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My son, Ronan and I on Christmas Eve.
I was depressed about my weight and figure. |
About a 2 months ago I was so frustrated with myself. My son was 6 months old and I just couldn't seem to drop the last of my pregnancy weight. I would get down within ounces of my pre-pregnancy weight and then shoot up again 3, 4 or even 6 pounds. This had been going on for 2 months. It didn't help that my thyroid decided to go bonkers again and I needed my medication adjusted. Between the two I went into a depression I hadn't seen since my teenage years and early twenties. I was fat and would never be attractive again. I tried to force myself to accept that I was just a mother and that moms aren't sexy and that's just the way it is. Thank God I have a wonderful doctor that got my dose adjusted and I worked out of the horrible mental state I was in. A few days on the new dose and I started feeling better. I decided, no I can do something about this and I did.
First thing I needed to do was figure out why I was loosing and gaining weight the way I was. I tracked my food at first on paper and then I found a wonderful online tool called
My Fitness Pal (MFP). They even have an app for Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Phone to make it easier to track food on the go. After about 2 weeks I realized I was eating nothing during the day and when my husband came home at night I was sometimes consuming 3000 calories in about 4 hours! Garlic bread, pizza, ice cream, chocolate you name it. Even when I was eating healthy I was consuming massive amounts of calories because my portions were way too big. What I needed to do was eat during the day. To keep my hunger down at night.
This turned out to be practically impossible. When I tried, all I was doing is carb-loading. I ate quick and easy snacks, bread, bread, bread, rice, left-overs, sweets, all kinds of junk. I was still consuming way more calories than I was burning. Changing, dressing, feeding, comforting, playing with, and generally caring for an infant left little to no time for me to take a shower, much less prepare a balanced healthy meal. I tried snacking healthy, but again I saw problems with portion control. Did you know 10 almonds have 69 calories in them? I was eating them by the bag full! A banana is a nice healthy snack right? One medium banana has over 100 calories!
Finally fed-up and ready to give up, a friend reminded me about meal replacement shakes. While not the best option, they certainly provide the vitamins and minerals I was missing in the low calorie package I was looking for. It's not a life style change, meal replacement shakes is not something I can live with forever, but until my son is a little more independent they will have to do. So my new beginning had started :-) FINALLY.
Over the next 2 weeks I saw my weight start to drop. I was motivated, energized and ready to try new things. I made it through a small plateau and finally I was once again about 2-3 pounds away from pre-pregnancy weight. I realized even though I was so close to pre-pregnancy weight I was no where near fitting into my pre-pregnancy jeans and I needed to do something about my figure, tone and definition too.
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| This is me in 2007 shortly before I ran a marathon. |
Now I have a serious problem sticking to exercise programs. I trained for, ran and finished a marathon in 2007 but I stopped running and eating healthy after the marathon. I saw the marathon as an end to a tough 6 months of training. I allowed myself to fall into old habits of eating whatever I wanted and not exercising enough. I joined a gym in 2008 hoping to get back in shape, it was too far away from home and work was too hectic and crazy. All I wanted to do was go home and relax. So the gym membership fell into disuse and was cancelled altogether in 2010 after my contract was up. Then I got pregnant and was afraid to start a new exercise program. After a bit of a difficult birth that ended in an emergency C-section I had trouble walking to the bathroom much less any sort of physical activity. No one understood that walking was horribly painful. I tried anyway. It took me about 8 weeks before I felt like I could move normally again. Then I started a 10 week postpartum recovery exercise class. Which I enjoyed and finished. Then didn't do anything else afterwards. I started running again in December of 2011, then in January snowy, icy, cold weather kept me inside. This is about the time I had the thyroid problems. I needed to find something I could stick with.
mit" ("mommy fit, with baby" - translation from German)
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Try this one with a screaming unhappy baby after several "kissy pushups"-
No one is smiling.
(move taken from Baby Boot Camp by Kristen Horler and Amanda Vogel) |
but it also wasn't for me. I looked into gyms with baby-sitting services. Either the times the baby-sitting was open was stupid (like from 4pm-6pm, when the gym is the most crowded and you spend as much time waiting for equipment as you do on the equipment) or the child had to be at least 3 and potty trained. I looked into DVD work outs. Many require a 45 minute to 1 hour commitment. Remember the problem I had with eating? Yeah, that applied here too. Finally, thanks to the message boards at MFP I found a simple work-out that is about 20-30 minutes or so and has a start and an end. I thought this sounded perfect. I tried it out and I love it. Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred is fantastic for me (
follow this link for a preview). Follow this link for a free you tube preview I get up with my husband in the morning, have breakfast, read the news, see him off to work and then pop in
the DVD for a quick work out. It works your butt hard for 25 minutes or so and you certainly feel it. Then a quick shower and breakfast shake get ready for the day just in time for the little one to wake up for breakfast. It fits into my schedule perfectly! I have only been at it for 7 days and I am already seeing positive changes :-)
I am so happy to finally be into a program that I feel I can keep up with until I am fit and healthy again. I did a lot of research to find the tools that are right for me. I have only been finding my way to fitness for about 4 weeks now but if I can give one piece of advice it would be not to be afraid of trying new things. Maybe some people ridicule the meal replacement shakes or a 20 minute work out. But it works for me now. I know I will have to change this program, possibly in the next coming weeks but I will do more research, try more new things, keep the things that work and toss the things that don't.
This isn't about getting skinny, this is about getting healthy. I also wouldn't mind looking good in a bathing suit again ;-)
