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!

Weights & Measures

So I picked up the last of my preparations today and, save for the actual groceries, I think I can now say that I am ready to go for October 1st.

I got these:

and this (cue scary music here):

The iPhone app I'll be using to track my calories - Lean Me (Pro) - uses height, weight, and body measurements to calculate BMR and calories spent during any given exercise. In the interest of being thorough, I am going to take all my measurements on September 30th. That's also the date that I'll be posting my "Before" Progress Pic of me in my BATHING SUIT. Yikes!

I'm getting very excited.

Unfortunately, despite all my planning, I ran into a small bump in the road already - no biggie - but Husband just informed me tonight that he has a late meeting scheduled for Thursday (October 1st) so I can't go running on my first day of my plan. (Because he's the one who would be watching Baby Girl while I go for my run.) But that's okay, I'll probably just do some brisk walking for the first week anyway to build up my endurance so I can just take Baby Girl with me in the stroller. When there's a will, there's a way.

And there is definitely a will!

Big Plans & Tiny Tunes

Well friends, I am happy to report that I have the first two weeks of dinners all figured out. I made the meal plans and used the Shopper app on my iPhone to create a nice big grocery list. I am on fire!

Wanna know what delicious fare I'll be dining on starting Thursday October 1st? Of course you do.

Day 1: Seasoned Chicken Breast on Salad Greens
Day 2: Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry and Brown Rice
Day 3: Herbed Chicken, Brown Rice and Carrots
Day 4: Veggie (Onions, Peppers, Tomato, Mushrooms) Omelet with Fruit Salad
Day 5: Ravioli in Marinara Sauce and Salad
Day 6: Soft Tacos Made with Spicy Ground Turkey (I'll be making a double batch and freezing half to have later)
Day 7: CHEAT DAY
Day 8: BBQ Baked Chicken, Brown Rice and Sugar Snap Peas
Day 9: Turkey & Vegetable (Onion, Garlic, Peppers, Yam, Carrot, Corn, Mushroom) Chili on Brown Rice
Day 10: Veggie Burgers and Raw Veggie Sticks (Carrots, Celery, Cauliflower, Tomato, Cucumber)
Day 11: Pasta with Turkey Bolognese Sauce
Day 12: Taco Leftovers (from Day 6)
Day 13: Frozen Casserole (not sure exactly what yet, but I'll pick up something from Whole Foods) and Salad
Day 14: CHEAT DAY

There you have it! I'll probably mess around with the order of the meals, especially the Cheat Days, but this is MY OFFICIAL MEAL PLAN!

I know there is a LOT of poultry happening, but I don't eat red meat (I'll post on why that is someday) or pork and I'm really gun-shy about cooking fish. Not sure why, I've just never really done it before. So yeah, we eat lots of chicken and turkey 'round these parts. But I'm okay with that for now. I also eat canned (wild) salmon at least twice a week for lunch so I think (hope)I'm getting enough omega 3s.

I'm almost fully prepared! Just need to go and buy a measuring tape (yikes!) and several cheapie sets of plastic measuring cups and spoons. I have a great stainless steel set from Crate & Barrel but since I'll be measuring everything I'm going to want to have plenty at hand (and not have to wash the same set every time). I'm trying to make things as easy as possible.

And speaking of being prepared, check out this cute little baby Husband picked up for me today. (Believe it or not, this tiny thing is an iPod! It holds 2GB - or about 5,000 songs and clips to your clothing. Holy crap!)