Couch Potato

I really don't consider myself a couch potato, because I'm actually one of those people that doesn't like just sitting around. I just liked the title for my post. On my days off, I usually spend it playing with the girls, cooking, laundry, dishes, swiffering, etc. If anything kills my activity level it's my love of reading. I could sit and read all day.

My mom had heart issues until she became a vegan, and my dad has already had a heart attack. My grandpa died after his second major heart attack. I know that I have heart disease in my family, and my poor girls have it from both sides as well. Kasey's dads side of the family is full of heart disease. That could be because of lifestyle choices, but it's still there. Plus, my work friend Lauren was saying the other day that she got her cholesterol level checked and it was only one point below "High" so it was in the borderline high category. Thats scary! We eat and live like we're invincible but we really aren't. I want to be around a long time and watch my kids grow up. I want to watch my grandkids get married and have their own kids.

  Kasey has always been a health nut, so its no hard transition for him but I've always struggled with my love of chocolate and greasy food. Hes easier to be around when hes been working out on a regular basis anyway. Haha. My mom always cooked with flaxseeds, olive oil, etc and never kept cokes in the house so when I got old enough to buy my own food I didn't make very good choices. Its easy for me to cook healthy suppers, because I know thats what kasey wants but lunch I struggle with whether I'm home or not.

  In 2009, I agreed to start working out regularly with kasey, and for about 7 months we worked out together at the simmons center about 4-5 days a week. I looked and felt better than before. We gave ourselves one cheat day where we ate what we wanted and still worked out, and then a second cheat day where we ate clean but relaxed and didn't exercise. Then he deployed and HE kept working out but I struggled with balancing nursing school, karmen, and taking care of the house so I fell off the wagon. I didn't like picking karmen up from daycare and then dropping her off at the simmons center daycare so I just quit.

Yesterday, I told kasey that I would start working out with him again at least 3 days a week. Theres no way I could work out after work on my work days, so 3-4 days will have to do for now. We went to Ft Sill to the commissary and loaded up on healthy food. For our meals yesterday we had oatmeal and fruit, then went out to lunch and he had a chef salad and I had a chicken salad, and for supper last night I made homemade tomato basil soup.

 Today so far I ate oatmeal with peaches and brown sugar that I had in the crockpot overnight, an herbalife shake for lunch which was pretty good I'll admit, and for supper I'm making vegetable fajitas. Its marinating as I type :) I know that exercise is useless without eating healthy, so I don't want to "waste" my time at the gym. When I eat crap I don't even have the energy for the gym so it doesn't matter. I even went to Big 5 and bought myself one new workout outfit. If I stick with it I can buy more but I'll do one for now.

Here's to a healthier family!

My secret

I have a few secrets that only my close friends know, but I'll let you in on one. It's one I'm very ashamed of (especially being an L&D nurse) and I think it helped shape who I am today. Being pregnant at 17 was not something that I was proud of by any means. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and didn't want anyone to know. I'll backtrack first. In high school, I was pretty popular. I don't say that to brag, because really, what does it matter? I see that now. I hung out with all the right people, dated the popular guys (aka the jerks) and went to all the parties I was supposed to. I really didn't enjoy parties much, because I rarely drank so it wasn't much fun on my end. I mostly went because my best friend was a social butterfly and I was the "hair-holder" at the end of the night when she was puking her guts up. I made sure she got home and didn't leave with some random stranger..which she would've. I never made anything less than an A. I was the teacher's pet even though I didn't really want to be that either. I was on the "scholastic team" and went around to all the local colleges taking dumb tests and the one who got the highest score won. I was always in charge of the history and psychology tests. I was in the national honor society, made a 27 on my ACT which i was pretty proud of considering I was so young when I took it. My mom was a saint, and my brother was even better. He had a 4.0 also and was always home studying while I was partying. Hold onto your hats, ladies, because I wanted to go to YALE. I wanted to move, and take Kasey with me. I think I might've actually if I hadn't gotten pregnant and they had actually accepted me. I highly doubt I would've made the cut, but I would've gone. I don't really attach to places or homes, so I think it would've been fairly easy for me to pack up and move to Yankee territory. As a senior in HS with all of these hopes and dreams in front of me, I got pregnant. Unlike most teenagers, I wasn't afraid or scared of how I was going to do it. I knew that you just DID it. There would be a learning curve, but we'd survive. On to the secret. I didn't tell anyone besides Kasey of course that I was pregnant until I was 26 weeks!!! I was too ashamed, too worried about the image that I had of being miss smart and sweet. I'll admit that it was a little "fun" having the secret all to ourselves for that long. My mom eventually asked me..in the middle of a restaurant. I started crying and said, "you're going to hate me." Who knows when I would've gotten the courage to tell her. I was afraid she would be disappointed. That was what it boiled down to. And I'm sure she was, though thankfully she never said it. A couple days later I made a doctor's appointment and we found out that she was a girl at the first ultrasound! Kasey's parents were more disappointed I think than my mom, because he didn't get up the courage to tell them until November. She was born in January. It was one of those things were the longer the secret goes on, the harder it is to tell because by then he was like, "oh lindsey and i are having a baby. In 2 months. And it's a girl. Her names Karmen." He already had twins in KY already that were 3 so they weren't happy at all. How did I keep it a secret for 6 months? I don't know. I didn't restrict my food intake or anything of course. I actually ate a ton, so I'm not sure how I didn't gain more than 19 lbs. Most of it went to my chest, butt and hips as opposed to my stomach. Until about 6 months you couldn't really tell I was pregnant, so that is how my mom finally figured it out. Anyway, I'm a labor nurse so I actually enjoy taking care of the younger patients, because I've been there and know how embarrassing it can be. I like telling them I had a baby at 17 and I turned out ok. Their moms especially seem to like to hear that. I hear other people say, "I can't believe she didn't get prenatal care until such and such time" and I don't comment because little do they know I've also been there too. I'm too ashamed to say it outloud though. I joke about alternative school because it is actually pretty funny, but at the time I was horribly embarrassed. Instead of going, I did all my homework at home that christmas break so I would'nt have to actually attend. I picked my work up, took it home, and took it back to turn it in. So thats one of my secrets. I don't have many, and thats the "biggest" one so there ya go. Now you know.