Weight-loss, or Here I Go Again....

Maybe because it's Monday, maybe because I saw some pictures of myself, maybe because I finally got around to throwing away my skinny clothes from the early 00's, I don't know, but I woke up with an urge to finally get the weight off.  For those of you who haven't read my initial post, getting back into shape was one of the goals I had when I quit work.  I have made several attempts at it over the years, but, like the house, I always used my lack of free time as an excuse not to continue.  Indulge me for a moment while I give you some history:

I was a chubby kid growing up.  Then I grew into a really fat teenager.  My weight would fluctuate throughout my teen years but I was always overweight and because we women all have negative body issues as teenagers, mine just turned into more fat.  Maybe a year out of high school my frenemy-cousin called me up one day and exclaimed she had been doing a low fat diet and lost 10 pounds "without really trying".  This intrigued me so I asked her all about it.  Because I felt some odd competition with her, I started doing a low-fat diet of my own and, like her, it didn't really feel like I was putting much effort into it and the weight started falling off.  My weight loss surpassed hers and I quickly got addicted to watching the scale move down every time I got on it, sometimes several times a day.  I was exercising and eating better and had I had the mind-set to accept things like plateaus, moderation and patience, I would have been just fine.  But no, I was young and obsessed.  I quickly concluded that if I limited myself to 20g of fat a day and had lost this much weight, then I could limit myself to 15g of fat a day and lose even more.  Sure enough, the weight started falling off again.  Then I limited it to 10g, then 5g and before I knew it, I was eating only lettuce and steamed broccoli.  I thought I was looking great but when I fainted and had to be taken to the Emergency Room, I had a doctor that thought I looked like someone that needed to be committed to an eating disorders outpatient program.  See, I didn't realize that some vitamins and minerals need fat to work.  I also didn't see that my hair was falling out, my skin was dry and I was damaging my body.  I looked like someone twice as old as my then 20 years, but my jeans were single digits and that is all that really mattered.

The eating disorders clinic really shook me up and gave me a dose of reality.  I remember one group exercise where we all had to estimate our waist size and cut a piece of string that would fit around us.  I was amazed at the lengths of string some of the girls cut for themselves and thought "wow are these anorexic chicks delusional, they are cutting string that would fit around them several times".  Then we were paired up and told to cut a piece of string that would fit around our partner.  My partner cut a very short piece of string for me and again, I thought how delusional anorexic chicks were.  It didn't occur to me we were all in the same program, but I thought because my bones weren't jutting out like a skeleton I was somehow not anorexic.  And I wasn't...I was somewhere between Anorexic and Bulimic with a big dash of obsessive exercising thrown in.  We were told to analyze our piece of string we cut for ourselves and the piece of string our partner cut for us.  Then we placed the string around our waists.  Of course the string we cut for ourselves more than went around our waist...sometimes more than once.  The string our partner cut for us was a little more accurate.  That delusional piece of string my partner cut for me actually overlapped by a couple of inches.  Here I was thinking she was delusional and she had a better view than I did.  I had a very long cry about it and then stopped judging the other women in the group and got serious about getting better.  No one in my family ever knew about it, and I never talked about it with anyone else.  My family was very judgmental and not at all supportive of  mental health care.  They all had the "just shake it off" mentality and I didn't need the pressure.

I finally developed a healthy relationship with food and exercise and for more than a decade had a very healthy weight and body image.  Then, life happened.  There were several stresses, losing my dad, losing 3 jobs in 3 years (due to the economy and my profession), losing a long term relationship...etc. all in a very short amount of time.  Then I met the man that would become my husband.  There was dating, spending every spare minute with him, going out to eat, getting engaged, planning a wedding, etc. and my weight slowly started creeping up as I relaxed my eating and exercise habits.  Then there was infertility, and my weight did creep up.  Finally there was a baby!   A 12 pound baby to be exact.  I ate everything that would hold still long enough and gained about 100 pounds.  But I didn't care!  I was happy and content and figured my weight would take care of itself.  It never did.  No one tells you how much your body changes after you have a baby and those 5 pounds don't just FALL off like they do when you are younger.  Weight loss was hard!

So here I am.  I'm not going to give you my weight, but suffice it to say, it's too much.  I'll post my progress, but for now I am going to keep my starting weight to myself.

Day 3

So hopefully, the Evening and Morning Routine and the daily quick clean is helping to make your day a little calmer, a little more organized and you are starting to see some improvement.  Well today, you are going to see a lot of improvement with little effort.  Today you are going to declutter.  You won't get all of your clutter gone today, but you are going to put a noticeable dent in it and you are going to be so surprised by what you can accomplish with so little effort.

If you managed to get all of your laundry caught up, then great!  If not, don't worry, just make an effort to do at least 2-3 loads a day until you do get it caught up and then decide how many you need to do each day to stay caught up.  I'll be posting a Laundry tip sheet later in the week to hopefully help stay on top of things.  At any rate, you are going to need those three hampers or containers you used yesterday for today's task.  This is a helpful hint I modified a little from FlyLady.  If you aren't familiar with FlyLady, then check out her website one day at www.Flylady.net.  She has an excellent system in place that may work better for you.  I never could commit to it, but she has had tons of success helping people and her followers swear by her approach.  Even if you don't follow her system, she has some great ideas.

1. Get 3 containers (hampers, boxes, rubbermaid containers etc.) and put them in a central location of the house.  Line each with a trash bag.
2. Designate one container for Throw away, one for Give away, and one for Put away.
3. Get your empty laundry basket.
4. Start in your bedroom and set a timer for 5 minutes.
5. Go through the room and pick out as many things for your baskets.
6. Go to the containers and put the things you gathered in the correct container
7. Go on to each room until the containers are full.
8. Throw the throw away bag away immediately.  Put the give away bag in your car to drop off at your designated donation site, and put away the put away container properly.  Don't just put the things in the correct room, this time put the stuff where it belongs.  
9. Do this 3 more times.

If you are like me, you don't want to throw things away because you think you might need them.  That's ok.  If you have a place for it, then put it there.  If not, then find a place for it.  You will be amazed at the things you have multiples of because you never had a designated spot for them before.  For example: in our old home we never could find nail clippers when we needed them.  Because nail clippers aren't that expensive, I would pick a couple up here and there so we could have them when we needed them.  I didn't worry about how many I bought over the years because it seemed like the old house swallowed them up.  Now that we are in the new house and I have designated a spot for the nail clippers, make an effort to put the clippers up when I'm done and nag the husband and kid to do the same thing, we have about 6 sets and I'm not done unpacking everything.  Don't get me started on pens.  I've donated about 6 dozen pens to my son's school and I'm still finding more.  

Don't get caught up in the "I'm going to have a yard sale" mentality either.  If you keep telling yourself that and never do, then what has that got you?  If you still insist on having a yard sale, then find an area to keep all the stuff you are going to sell and get cracking on it.  Use a spare room and give yourself a date.  Pick a date and get everything together, cleaned and tagged for that date.  Give yourself room to postpone a LIMITED amount of time.  If you have to postpone more than twice, get rid of it.  

Clutter makes our lives more stressful and gives us more to clean.  If you hate housework and want to do less of it, you have to have less stuff.  

Moms New Rules

I admit it.  Sometimes I feel like I am spinning my wheels in neutral.  Especially on the weekends.  I manage to make a lot of progress during the week, but the weekends fall apart.  Mainly, because my son is at school and my husband is at work during the week and I have all the time in the world and no one is saying "Mom where is...", "Honey, where is....", and generally undoing everything I did.  For the most part, I understand it's their weekend and they are relaxing at home.  It's also my weekend and I don't feel like doing a whole lot, so I expect there will be some relaxation of the housekeeping.  But this is ridiculous.  So in order to save my sanity, I sat down at my computer and, very pointedly, typed out the following rules (manifesto???).  I will be showing it to the boys after dinner tonight and implementing these rules harshly!  Feel free to use them as well.

Mom's new house rules!

1.    If you take it out, you put it away
2. A box with a trash bag will be placed in the hallway.  Each day, anything I need to pick up will be deposited in this box.  The trash bag will be thrown away each Monday.  I will not remind you your stuff is in this box.  You are responsible for taking your things out and putting them away before I throw the bag away.  I do not care how valuable or sentimental the items are.  If you didn't value it enough to put it away, I do not value it enough not to throw it away.  This box will be used for one month as an adjustment time.  At the end of the one month, the box will go away, and anything I need to pick up will be thrown away daily.  
3. Clothes belong in the hamper, the closet (on hangers) or folded in the drawer.  Clothes that are not put in the hamper, will not get washed.  Clothes that do not get washed, get thrown away.  I wash, dry, fold, iron and put the clothes away, the least you can do is put them in the hamper when you take them off, or hang them up if you decide not to wear it.
4. Dishes belong in the sink or dishwasher if they are dirty, and the cabinets if they are not.  If you bring a dish out of the kitchen, you may finish it.  After finishing, you will have until you get up again to put it away.  Again, I wash, dry and put dishes away, the least you can do is not leave dirty dishes laying all over the house.  If you bring dirty dishes to the sink after I have done the dishes, be prepared to be told to wash it yourself.  It is time to be considerate of my time and the work I do.
5. I am not a short order cook.  There will be two choices for meals: take it or leave it.  I understand you are picky eaters and you have been indulged long enough.  I will do my best to accommodate your preferences, but I like things you do not and I have just as much right to have my preferences considered.  Especially since I shop for the food, put the food away, prepare the food and clean the subsequent mess.  If you choose to "leave it" you may make yourself whatever you wish, but you are required to clean up the mess.
6. The kitchen is closed after dinner.  If you want snacks you are on your own.  Again, you are responsible for cleaning the mess.
7. Trash belongs in the trash bin, not the floor, not the coffee table, not any flat surface.
8. Every flat surface is not storage space.  Please see rule #2.  
9. You will be taught to make up your own bed.  You will be required to do this each morning before school, and before 9 am on the weekends.
10. You will be given a set of chores.  I will expect these chores to be done when you get home from school.  Without argument.  In a timely manner.     
11. I have tried very hard to not nag you in the past.  This has not worked.  I will begin a new tactic of reminding you until it is done.  You may wish to refer to this as nagging.  I do not care.  I also do not care if you are fast asleep, in the middle of something or otherwise engaged, you will be reminded.  
12. I understand completely that my standards of clean are different from yours.  However, since I am the household manager, my standards will be followed.  You are required to do very little housekeeping, but you are required not to create more for me to do.  I make your job easier, you will pay me the same consideration.  

Day 2

Good Morning!  We are on Day 2.  Today we are going to tackle the piles of laundry laying around everywhere.  I was never all that great at Science, but I have discovered that dirty laundry has some sort of asexual reproduction while we sleep.  One pair of socks multiplies into 10 pair of socks, 4 pair of underwear, 3 towels and a sweater I forgot I had while I am not looking.  I don't really mind throwing clothes in the washer and then throwing them in the dryer, I mean, how hard is that really?  It's not exactly like we have to go and beat everything on a rock anymore.  It's the folding and putting away that generally gets me off track. I usually pile everything on the couch and tell myself I will sort the finished laundry by person and put it all away at once.  But here is the thing:  if it's something you don't like doing, and you find a way to postpone doing it for as long as possible, ensuring there is a lot of it to do, you won't do it.  So, today we are going to bite the proverbial bullet and just get it done.

Today you should have already done:

The Morning Routine
The Daily Quick Clean

For today you will need:

• Three Hampers, laundry baskets, Rubbermaid containers, cardboard boxes etc. large enough to hold a full load of laundry.  If you don't have anything like this, then find a spare piece of floor where your sorted dirty laundry will be out of the way.
• A cardboard box or large trash bag

Now lets jump right in.

1. If you have a load of laundry in the washer that's been sitting and souring, then go ahead and put that on a short cycle.
2. If you have a load of laundry in the dryer that sat and got wrinkled, then saturate a wash cloth and turn the dryer on for about 15 minutes to smooth out the wrinkles.
3. Go and gather all of the dirty laundry throughout the house.  Bring it back to where you plan to sort it. It helps me to dump it all out in the floor and then sort it into the corresponding hamper.  Pre-treat any stains as you go.
4. When sorting, I find it helps me to sort by: Dark colors (reds, browns, blacks etc.), Light colors, and whites.  For the occasional items that need to be washed alone or dedicates  I just set those aside in a corner.  
5. Start with washing all of the darks, then move on to lights, and finish with whites if you use bleach.  Bleach will help clean the washer.
6. Set your washer on the shortest cycle.  Most clothes with average wear only need the shortest cycle.  
7. Set a timer on your phone so you don't get distracted and let the washer and dryer complete and sit for too long.  
8. The average person over-dries their clothes.  Check the clothes in the dryer when the washer stops.  Some things can be transferred when still SLIGHTLY damp to a hanger and then hung on a shower curtain rod to finish air drying.  This will help reduce wrinkles and wear and tear on your clothes.
9. In between loads, take the empty cardboard container and clean out the closets and dressers.  Take out anything you know you aren't going to wear again, your kids have outgrown, needs repairs that you know you won't do.  You won't mind putting things away if you don't have to fight so hard to get them in the closet and drawers.
10. Once you have cleaned out the clothes from the closets and dressers, immediately put the box or bag in the trunk of your car to donate when you go out for errands.

Work on a project or enjoy some coffee and Internet time in between the rest of the laundry.  We will get to the rest of the stuff as we go along.

If you are doing the 30 day challenge, let me know in the comments!

Daily Quick Clean

The following routine will help you keep your home running smoothly even if you can't do anything else for the day.  I recommend doing the Daily Quick Clean every day, including weekends.  Finish in the room for the corresponding Daily Clean so you can do it all at once.

Kitchen

1. Unload the dishwasher
2. Reload the dishwasher with breakfast dishes
3. Wipe down the stove and counter tops
4. Wipe down the table
5. Do a quick sweep, working from the walls towards the center of the room

Living Room

1. Drop an empty laundry basket or other container in the center of the room
2. Deposit anything that doesn't belong in the living room into the basket
3. Tidy the couch, coffee table, end tables, mantle, bookcase etc.
4. If you have wood floors, do a quick sweep, again, working from walls towards the center of the room
5. Spray fabric refresher if you choose
6. Deposit basket items where they belong

Bedrooms

1. Make the bed(s)  *Getting Kids to pitch in
2. Pick up any laundry and put in the basket
3. Tidy night stands
4. Hang up clothes

Bathrooms

1. Give the toilet a quick swish
2. Shake out the shower curtain and arrange it so it won't mildew
3. Wipe out the sink(s)
4. Wipe down the counter tops
5. Pick up dirty laundry and put in the hamper or laundry room

Additional rooms

1. Spend an additional 10 minutes in any additional rooms that need attention.
1. sweep porch
2. put away shoes from the entry way
3. straighten the craft room/spare room

Morning Routine

Combined with the evening routine, your morning routine will help you get your day started as calmly as possible.

1. Wake early enough to shower and dress before waking the family
2. Get the coffee started
3. Wake the hoard!  
4. Get breakfast on the table
5. Sit and eat with the family.  Discuss what's going on today.  Is there soccer practice?  Spelling tests?
6. Send the kids to brush their teeth and gather their things
7. Have everyone meet by the door at the designated time and do a quick check.  Shoes tied? Shirt buttoned?  Hair combed?
8. Do the school run
9. Do the Daily Quick Clean

Now take a moment to catch your breath.  Set a timer and take an internet break, read the headlines, work on a project...whatever you want.  Limit this to an hour or less or you will run the risk of getting too distracted.  You can always go back to it after you get your daily routines done.

Evening Routine

The following evening routine combined with the morning routine will help get your day started calmly with as little fuss as possible.

1. Clean the kitchen right after dinner.  (Getting kids to pitch in)
1. Load the dishwasher
2. Wipe down the stove and countertops
3. Cull the clutter
4. Do a quick sweep working from the walls to the center of the room
5. Wipe up any spills or problem areas on the floor
6. Wipe down the table and set for breakfast
7. Set up your coffee pot
8. Think about breakfast and dinner.  Lay out anything that needs to be defrosted
9. Pack lunches
10. Take out the trash
2. Have the kids pack up their bookbags as soon as they are done with homework and put by the door or designated area.
3. Gather your purse, keys, cell phone and put by the door or other designated area.
4. Lay out clothes for the next day
5. Think about your day tomorrow and prepare