Steps Towards a Healthier Me

Friday night was Sean’s graduation from our local Y’s “Biggest Loser” competition (which, in its second round will just be the “Big Loser” competition–you know, copyright issues). Anyhoo…They did a salad bar and had a motivational speech by Kae Whang from season four of the show (aren’t you jealous?). She actually gave a pretty good speech. Sean got his picture taken with her–not that he cared (or even wanted to), but one of his teammates is making a scrapbook and wanted the pictures to put in it.

Speaking of pictures, each person competing in the challenge got copies of their before and after pictures. Sean lost over 20 pounds, and it definitely showed in the pictures. Since I see him every day, I don’t notice as much. But the pictures definitely showed the difference. I’m proud of what he has accomplished so far. And I look forward to working with him on this.

Which brings me to Saturday. I decided to get up and go to the morning spinning class at the Y–my first real workout since E~ was born. I got there and started on my bike. About 15 minutes in, I was wondering how I had managed to do it for an hour at a time when I was five months pregnant. And then the trainer stopped. It turns out that they were doing a special “preview” class today. We went from spinning, to step-aerobics, to band training (that, if done on a regular basis, would undoubtedly give me the butt of my dreams–I felt the burn), to a workout ball, to TurboKick, to hip hop, to ab work, and (finally) a cool-down. I fully expected to not be able to move the next day. It kicked my butt. I wish they did it as a regular class–I’d show up every time.

I made my first venture into Raw food yesterday. It was called chili, but it really was more like a salsa with barley in it (ok, I did cook the barley–I didn’t have 3-4 days to let it soak). I took it for our family’s Sunday dinner get together. Others are not as brave as I am, apparently, so I brought a lot home. Fine by me–I really like it.  I also got stuff to make garden burgers. I’m excited to try different recipes. Sean seems highly skeptical. Too bad, I’m still making it. He can choose to eat or not. 😉

When I mentioned Raw foods in my last post, I got a comment from a woman who, it turns out, has written several recipe books and teaches classes on Raw foods. I have been enjoying reading through her website, so I thought I would go ahead and share it. So, if you have any interest in learning more about Raw foods, go here. I don’t plan on becoming vegan, but I am definitely interested in incorporating a lot of the Raw ideas into my diet.

I finally got to meet Quinn yesterday! Between all of the people and the fact that he’s still on Vietnam time, I didn’t get to interact with him a lot. He is a really cute little guy, though. And he definitely seems to have a great disposition. I hope that he is able to adjust to his new family well. It stinks that they are moving so soon after he comes home (OK, it stinks that they have to move at all). I’m just glad that they are moving as a complete family. It was about time that he finally came home.