I’ve been back to work for a month now. We’re managing fairly well, I think. Most of our ability to manage is due to the fact that I have fantastic parents who save my butt on a regular basis. My parents have always been a huge help, but they have been even more so this year, when I’ve been making daily trip to the gym at times that weren’t convenient for my husband to be home. I have no idea how we would manage this ‘two working parents’ life without their help. The boys have been moving in with Grammy and Pappy for my entire rotation and spending evenings on my days off there as well, so that I can get to the gym. So thankful for them!

I knew that going back to work was going to be a challenge. My kids were going to have to adjust to not being at home with me everyday (and vice versa...I love being home with my boys). I was going to have to figure out how to find time to get to the gym around a job with shift work. I was going to have to prepare myself food-wise for busy days/nights at work and also for the slower days/nights where I’m-bored-so-I’ll-just-eat-something is so easy. Add into that mix the fact that my husband works on a potato farm and has been working 100+ hour weeks digging since just after I returned to work. 

So far I have managed to stay on track. I’ve been getting to the gym at least 3-4 days a week. I was worried about keeping the desire to hit the gym. During the time that I was going to the gym just before I found out that I was pregnant with Hudson, I tried to go after work. It was easy for a short time, but then it became a chore and I started opting to just go home more frequently that I chose the gym. I wasn’t really having any success with losing weight so really didn’t have any motivation to keep going. And I hadn’t been going long enough for it to have become habit. Both of those things are different this time around. I’ve hit my goal weight and don’t want to undo all of the success that I have had, and I’ve been at this long enough for my workouts to be part of my life and not just something that I have to do. I feel like the workout part of this return to work adjustment is solid.

I did some food prep before starting back to work and I’ve been able to keep my eating fairly on track. At least work-wise that is. I’ve been struggling a little with eating more crap than I should be, and adjusting to the maintaining-not-losing frame of mind, but that’s another post all together. 

I pack a rather large lunch cooler for each shift with 3 meals and lots of healthy snacks for every shift. I come prepared. I wasn’t entirely prepared for how easy and tempting it would be to fall back into old habits. I’ve read and heard stories about people losing huge amounts of weight only to gain it all back, and the thing that always came to my mind is why?!? and how?!?. I never understood how, after working so hard, they could let them slip back to ground zero. Being back to work has given me a little glimpse into the why and how. 

It would be so, so, so easy to fall back into old habits. 

My job seems to conspire against me. Our base is behind a local pizza place. On a regular basis the wind wafts the tantalizing scent of pizza and garlic fingers across our parking lot and into the building. Standing outside around lunch or suppertime to enjoy the beautiful fall that we’ve be blessed with is dan-ger-ous!

It's a good thing there is a fence between us and the pizza place

Work has been pretty busy since I’ve been back. On both of my day shifts last week I spent the entire 12 hours away from our base. A reprieve from the garlicfingerpizzadeliciousness wind, yes, but tiring. That many hours away from base means trying to grab something to eat quickly before the radio tones go off, calling your truck number and you’re in gear again. It means fueling up the truck then walking into gas stations and being confronted with chips, candy and chocolate. It means that all of the fast food places look soooooo tempting for an easy, sinful supper on the way home.

Add to that, night shifts add hours to my day. At home, after the boys go to bed around 9 pm, I go to bed. I don’t stumble down the stairs in my sleep to stand at the fridge and snack, so for about 8 hours I don’t need to try not to eat crap. At home I get 8 safe hours when I don’t need to convince my stomach that it is just bored, not hungry. On night shifts, that is not the case. We are able to sleep some when we’re not busy but I prefer not to be woken to do calls so I stay up much later than at home. Even on slow nights when I’m not awake doing calls, I routinely see 1 am. That adds 3-4 hour more waking hours in which I need to battle the beast. 

A co-worker of mine has a son that's selling chocolate bars as a fundraiser for his gymnastics group. An ambulance base that has people in and out all day long is a fantastic place to stick a whole case of chocolates and have them sell. When my boys have junk to sell for fundraisers you can bet that I'm going to haul it all to work and let everyone else buy it. But for now, the chocolate covered almonds stare at me from across the room. 

Falling back into the old habits and my old lifestyle would be so easy, but in the past month I've also been reminded that it is so worth it to not go back. I have a job that can be very physically demanding at times, and I notice a gigantic difference between trying to do the job at 250lbs and now at 165lbs.

It feels like they made the ambulances bigger while I was gone. We work in some pretty cramped places, and the back of an ambulance is far from spacious but I don't feel stuffed into it anymore. I can move around and get the things done that I need to so much more comfortably. 

I can wear my work sweater on calls now. I never could before because the littlest amount of activity, or a home with the heat turned up had me sweating from the minute we walked in the door. I used to be drenched at the end of most calls, even ones that were relatively easy. 

The intermediate and advances care medics carry a drug pouch that has our controlled medications in it. I used to have to wear mine at my side because if I wore it at the front of my belt I couldn't see into the pouch past my stomach to see which drugs I was taking out. I wear it quiet comfortably at the very front of my belt now. 

I wear tall work shirts so that they stay tucked in when I'm moving around on calls. Before, I would tuck my shirt in then pull it most of the way out again so that they untucked part "hid" my stomach. I don't have a stomach to hide behind a puffy shirt anymore.

I'm sure I will continue to have days when slipping back to old habits would to be easy thing to do. I just hope that I can keep finding reasons to never go back again.