my given name is Anne.
I love coffee. Not just caffeine. Don't get me wrong...caffeine makes the world go round! But I love the entire experience of drinking a cup of coffee. Whether it is while I sit by my warm fireplace in the morning, admiring the mountains of Montana just outside my window, or a quick stop at Starbucks to meet up with friends. I started drinking it in sugary lattes when I was fourteen and over time have learned to love the purity of a good black cup of Joe.
I'm a mom. A stay at home mom. It's the best job in the world. I used to joke when I was in college that I was going to get my MRS degree...and funny enough, when I least expected it, I met my best friend and (now) husband Chad. We had two beautiful boys, Ethan and Will, and they make every day in my life worth living. In this day and age, with so many women's rights, I think it takes a great deal of courage to say "I want to stay home and cook and clean and take care of my family". Yes, just like a fifties television mom. Sure, my family only has one income, but I would rather live in the slums (though I don't) then not be able to spend as much time as I can with my boys. I was raised with my mom staying home, and I loved having her there. I loved coming home from school to a clean home and the occasional plate of freshly baked cookies. By staying home, I believe I contribute far more to my family than any paycheck could.
I'm in love with my best friend. Is there anything more important in a relationship than laughter and being able to be yourself? I laugh constantly around Chad. And if that weren't enough to make me happy for the rest of my life, he's also handsome, hard-working, fun, a wonderful father, and has a very kind heart. Yes...I'm bragging. I'm proud of the man that I get to spend my life with. Every wife should be. Otherwise, what's the point? So here's a bit more bragging....MY HUSBAND'S THE BEST!!!! :)
I'm turning into a fitness junkie. I've always been active. In my school years I was involved in basketball, cheer-leading, cross-country, and track.
In college I still ran, even though I also managed to gain the dreaded freshman 15 (or was it 20?) from alcohol and poor diet choices (what's a calorie? Don't know, don't care, this ice cream is awesome).
Magically, I managed to lose the weight with the help of many little factors...exercise, healthier meals, not as much alcohol...but what I really think did it was an antidepressant called Celexa. In college I was diagnosed with depression, although looking back, I think it had started to develop in junior high...it just wasn't extreme enough for me to want help until college. I was given Celexa to help me. My mom noticed it first; my body was constantly, subtly, twitching. It was a side effect that seemed to work in my favor and speed up my metabolism. I also began to exercise again. My doctor said is was just as important as medicine when it came to helping my depression. Either way, the weight was lost and I felt great in my own skin by the time I met Chad.
But then came pregnancy.
Ethan was first. I had a lot of morning sickness the first few months of pregnancy with him. I lost 15 pounds and felt bulimic because I couldn't keep anything down. Luckily in my second trimester, I began to be able to eat again, and a lot. I gained the lost weight back and then some. I exercised the rest of the pregnancy while not over doing it, and Ethan was born, healthy at 7 1/2 pounds on his due date.
By the time I got pregnant again, I wasn't feeling great about my body. I had worked out when I could, but with a baby, it's no easy task. I breast-fed, which helped burn extra calories and pull my stomach back in, but I was a far cry to looking like I did pre-baby.
Again, I had morning sickness, but it didn't last long. My pregnancy never made it to a second trimester. I lost the baby at 2 months. I was devastated. Like so many times before in my recent years, I exercised to heal my emotional pain. I told myself that I would go into my next pregnancy as healthy as I could and hopefully I wouldn't have another miscarriage.
When I got pregnant with Will, I was scared totell anyone about it. I was scared that I would lose him too. But Will made it. He was born healthy. When you have two young ones to cuddle all day it is hard to find the time to workout. I did it occasionally, but was very into it. Then I made some new friends. Young moms just like me, but they were all in great shape. They inspired me to start trying harder to feel good in my own skin. It's difficult to be motivated when you look at fitness magazines, thinking "They are models...I can't look like that!" But when you have real life examples to look up to, it changes things.
So working out became routine once more. I looked pretty good, but a little piece of me gave up on ever looking like I did when I got married. I told myself that if I wasn't changing my body with what I was doing, this was probably my happy weight, about 140 pounds at a 5'6" height.
My new friends weren't just fit, they were fun! Drinks galore for the next few years. Summer camping turned into a Twisted Tea Festival, the majority of us guzzling one after another. Again, like in college, I forgot that calories weren't imaginary little things. So even though I worked out all of the time I was slowly gaining weight. It was so slow that I convinced myself time and time again that I was "just bloated".
At the end of September 2012 I ran my first Tough Mudder race in Seattle with five friends. The course was a bit over 11 miles with about 25 obstacles. I finished with gusto and told myself that I was at the peak of fitness.
My sister, after having her second baby wanted her body back and challenged me to do a round of Insanity. I just did a Tough Mudder race and had the orange headband to prove it! Challenge accepted.
Insanity is Insanely tough. Wow! My sister almost threw up on the first day. I barely made it through the first week, gasping for air and holding back tears when I would think about how many more crazy workouts I promised my sister I would do.
But I'm not a quitter. It isn't in my nature, so I pushed through. Something incredible happened. My body began to tighten up. I began to see results almost immediately and that just made me want to push harder. I was drenched in sweat after every workout and Ioving it. My love/hate relationship with Insanity trainer Shawn T. became more love than hate. I lost nine pounds my first round of Insanity without altering my eating habits greatly, but as I approached round two (I was officially addicted now) and the new year of 2013, I challenged myself to not only do another round, but make a few changes to my daily eating and drinking habits.
Challenge one: cut out weekday drinking and save it for the weekends. This might not sound hard to many of you, but I really enjoy drinking wine....while I'm cooking...while I'm watching my favorite show on TV...or simply to calm my nerves after breaking up a fight between my two boys. Cutting out those extra calories helped a lot, and I still let myself have alcohol on the weekend.
Challenge two: overdose on healthy ingredients as much as I could. Spinich here, chia seeds there, and a cup of green tea to finish it off.
Challenge three: Don't give up, ever. One pound at a time, one workout at a time. Little steps. So today (2/28/2013) I am two workouts away from finishing my second round of Insanity and I am down fifteen pounds! I went from 150 pounds to 135 pounds, all while building lean muscles and incredible strength.
I am now officially addicted to fitness and hoping to find a way to motivate everyone around me.
I am a writer. I write. Am I published? Not yet. But I do have an entire rough draft of a novel saved on my computer, just begging to be edited. Ugh, editing. I have been procrastinating this for three months. I finally finished my rough draft (after 3 years of writing it!) in November and I can't make myself move forward. So I am challenging myself to work on editing every day of March...starting tomorrow. 31 day of editing. We'll see if I can't get my book published eventually.
I'm writing this blog for me, not you. Of course I want you to read this. And positive feedback and messages are always welcome! It's just that this blog is where I am going to come and write about little things in my life that are going on. Hopefully you find it enjoyable, if not, at least I am continuing to practice my writing with this new form of journaling.
Hope you enjoy.
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