Rip 60: End of "Week Two"? And Juggling Weekend Priorities

It's actually been about five weeks since I've started Rip 60. I was feeling more confident with "week 2" so yesterday I decided to try "week 3" (I put them in quotes since I am spending more than a week on each "week" DVD.)

Oh. My. God.

It was so hard I wanted to cry.

For week 2, there's times you go into a "plank" position (with straight arms), only instead of your feet on the floor, your feet are suspended in nylon webbing straps, held at about knee height. You might think this would make plank easier, since you don't have to hold up your feet... but you would be wrong. It's pretty hard.

So for week 3, you do this same straight arm, feet suspended plank... only now you are supposed to also move back and forth, bringing your knees in towards your abdomen so that your butt gets stuck way up in the air.

At the moment, this is nearly impossible for me.

I also stayed up too late last night, not related to the workout, but the combined result of it being so hard I wanted to cry PLUS being sleep deprived conspired to keep me from working out today.

I felt bad about it because apart from this, I've been doing really well with working out five days a week.

But I think it's important to listen to my body, first and foremost, so no workout today.


As far as my weight goes, the workouts definitely impact my appetite positively. I'm wanting smaller portions nowadays. However, I think to really lose weight consistently, I need to do better about a) avoiding wheat and processed carbohydrate (but not avoiding all carbohydrate -- this just makes me insatiably hungry), and b) eating more fat, surprising as that sounds, because it enables me to gauge the appropriate amount of carbohydrate that I need.


My energy has also been a little hit or miss because, I think, I'm over scheduling my weekends. I keep trying to do less, but then there's always things I can't bear to say no to, usually things involving meeting up with friends.

We typically go out early every Saturday and Sunday morning to meet friends at the playground before morning naps. I adore this time, watching Calliope climb and slide (girlfriend totally mastered the slide today... she can now back up to it and slide down on her belly unassisted.... yee haw!) and generally work her body tired while I yammer with friends. However, it brings a certain amount of stress to the day, only just begun, to try to get out and back before nap. And her nap lately is late enough as a result of these trips (and my ability to keep track of time) that she hasn't been taking a second nap most weekend days.

Which is a whole other thing. Can we just give up the two nap a day schedule already? It would make life a lot simpler. But I'm paranoid about depriving her developing brain from essential rest, a la Nurture Shock. Plus the nanny doesn't think she and Eleanor are ready yet. But lately with me on weekend days, Calliope has only taken one nap and she seemed just fine to me. Not cranky in the late afternoon.

She's been sleeping close to 13 hours many nights, and that's fine for me as well. Only I don't like it when I have to wake her up in the mornings to nurse her before I go to work. But the nanny doesn't want her to sleep later than 7 because it throws off her nap schedule and that's hard, trying to coordinate the two babies.

Anyway, yesterday we went to the playground, then came home for her nap and my workout, then went to see a SMC friend and her new baby, then came home for a second nap, then my cousin came over to hang out. Today, we had playground/farmer's market/bagel shop, then nap while I got ready for and hosted a brunch for summer camp friends (Calliope finally woke up near the end of the brunch), then cleaned up while Calliope ate, then went to the playground with a friend and her daughter in the building, then came home and Calliope played in her crib (when she was supposed to nap) and I actually did nap for a bit. Then we took a bath together and she had dinner while I did a little cooking and dodged food as it was thrown.

I need a little more time to just chill, never mind time to get things done around the house. My camera charger is missing and I have had no time to do a thorough search. I've yet to finish cleaning off the hall table since we moved in. Big framed photos got hung on Wednesday, a school holiday, with help from a friend, but I still need to organize my closets and order a medicine cabinet for the back of my bathroom door. And a multitude of other small household projects. I don't want to relax too much about these or they will never get done.

Any advice on how to juggle it all? What do you say no to?

(And an exciting thing... today I pulled all of Calliope's six month onesies out of the drawer. It's exciting because I am so damn sick of looking at them! They are officially snug now and so at last I am banishing them. I ordered her some new things from Carters because I can't seem to locate any of her hand me downs that aren't enormous. The order includes a bunch of socks because girlfriend is still wearing 0-6 month socks and they are about to slide right off her feet.)