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Hello. It's been a while.I'm a mama of a spirited (read stubborn, bossy, impossible) almost 3 year old and soon to be mama (read due any day now) to a little boy. My pregnancy with my daughter was pretty straight forward and I was pretty active the whole time. This one, however, has been very difficult with a range of issues that have kept me from really being able to exercise or even eat properly. Now most of that has resolved an I'm on leave until the end of January and the weather is clearing up I figure its time to get into some better habits. This is NOT about losing weight, looking a certain way or doing a certain amount of anything. I'm not risking breastfeeding or injury just because celebrities put post partum pictures of their perfect bodies online weeks after having a baby. This is about kindness and love. Towards my body, my bank balance and my family. GOAL: Be a healthy and positive influence on my family. Food Plan lunches and dinners in time to get my orders in by the previous Thursday so my meat etc. arrives on the Saturday. Food diary. I'll use MFP but not interested in calories as much as food groups. Exercise Get some form of movement in every day either the wiifit or a walk Wear my samsung gear fit everyday to monitor my activityPersonal Start documenting everything we spend via an app on my phone so we can prepare a budget for when we have to return to work Make sure once a week I spend one on one time with my little girl. There we have it. No weights or measurements ( it would be cheating to weigh myself now any way ha ha ha). Just making sure I have good habits for when I am a little more human again.

Hi! My name is Willow (yep, like this guy, except I'm taller than that. And a girl. OK, OK, maybe more like this.) First thing I need to get off my chest: my life is totally mental. Like, cuckoo crazy mental. Like, I might want to feign actual insanity sometime soon to escape it. Let me explain. If you had met me last year, you would have found me newly married and newly pregnant, with a still-fairly hot bod from doing lots of fun exercise and living paleo (and prepping for that whole wearing a wedding dress and getting a billion photos taken thing). I was happy, hopeful and pretty excited about living my amazingly nerdy life. I didn't know yet that I was carrying twins. That I would be starting a new, stressful-ish job at a big cable company. That this second pregnancy, unlike my first three years ago, would leave me practically bedridden by the end of it. And about 80 gd pounds heavier. Fast forward to now: I'm on maternity leave (thank you, Canada!) and dealing with having three crazy kids at home all day. And three crazy kids up all night, too. I'm on a 24 hour schedule that doesn't leave me with a lot of "me" time. I'm also a 24 hour drive through for those babes, trying to breastfeed as much as I can. My self-esteem is totally shot, feeling chubby and yucky and like I really miss doing something with my brain instead of watching another episode of My Little Ponies and sticking my boob in someone's mouth. In short, I'm just your regular sleep-deprived, jogging pants wearing, hair-in-a-ponytail mom just trying to keep her sh*t together on a daily basis. EXCEPT I'M ALSO AN AWESOME WARRIOR WITH A WHOLE LOT OF "EFF YES!" UNDERNEATH IT ALL. (cue magical unicorn leaping across a rainbow trailing a shooting star in outer space) Oh, people on the street might think I'm just another stroller pushing kid wrangler. But little do they know just how much mettle and magic it takes to keep your sanity when your entire life is basically a dirty diaper, snotty nose, tantrum-laden war zone. OK, enough about the cray times I'm living through, and more about my goals. Without further ado: MY MAIN QUEST Is to lose weight. How much weight? Well, I'm not too fussed about numbers on a scale anymore. I would like to lose a pant size in six weeks. As of this moment, I'm wearing a (vanity) size 10 pair of jeans from the Gap. The scale perches at 168. I was about 145 a year ago (I'm 5'7"). I'd like to see those numbers smiling up at me again someday, but if not, hey, a size 8 in six weeks will do. MISSION 1: Do the BBW 3X a week. Starting now. OK, it's late right now, but tomorrow for sure. Cardio when I feel so inspired, and the gym when I can make it. I would LOVE to make it to 5 workouts total a week, but considering my gonzo sleep schedule, I'm not going to be too hard on myself. Now is not the time for bootcamp. (See Mission #2) MISSION 2: Go Easier on Myself. Be Happy. Stop Stressing I have this steaming heap of stress on my plate Every. Single. Day. (Try driving your car with three carseats in the backseat and surround-sound screaming emanating like a wall of ear-bleeding torture.) So, I want to be gentle with myself. Allow for mistakes, eff-ups and, you know, life to happen. Hopefully being a little lax will provide me with the room to get right back on that horse if I happen to fall of it. Or jump off of it, as the case may be. (Hello, glass of red wine calling my name with your sweet, sweet siren's song.) MISSION 3: Eat the Paleo. But with the Paleo Carbs. As much as humanly possible, I want to eat paleo. That means no dairy, and only a moderate amount of paleo sugar. I have a MASSIVE sweet tooth, and I can eat an entire wheel of brie before I realize what I've done. So, sayonara, fromage; so long, sweets. I'll still mange the tubers and occasionally the rice though. I need to keep up my milk supply, so those are kinda essential right now. I also would like to IF once a week for 24 hours just to try it. If my supply tanks, it's back on the food wagon. MISSION 4: Do Some Fun Stuff I actually really love fun stuff. I know some people are anti-fun, but, hey, what can I say, I love things that aren't boring or lame. Despite what my current schedule is like. So I want to plan for some bonafide adventures that will let me actually a) get away from motley crew of offspring and give me a fun way to get in shape and c) challenge me. So my goal is to do at least 2 of the following in the next 6 weeks: The O Course Military Obstacle CourseSUP Paddle BoardingPole Dancing (perhaps the most bone chillingly terrifying of all of the adventures for me)Rock ClimbingA Mud Race (if there is one)Trampoline Workout (or Dodgeball, if I can get in there)Whatever other cool workouts I can findRight now, I'm thinking the O Course and Paddle Boarding are topping the list. OK, that's the nerd me in a nutshell. Happy to have found NF and to be embarking on this amazing quest. I'm already trying to think about what kind of guild I want to join! SO AWESOME!!!!! And now, I'm off to produce some milk and catch a nap before I have to be up at some ungodly hour of the night... But fear not. The Cliffs of Insanity shall be scaled. And then I will leave them in my dust.

H'okay. Sho. Little buddy is 8 weeks old tomorrow. Breastfeeding hurt like a mother for the first couple weeks (just for those first few sucks after latching on, then fine...latch and position are grand), then the nips toughened up or whatever people say for it and things were pretty groovy. Suddenly, my tatas are so sore and sensitive I almost can't stand breastfeeding anymore. They hurt in my bra, and when I bump into or brush against something....owies ensue. About two weeks ago I started the Zombies, Run! 5k training program. I've noticed the nipple soreness maybe since a few days ago? Cycles haven't resumed since delivering Mr Dude, and I honestly don't expect them to (hopefully) for several more months since we are feeding every 2-3 hours during the day with one 6 hour stretch at night. I haven't started BC yet, but I'm getting my IUD placed in two days. TL;DR I guess I'm blabbing all this to find out if anyone else experienced this kind of extreme sensitivity/soreness while breastfeeding due to running (I'm only going 4-5.5 km, with walking/jogging intervals). What did you do to help it? Is there anything to help it? I really don't want to be ovulating, or pregnant, so I hope this is the cause.

Hello all, I am a newbie here. First off, let me just say how relieved I am to have found a community of nerd/nerd-ish type folks who are into fitness. I'm a serious grammar nerd, and I notice that most folks here seem to be able to spell and write. It's nice. So here's my question. I've just had two kids in two years. Evil Minion 2.0 is now 11 weeks old. I'm 5'5". Before my first pregnancy, I was about 142 lbs -- solid, not overweight, pretty muscular. Before my second pregnancy, I was around 168 lbs. -- overweight and unhappy with it, but still able to power through my workouts. Breastfeeding did not help me lose a pound. I looked better than I might have because of the amount of muscle I carry. Today I'm sitting at 184 lbs. I am overweight, edging into obese territory. 5 weeks ago I started working out again. I'm running and lifting weights, but often skip weight training days in favor of running because that's my stress relief and as a defense lawyer and mother of two, I am freaking busy. I am also in the military and will have a PT test in about 4.5 months. If I don't lose about 15 lbs before that test, I'm screwed. I'm breastfeeding exclusively, and it's going great, but I'm not losing any weight despite working out and keeping my calories at about 2000/day (a minimum to keep supply up). I'm easing into the paleo diet. I'm optimistic about it because it makes sense to me, but I worry about keeping up my milk supply. Does anybody here have honest to God experience with breastfeeding while going Paleo AND losing weight? At this point, I need to prioritize losing weight over breastfeeding so as not to get kicked out of the military, but I want to continue to breastfeed if at all possible. Any advice will be highly appreciated.