How's this thing work?

So, I've read a couple of blogs recently for the first time and I find myself very inspired. It seems incredibly cathartic to be able to just put it all out there. So I thought maybe I'd give it a shot and share with the world some of this crazy, hectic, amazing life of mine.

At the moment, I have become increasingly disgusted with my physical health. I quit smoking last year and promptly gained 35 pounds! Gross! And in the process I've become less flexible, less agile, more tired, and much, much more "muffin-toppy." Double-gross! So, with a little inspiration from a few new-mommy friends, I'm jumping back on this weight loss band wagon. Two years ago, when I hit roughly the same weight I am now, and was equally disgusted, I started Weight Watchers. I lost 30 pounds and kept it off for over a year until I quit smoking. And now I've surpassed my previous weight record and it is seriously affecting my mood and my mental health.

And it's not like I'm a pig. I'm just really, really busy. No, seriously, I'm really busy! Single mom of two, full time paralegal, part time student taking 2 classes a semester at UNCA, minute-taker for Black Mountain Board of Aldermen, Secretary/Treasurer/Scheduling coordinator for local baseball/softball league, softball coach, and somewhere in there I try to maintain a social life and a relationship.

So, a typical day goes something like this,
6:30am - up, shower, wake up kids (about 8 trips to Dylan's room to accomplish this), pack lunches, drive kids to school
8:30am - work
10:30am - leave work, drive to UNCA, class until 12:00, scarf down food in the car on the way back to work
12:30pm - work until 5:30
5:30pm - pick up the kids, stop at the grocery store, go home
6:30pm - get kids started on homework, start a load of laundry, start dinner, help with homework, eat dinner, clean up from dinner (truthfully, sometimes this happens and sometimes the dishes just hang out on the kitchen counter until somebody else cleans them up. Thank God for Alicia!). Switch the laundry, kids in the shower, bedtime story, kids tucked in.
9:30pm - start on homework, get interrupted about 8 times for drinks of water and "I can't sleep."s.
11:00pm - finished with homework and realizing just how mentally and physically exhausted I am, I turn on the Daily Show, log onto Facebook and mindlessly play stupid Zynga games that require absolutely no complex reasoning or conversational skills!

My dilemma of course is where exactly I am supposed to cram exercise into that schedule. In theory I could go walk after work and pick the kids up at 7:00, but that means I only see them for 2 hours before they go to bed and that two hours is filled only with homework and chores. I could get up half an hour earlier in the mornings and work out then, but. I. Can't. Do. It! I want to. I really do. But my body has this visceral reaction that I cannot control to the sound of an alarm before 6:30 in the morning. My nervous sytem kicks into autopilot and doesn't just snooze the alarm. Oh no, we kill the alarm. So my good intention of getting up early to work out turns into oversleeping and running around the house like a mad person trying to get me and two kids out the door in all of 15 minutes. I have tried working out on my lunch break, but then I'm all sweaty and sticky and that's just unpleasant for me, my coworkers and my clients. Yuck! So, what to do? At the moment I have committed myself to an aquafit class at UNCA on Thursday nights. This means that one night/week I have to drive straight from work to UNCA for a fitness class and I won't be able to pick the kids up until after 7:00. That makes two nights per week really since I have an actual class on Tuesday nights which means I don't get to pick them up until after 9:00. I am going to commit to walking one day per week with Courtney at the lake after work. If I leave work at 5:00 and go walk, I could still pick the kids up by just after 6:00, not too bad. And I have all day Saturday to work with, so maybe I just need to start planning a 90 minute work-out on Saturdays. Ewww!

In addition to being busy, I really love food. I'm not a sweets fanatic, although I can totally kill an ice cream cone or a piece of cheese cake, and I endulge in the occassional candy bar. I love cheese. I love Mexican food and Italian food smothered in cheese, lots of it. I also know that I drink too much. I'm not an alcoholic by any means, but I consume way too many empty calories in glasses of wine and bottles of beer.

So, I recognize that I need to reduce the amount of calories, the amount of fat, and the overall portion size of what I am eating, and I really just need to make smarter food choices. I started working on it last week and I just have to keep working at it. I went grocery shopping and bought healthy snacks, stuff with whole grains, no high fructose corn syrup, around 100 calories and less than 5 grams of fat per serving, and lots of fish instead of read meats.

Today was: Breakfast - English muffin with 1 tbsp grape jelly, 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar; Lunch - PB&J on whole wheat bread, 1/2 C grapes, 6 mini rice cakes (cheese flavored of course); Snack - 6 slices of Havarti Fennel cheese, 12 sesame Toasted crackers; Dinner - Turker burger with cheese and bacon, 1/2 C mac & cheese, 2 glasses of red wine.

I have scheduled an appointment with a personal trainer at Ascending Fitness in Black Mountain next week. I am still trying to get set up with the dietician at UNCA who can help me work out meal plans. I'm signed up for Aquafit and I'm meeting Courtnery to walk tomorrow. I have seriously got to lose at least 40 pounds. My clothes don't fit and I feel awful every time I put on a pair of blue jeans. So I'm going to try to make use of every resourse available to me and hope beyond hope that something works. So my short term weight loss plan is this:

Breakfast every day with less than 200 calories
Pack lunch for work - sandwich, fruit, and one 100 calorie snack
Snack - 100 calorie snack
Dinner - chicken, turkey, or fish, with vegetable and rice/beans/pasta.
Limit to 2 drinks per day, no more than 10 per week
Exercise at least 2.5 hours per week, hopefully broken up into 4 sessions.
Drink 2 bottles of water every day.

Here goes nothin.