Healthy Tipping Point

So I was digging through my exercise clothing drawer (okay – it’s actually four drawers!) and trying to organize things.  I’ve weighed between 125 – 165 pounds in the last year, and I own a ton of gear in a wide range of sizes.  Every time I get dressed for a workout, I end up digging through the drawers to find that ONE CLEAN SHIRT that fits or the ONE CLEAN SHORTS that don’t fall down and don’t pinch my waist.  Ya know?

Anyway – in the back of a drawer, I stumbled upon my Enell sports bra, which I bought after I gave birth to Henry and kind of forgot about.  I am SO GLAD that I rediscovered this bra because I’ve been wearing it to death and really want to spread the word about how awesome it is.

But first, check out the back:

And let’s acknowledge the obvious – this bra is UGLY AS ALL HELL.  Super, super ugly.  But it’s an amazing bra in terms of comfort and bounce control. 

As you can see in the first picture, it has eye-and-hook clasps that go up the front, and the back is a large, solid panel.  The top goes up so high that it covers the entire breast, reducing “spillover” – no quad-boobs.  I have some decent sports bra that basically control ‘bottom bounce’ but don’t accommodate for spillover – thus you still bounce around a lot.  The other nice thing about the front is that the bra almost totally eliminates cleavage, so if you wear it to spin class or yoga, there’s a larger degree of modesty than normal bras. 

I have a pretty large chest when breastfeeding, and that plus the realities of milk production make it downright painful to run in a non-supportive bra.  With this bra, there is almost no pain because there is virtually zero breast movement.

I actually JUST ordered another Enell in a slightly larger size; this one squeezes my ribcage a bit at my current weight and makes it a tad hard to breathe when I run.  I want to lose those last 12 pounds, but I refuse to feel uncomfortable in the meantime, whether it’s in regular clothes or workout clothes – so I can’t wait to get the bigger size in the mail!  Enell uses a different sizing system, which you can read about on their website.  But the bra is specifically designed for women with larger chests (C cup or above) or larger clothing sizes, so it fits women with busts from 32 inches to 60 inches and ribcages from 27 inches to 53 inches.

What’s your favorite sports bra and why?

Did you have a good weekend?  We certainly did.  I feel like we jammed a lot in – you’ll see!

First of all, I had three awesome workouts. 

I was feeling pretty sluggish during the week because Claire reverted back to waking up every 2 – 3 hours.  It was painful.  Must have been a growth spurt because she quickly went back to her ‘normal’ of 4 – 5 hour stretches at night.  So I revved things up over the weekend – mostly because I decided to take Claire to the gym’s childcare for the first time!  She did reeeeally well.  Henry was always great at childcare, and I think it’s partially because I started early with him, too, so I wanted to get her in there ASAP. 

I’m SO HAPPY that we’ve reached this stage with Claire because it frees me up to do so many more things for workouts – I did yoga on Friday, an awesome speedwork session on the treadmill + weightlifting on Saturday, and a combo of the stairclimber and walking on Sunday.  BLISS!

The weekend was packed with other fun activities – we had a Valentine’s Day dinner party on Saturday night with two of our couple friends.  It was way nicer than fighting the restaurant crowds.

I wish I had gotten a group shot – we all decided to dress up for dinner instead of being lazy in sweatpants (which is how our friends’ dinner parties usually go!).

It was fun to get out of my Mom Uniform and wear high heels for once!  <—I so rarely wear high heels; these heels are TWELVE YEARS OLD.  And just as uncomfortable as they were in college – hah!

What else?  Oh, we tried to go for a family walk around at the park on Sunday, but the temperatures suddenly dropped 20 or so degrees – it was freezing.  We called it quits shortly after getting out of the car, which sadly resulted in a toddler meltdown. 

I think Henry is half snowsuit/half human because he is never, ever cold.

And I bought a new rug for our living room.  You like?  It’s a bit busy but the room kind of needed something.

So, that was our weekend!  A little of that, a little of this.  Full but fun. 

(True story)

1. Decide to go to the playground.  Begin process of leaving the house.

2. Tell toddler he’s got to get dressed.  Go upstairs.  Get clothes.  Come downstairs to dress toddler.  Where is toddler?  Toddler is hiding.

3. Search for toddler.

4. Find toddler behind the bathroom door.  Chase toddler into the kitchen.  Practice Zen breathing while your toddler does an alligator death roll on the floor of your kitchen to prevent you from putting his legs into his jeans.

5. Notice all the crumbs on your floor.  Gross.  Make a mental note to mop. 

5. Screw Zen breathing.  Threaten a time out if the toddler doesn’t let you dress him.  He finally complies.  You dress toddler.  Wait – where are his shoes?

6.  Look for shoes.  Find shoes.  Repeat Steps 4 and 5 as you put on his shoes.

7.  Snacks.  You have to pack snacks.  Raisins, apple, crackers – you should probably bring something with protein.  Put some nuts in a Ziploc bag. 

8. Find purse.  Put all the snacks in your purse.

9. Do you have enough diapers?  Double check.  Yes.  But you’re low on wipes.  Go back upstairs for wipes.

10. Come downstairs and announce it’s time to leave!  Oh – wait.  The baby needs a jacket.  And probably a diaper change, too.

11. Go upstairs again.  Get baby’s jacket and a new diaper.  Go downstairs.

12. Change baby’s diaper and put on her jacket.  Toddler sings her a song.  The two of them look so adorable together that you get up and find your phone to take a picture. Text the picture to your husband, post it on Facebook, and select an awesome Instagram filter for it.  You can’t help it – you’re just so in love with the two of them, alligator death rolls and all.

13. Put baby in car seat. Baby starts to cry because she hates the car seat with a passion.  Where is a pacifier?  You can’t ever find a pacifier.  You own, like, twenty-two pacifiers.  Do you know how many you can locate right now?  One.  Just one.  And it’s upstairs. Go back upstairs.

14. Say, “Okay, it’s time to leave!”  Pick up purse, pick up car seat, hustle toddler towards the door.  Congratulate yourself because no one is currently crying or bleeding.

15.  Wait – you need a water.  You are SO desperately thirsty.  You cannot leave without a water bottle.  If you get to the park and don’t have water, you will surely die.  Put everything down, go into the kitchen, and fill up a water bottle. 

16. Your stomach growls.  When was the last time you ate?  Forever ago.  Maybe you should pack a snack for yourself, too…

17. Grab a big piece of chocolate and stuff it into your mouth while hiding in the pantry.  You’re not willing to share.

18. Head out the door.  Pull on your shoes and jacket as you go.  Load everyone and everything into car.  Get into car.  Realize you don’t have the keys.

19. Go back inside.  Look for keys.  Where are your keys?!  Find them under a couch cushion.

20. Go back to the car.  NOW it’s REALLY time to leave.  Yay!

21. Realize you haven’t brushed your teeth or hair today.  Is it worth going back inside?  If you don’t, you’ll run into people you know at the park.  If you do, the playground will be totally empty.  Hmmm.  Compromise – pop a mint and run your fingers through your hair.

22. Pull out of the garage.  Back directly into your husband’s car. 

23. Get out. Inspect the damage. Decide a baby wipe can probably fix this (baby wipes can fix a lot of things).  Furiously rub a baby wipe on the scratch until the paint transfer comes off.  Looks pretty decent.  Make another mental note to confess to husband later.

24. Get back into car.  Finish backing out without destroying more property.

25.  Drive away.  One mile later, you remember that you left your water bottle on the counter.

Last week, Henry was going through a “moment” and was being a stubborn little man.  I think it actually coordinated with a mental leap because I’ve noticed a lot of new cognitive developments (like he suddenly figured out how to actually hide and be quiet during Hide and Seek – not doing this <— gosh, he’s adorable!).  But it was kind of a rough mothering (and fathering) week. 

Funny toddler story – Kristien was going to cut his hair on Sunday, and K had JUST taken a huge chunk out of the back when Henry REFUSED to proceed.  Like – he would not allow us to cut anymore hair.  I decided it was not worth pressing the issue, so Henry walked around with a huge and very obvious missing section of hair for two days before I convinced him to sit in the hairdresser’s chair.

I may or may not have bribed him with a lollipop for that one…  Anyway – like I said, the toddler clouds are dissipating, and we are all back to our normal, fun (and well-groomed) selves! 

I took a few days off of exercise to catch up on sleep, but yesterday, I went on greenway run with Brandi.  She was scheduled to do 8 miles so I ran half with her.

It was hard. But it was nice to run in a new area for once!

Book a Week

This week, I read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

I’ve read other stuff by this author and really like her style, so I figured it would be a fun fiction book for the week.  Everything else in Book a Week has been non-fiction (and kind of heavy) so I was in desperate need of an easy-to-digest book.

Oh, this was a good one!  On the surface, it was a tale of motherhood, modern life, and marriage, but it was so much more – murder, mystery, intrigue!

Here’s the Amazon summary: “Big Little Lies focuses on three women, all of whom have children at the same preschool. One is a great beauty married to a fabulously rich businessman; they have a “perfect” set of twins. One is the can-do mom who can put together a mean pre-school art project but can’t prevent her teenage daughter from preferring her divorced dad. The third is a withdrawn, single mother who doesn’t quite fit in. Right from the start–thanks to a modern “Greek chorus” that narrates the action–we know that someone is going to end up dead.”

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.  I’ve got to rate this book a five because it really excels in its category.  Is it a groundbreaking novel that will change the way you look at life?  Naw, but for what it is, it’s really perfect.  This was a really fun and fast read – it would be great for a beach trip! 

Question of the Day:  What’s the worst hairdo you’ve ever had?  I accidentally box dyed my hair MURKY ORANGE/GREEN when I was in 7th grade (I was going for blonde). It took forever (years) to fully correct it.  It was horrible! I’d post a pic but I’d prefer that look to reside only in my personal albums…