Before I had kids, I used to work out all the time. I was active and physically fit. I would do an hour and a half of cardio every day. On top of that, I was swimming 3 times a week and running around with my friends. I had so much muscle and felt good—the best shape of my life. Then I gained the happy 15. That’s right; being in a fantastic relationship that I was pure bliss and judgment-free was the best feeling.
I traded the Norditrac and weights for snuggle time on the couch and binge-watching a show on Netflix ALL weekend. A few year’s roles by, and along comes our first child—a true blessing. When I was pregnant with her, I gained 42 pounds, but I didn’t care!
Once I got cleared to resume physical activity, I decided to get back into working out. I wanted to lose the “baby weight.” I did try yoga with my sister and discovered that I didn’t feel that either. So then I tried Pilates, and it was good, but I missed doing intense cardio. Well, I decided that I was just going to dive into cardio. I thought it would be just as awesome now as it was then. I was very wrong in my assumption! As a first time mom, I didn’t have the time to do cardio for 90 minutes. There was laundry, pumping (that, by the way, was one of my biggest struggles. I was literally pumping every 45 minutes on top of latching to build up my milk supply, and I still never had enough to feed my baby with only breast milk), cooking, shopping, and playtime. I would say sleep, but as many of you know, sleep is never a factor
Some weight loss
I did lose some of the weight, probably close to 20 pounds before I got pregnant again. Another blessing, we couldn’t have been happier. Now defiantly at this time, trying to get into working out was so far from my mind. I was running on fumes. I honestly think that my son hated sleep. He would only sleep for a few hours at a time and never sleep more than 45 minutes for his naps, but that’s another story. I just went through the motions of life. I even started to think that all the running around I did in the house would be enough. You know, the cleaning, mess pickups, playtime with the kids, cooking, cleaning (yes, I said that twice on purpose). That was my work out and that was going to be enough to get the “baby weight” off. At least that’s how I felt. I never sat down. It felt like there was always something to do. Let me tell you that’s not entirely true. I did lose some weight. Enough to get back to my “before” baby weight…..absolutely not.
Challenge for me
Staying motivated has been a big challenge for me. I have been trying to find the time to get back into shape, and I keep seeing commercials for the Bowflex Tread climber. That seems like something that I would be able to do in 30 minutes. Now that the kids are a bit older and can do more things for themselves, it seems more doable to get physically fit.
I loved the days I could find the time to work out. I was in the necessary headspace and felt adequately motivated. Every time I started to stretch and warm up my muscles and clear my head, it wouldn’t take long before all I could think about is all the things I have to do around the house. All the things I have to do for my children before bed, all the things I have to do for my business, all the things I have to get to make sure that my house functions correctly and we have all that we need in it… just to name a few things. So before I can get 10 minutes into stretching, I am already anxious about getting all that done and need to call it quits to get as much as I can accomplish before 11 p.m. hits.
Setting goals
Since the kids are older, they have wanted to work out and try different exercise styles. It has been so much fun. They don’t work out for an extended period. For now, that’s okay. Some of their favorite things are kid yoga (they usually do that one independently).
they love to stretch, they are not big runners like I was. They do like it when we work out as a family. It has helped with staying motivated to workout. They don’t always want to work out when I do, and there are times I don’t want to work out when they do. It’s rather comical when I think about it.
One thing that we have done off and on as a family is a pushup contest. That has been something that we all enjoy. The kids and I are determined to beat Josh at our pushup contest. I think we stand a chance to combine our total pushups and use that total against his total. Seriously, the 3 of us against him wouldn’t beat his count. Perhaps once we make this a more day-to-day contest, and get more physically fit, we will get him, but until then, the push is real.
Becoming physically active and fit this coming year is our family’s big goal. Not in the sense that we want to watch what we eat to lose weight. We want to make it our goal to get out and be more active. Having a sedentary life right now is almost unavoidable, with unique situations that have raised. Still, if we make changes to get more active by going to the park in the morning with the dogs or walking the property several times to get maybe a half-mile to a mile of walk time in, that would be a great start.
I would like to share some information with you from the CDC for a good source of recommendations: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/
#physicallyfit #family #motivation #love
A-Z Family Life 