Early To Bed, Early To Rise

It's not all just about eating right and working out. I'm also going to need to make another big change. This change is actually the pin that will hold the rest of The Plan together and I'm kinda surprised that I haven't considered it until now.

I MUST MAKE SLEEP A PRIORITY.

When I became a mum, sleep just sort of took a back seat to the rest of my life. There was always so much to do, and I became quite conditioned to function on a lot less sleep. The key word there is "function" because that is basically all I could do. I certainly wasn't living optimally.

Additionally, lack of sleep sends a message to the brain that energy is scarce. And when energy is scarce, the body often responds with feeling hungry. See where I'm going with this?

Part of my problem is that because I CAN function on little sleep, I often choose NOT to sleep (even when I am able to) simply because it is the only time that I have to myself. Please don't misunderstand - I absolutely love being a mum and I adore spending time with my Baby Girl, but when she goes to bed at night it's the only time I have to do what I want to do, adult things, ME things. I can email, surf, Facebook, blog, watch TV, shower, give myself a mani/pedi... all the things I can't do when I'm being a mum during the day. KWIM? I love this time, but I really need to institute some structure because staying up late is detrimental to my health and could possibly sabotage The Plan if I'm not careful.

I've gotten myself into a baaaaad habit: I stay up really late, even after Husband goes to bed at 10:00pm (not great for our marriage either). Then, when I finally get to bed, it feels like I get only a few hours of sleep before Baby Girl wakes up in the morning (the same time every morning - about 6:30/7:00am). I feed her and try to get her to go back to sleep so I can get some more sleep. I am usually successful and we wake up again at around 9:30am (essentially she just took her morning nap). Because we've woken up so late, Baby Girl's nap schedule gets all screwed up - she'll go down for a very late afternoon nap - and because of this, her actual bedtime turns into a battle. When we finally get her to go down again, I feel like I only have a few minutes to myself before Husband heads to bed at 10:00pm. So I stay up late. And the cycle continues.

This morning, Baby Girl woke up with Husband at her usual time. Instead of coaxing her back to bed, I just let her stay up and play. I did all the morning chores, we had breakfast nice and early, and she went down for a perfectly lovely morning nap at 10:00am on the dot. Baby Girl was sunshine all day and at her bedtime tonight, she went down like a champ. This is how the day is supposed to go.

There's also this: When I'm tired, I eat more (especially sugar); it's only natural - my body is looking for extra energy. I feel like there's no balance in my life.

So this is a very longwinded post about how I just need to get more sleep and stick to a better schedule. With that in mind, I banged one out on my iPhone on the subway today on my way to grocery shopping. Here's what I've come up with:

Speaking of grocery shopping, I went out and got EVERYTHING I'll need for the first TWO WEEKS of The Plan. Check out my fully loaded fridge. Look at all the colours in the produce drawers! My preparations are officially complete!