I am a failure this month in at least two things in my life. The first is sleep training. I wrote 3 posts about the method we were doing proactively when Connor was 4 months old and consequently how it was going.
Is Connor sleeping through the night now at 7 months? No.
The other failure in my life is the ability to follow a weight loss program.
I spent $199 to be a part of the FASTer Way To Fat Loss program and while I feel good, I just am not giving it my all, something I wanted to do for the ability to do a thorough review. Sure I only wanted to lose 5-10 lbs and felt great just by making a few simple changes but I’m frustrated that I don’t have the motivation to track my macros daily.
I am proud of the fact that I have been following along with the workouts and the intermittent fasting. I am motivated to do the workouts because I like exercising and I like other people telling me what to do in the gym. I am also doing great at waiting until 11 or 12 to “break fast.”
However, I am not great at not eating after 8 pm mainly because we often don’t start eating dinner until Tommy is in bed which is at 7:30 pm. Nick gets home late and we like to eat dinner together and often I cook it while he is putting Tommy down. I also have a hard time hitting my macros during the day, so sometimes after dinner I am still hungry and according to the MyFitnessPal numbers, I have extra calories to consume. The few times I did stop at 8 pm and ate too little, I couldn’t sleep because I was starving. This used to happen to me when I did juice cleanses and was THE WORST.
I am also failing to log my macros as well as stay away from sugar. Some coaches for the FWTFL program say there are no foods off limits but mine (Amanda) suggests avoid gluten and dairy. I’ve avoided dairy but I have been eating gluten. My coach says to focus on foods that come from the ground or have a mother (I hate that saying and makes me wanna go vegan). Cookies from Flour Bakery are neither.
Today, my FWTFL group is doing a full day of fasting. I am not able to do it because I am still nursing. I also don’t do low macro days two days a week because I am nursing and can’t track my macros for the life of me so I wouldn’t even know. This makes me feel like even if I follow the program, I’m not really doing the program.
I also am exhausted by Connor’s recent sleep habits. He goes down easily at 7 pm. However, he wakes up just as I’m going to bed between 10 and 10:30 pm. I was going in and nursing him so he wouldn’t wake up Tommy and I could go back to bed. I considered it a dream feed but I’m trying to get him not to need/want/expect it. Last night, he cried for almost an hour. I went in and checked on him a few times and I feel like you’re all judging me for letting him cry this long but eventually after 50 minutes, I caved and nursed him.
He went back to sleep and actually slept until 6 am and then after I nursed him again, he fell back asleep until 8 am.
Had I known this would have been our night, I would not have let him cry for so long but the past few nights, he’s woken up every 90 minutes and I’m trying to break that habit of nursing him every time he wakes up in the middle of the night.
We successfully sleep trained him the first time in November but then he got croup. We trained him again successfully a few weeks later and then he had 4 teeth painfully coming in! How could I let my baby cry in pain and not comfort him!?
Then we sleep trained him again and shortly after he got bronchitis! So, I finally said, I can’t do this again. It’s exhausting if you aren’t aware. No one sleeps when you sleep train but it only takes 4 days. Four days every couple of weeks is brutal. I decided that if my baby needs me, I will go to him and maybe he will sleep through the night on his own. But he’s getting worse with that mind set so last night, I attempted sleep training again.
I am looking at the positives though. I feel strong and my clothes fit better than they did 2 months ago. I plan to continue intermittent fasting after the program is over. Connor is such a blessing and I love him so much. This phase will pass and while it sucks not knowing if I’ll get to sleep, I will one day.
