Tuesday, April 30, 2013

April's End: Smaller!

There is a robin sitting on 4 perfectly blue eggs in the hanging fern on my front porch.  I feel just like her.  After 4 weeks of working out, I have lost 4 pounds!  I wish I had such a physical demonstration of my success so far.  I would definitely wear my 4 eggs on my head or something.  Instead, I just have numbers on a scale and a measuring tape. Speaking of measurements, let me fill you in on those.

So far I've lost:

Biceps- 1/2 inch
Stomach- 2 inches
Hips- 0, zilch, null, nada, nothing, niente.  Totally not dwelling on it....
Thighs- 1/4 inch
Weight- 4 pounds

Now, if it wasn't for the fact that EVERYONE gave me chocolate for my birthday, I'm thinking those numbers would be better.  You know that there is only one way to get rid of chocolate.  I have half a box and 1 bar left so I better get back to it! .....Now where did I put that Toblerone?

Monday, April 22, 2013

April's Habit- Working Out

A few months after having my first child I looked in the mirror and, to my surprise, saw a middle-aged body connected to my head.

"Well, yes." said my mom when I complained to her. "How did you think middle-aged women got those bodies?"

I don't know what I thought.  Too much chocolate?  Laziness?  Bad genes?  Bad jeans? Well, turns out it is growing a baby for nine months, then pushing it will-nilly out of your body, and then being so sleep-deprived and busy that you just let the baby weight sit there.  And bad jeans.

A middle-age body at 28 was NOT an option for me!  So I began to scour the internet for the best solution.  I found Holly Rigsby and her Fit Yummy Mummy weight loss program.  After almost being scared away by her very spam-like website, I bit the bullet and bought her ebook.  I'm so glad I did..

Her program is only 15 minutes per day for six days a week.  You can do her workouts at home with minimal equipment.  I lost 25 lbs which brought me below my pre-pregnancy weight.  My muscles became more toned than they ever have been.  In short, my middle aged body was a thing of the past! Then I became pregnant again.

Just before starting to work out
At my daughter's 1st birthday.   1 month pregnant!

My second daughter is now about 12 weeks old.  I started up my Yummy Mummy training at the beginning of this month and therefore have decided that this month's habit will be to exercise.

I started a group on Facebook so that I have a support system this time.  I find that I do much better with accountability partners.  I'm doing strength training 3 days per week and intervals 3 days per week.  My first 16 week program will be completed in July.  We will see if I need to do another round or just maintain.  I'll keep you posted!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

5 Years Later....

As many of you know, I started taking one picture every day starting on my 25th birthday.  I cataloged those pictures by posting them on this blog.  You may also have noticed that just yesterday, I finished up my goal by posting the last picture.  I had taken the pictures on time, I just hadn't posted them until yesterday....5 years late.  So.  At the time, I had thought that I would repeat this little experience every 5 years.  But blogging a picture every day for 365 days when I was childless but working full-time was difficult enough for me.  I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to commit to that again seeing as I now have two children.

But this is my 30th birthday!  I want to do big things this year!  And I don't want to look back 5 years from now and wish that I done something interesting this year.  So I came up with an idea.  Habits!  They say that it only takes 21 days to form a new habit.  I decided that each month this year, I will work on forming a new habit in my life.  That means that I really only need to post on here a minimum of 12 times this year.  I'm pretty sure I can handle that.  Hopefully I will write more often than that but just knowing that I don't HAVE to write more often should take a lot of pressure off.

Thank you for joining me for this year of transformation!