Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
I was hoping to write an update each week on my progress with my health challenge but I had a mental health wobble which meant I had to put my focus on putting one foot in front of the other rather than writing about my progress. Although it has been a really hard few weeks I’ve made some good progress and managed to stay on track through those challenges which makes me feel really good.
My Mental Health Wobble
I’m not going to go to deep into this as I have just published a blog post about it which you can read here to get the full picture. In short I had the Mirena IUD put in during week 2 of my health challenge and along with the expected pain, cramping and general discomfort I also experienced severe depression that jumped at me seemingly from nowhere but which I now attribute to the Mirena UID too.
While this wobbly was not pleasant some good came of it too since each time I have been on a mission to lose weight, increase my fitness and improve my health something has come along to put a spanner in the works and every time I lost my enthusiasm, motivation and determination… but not this time!
I didn’t write about my progress because that was too much for me, but I did stay on track and I did make great progress. This is something for me to get really excited about!
My Eating Plan
I stuck to my eating plan but it became quite boring, I ate all the same foods. In week 2 I was so busy that I did not take the time to come up with anything new for the week so I just copied from the week before. Then in week 3 I was so hit with depression I could not be bothered to make a new menu plan so once again I just repeated what I did in week 1.
While this became a bit boring I’m still proud of myself for sticking to what I should be eating.
I do feel that eating three meals and two snacks every day is a bit much food for me, even after I made the portions smaller, so I sometimes skip a snack when I’m still feeling full. I don’t like eating when I am not hungry.
So there is nothing much new to report on the eating side of things, but I am most certainly going to be putting in some effort moving forward to try new foods and mix up the menu a bit moving forward.
My Exercise
I’ve been exercising most mornings after I drop my kids off at school and I am really enjoying it. In the past I have tried to push myself to do more and to sweat a bit. However Helen’s advice to me at the beginning of the challenge is to get into a routine of exercising and to enjoy what I do rather than focus on how much exercise I am doing.
I really feel that this has made a difference to the way I look at exercise because I always dreaded it, as something that gives pain and offers no fun.
I do not push myself very hard, I walk a few kilometers on the beach most days and it is lovely. In fact the last few days I have jogged part of the way and I have enjoyed that too.
My Self-care
This has been interesting for me because for such a long time I had to “make time” for self-care and I had to have it on my to do list as something that needed to be done rather than something I did because I wanted to be kind to myself in that moment.
I’m not sure if this point will even make sense to anyone else but I will try. Here is an example – shaving my legs has become a chore and something that I have not done very often since becoming a mother. In fact I usually only do it when my hubby starts complaining about it more than usual. Very often I will go the whole winter without shaving my legs at all because I can get away with it.
I realized this morning that I have shaved my legs this week and last week, not because anyone moaned and not because I was going to an event and I didn’t want to be a shaggy bear. While I was in the bath I just decided of my own free will to shave my legs, because I felt like it. I can’t even remember when last I shaved my legs like that!
My Weight Loss, Energy and More
My weight loss for week 2 was great – I lost an additional 1,3 kgs and ended week 2 at 79.7kgs. I can’t even remember when last I weighed under 80kgs so this was a massive achievement.
However after having put the IUD in, my third week was not so great and at the end of that week I weighed 80.9kgs undoing almost all the weight loss from the second week. I did my research before having the IUD put in and I knew that weight gain is a possible side effect so I was prepared for that but it was a let down all the same.
While I put on weight in the third week my body started to really feel different in this week. My clothes were looser on me and I felt thinner. When I looked at myself in the mirror I could clearly see a difference. So while the scale was a disappointment everything else was telling me I did lose weight.
My energy levels were shot during week 2 but that was due to the side effect of the IUD being put in. It was a bad week and I’m not going to be attributing anything negative in that week to the health challenge.
In week 3 my energy levels started increasing and I am feeling so much better but I am not over the mental health wobble so I am taking things slow and being kind to myself.
Another wonderful thing that I have noticed and my husband has pointed it out to me too, I am looking younger and healthier which is a huge bonus. Just before this challenge started I remember looking in the mirror thinking that age is catching up to me and that I looked tired, washed out and old…. so much change in just a few short weeks!
This is a 4 week challenge, so it is just about done but I can see that moving forward I will be continuing with the things that I have been taught so far, it can only benefit me.
