ever seen Finding Nemo? Yes and I've been reading the book to Kate
43. Where do you buy your jeans? Last time I hit the Levi's outlet
44. What’s the last compliment you got? Two women in the gym noticed that I've lost weight
45. Do you usually remember your dreams in the morning? Sometimes
46. What flavor of tea do you enjoy? Don't like any fru-fru teas
47. How many pairs of shoes do you currently own? I'm not a shoe girl. I probably have less than a dozen and that includes three pairs of sneakers
48. What religion will you raise your children to practice? I want to expose her to religion, but hope she chooses to be Agnostic.
49. How old were you when you found out that Santa wasn’t real? 9 or 10. It was revealed on an episode of Family Ties.
50. Why do you have a blog? It was my lifeline during infertility. I wanted to be anoynmous within my support group and I wanted to connect with people who were going through the same challenges. I never imagined I'd make the lasting friendships that I did. I've met 5 bloggers in real life. It's the coolest thing to meet someone in person for the first time and feel like you're catching up with an old friend. My blog is still very important to me, so I just can't quit it.

Fitbit Tips

I started using my Fitbit a few weeks ago. As insensitive as she was dealing my infertility, Myrtle has always been very generous with giving gifts. Leading into Christmas on 2015, she offered to get me a Fitbit after she raved about hers. "It does more than steps, ittells you about the quality of your sleep!" I had just gone back to work and Kate was flirting with the Four Month Sleep Regression. I didn't need some wrist band to tell me that my sleep was crap. I politely told her that I probably wouldn't use it. She got me one anyway and it sat unopened in my sock drawer for twenty months.

Why was I reluctant to join the Fitbit craze? I had a very snobby attitidue toward it. I figured that since I went to the gym I didn't need to count steps as exercise. Then I read an article on fat loss that made me realise how flawed my thinking was.  It's an awesome article, but carve out some time if you want to read it, as it's rather long. The gyst of how it got me to my Fitbit came when he described the hierachy of important factors for fat loss:

Calorie Deficit

Protein Intake

Strength Training 

NEAT

Cardio

His point is that while cardio is necessary, you need to have those other factors in place first. WTF is NEAT? It stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and is defined as all activity that isn't intentional exercise. He continues in the article, "Okay... why should I give a fuck?"

I have to admit this got my attention. He drew some pie charts to show that if you work out one hour every day, it's only 7 hours per week; which is only 4% of the time during the week. So you should maximise what you do in the other 96% of your time. Walking, light stretching, moving around; it all adds up. "A Simple way to do this is to aim for 10,000 steps per day." And thus, I started giving a fuck about NEAT.

I unwrapped by Fitbit Flex and started making some classic rookie errors. I wallked up and down every aisle in Tar.get and was disappointed when I only registered 36 steps... as my arm was stationary while I was pushing the cart. I began noticing ways that I was picking up cheeky non-steps. Driving my manual transmission to work yielded 65 steps. Even cleaning out the cat box would count toward my steps. WTF is going on that this thing is making me look forward to cleaning cat poop?

Then I discovered there is a setting that inquires if you are wearing your Fitbit on your dominant or non-dominant hand. I'm one of those wierd people who prefers to wear stuff on my dominant hand. Yeah... that really killed my steps. It's a struggle to make it to even 7,000 steps on a work day. Our office was designed to be super efficient and minimise movement. I find myself thinking up excuses to take a walk, but sometimes it's not for good reasons. Like walking over to the hospital to get a Coke.Zero from the vending machine, although in my defense, one time it was because I felt a migraine coming on and I needed caffeine STAT. The trouble with trying to squeeze in extra steps during my work day is that it affects my productivity. I have ADHD at the end of the day and I'm easily distracted as it is. I'm also noticing that I'm becoming slightly resentful as I'm busting my butt to do chores around the house such as emptying the dishwasher or putting away the laundry just to get steps while Husband is just sitting around watching baseball...

Nonetheless, I feel committed to giving a fuck about NEAT. I really want to achieve my goal of getting a PR on my body fat test in October. My other issue with my current Fitbit is that the battery is really weak and I'm needing to charge it every 2-3 days (I'm guess that's from keeping it in the box for nearly two years...) So, I ordered the Flex2 as it can be worn while swimming and I can get credit for my laps in the morning. Does anyone have any advice on how to earn more steps during the day and get the most out of your Fitbit? I recently crowd sourced on Face.book and not surprisingly most of my infertility friends answered. I should have started here in the first place.