Three Kids and Two Miles...

photo credit

Today I walked two miles with a fifteen pound baby strapped to my chest while pulling a wagon with about 70 lbs of children in it.

My son needed a haircut for his school pictures tomorrow so last night I tried to take him to get it cut but 99% of haircutting places are closed on Mondays. We went to Super Cuts and they had a 45 minute wait- I'm sorry but there was no way I was going to wait for 45 minutes at 4:30 in the afternoon for a Super Cuts haircut (I'm not bashing them- I have been know to get my hair cut there).

My husband was bringing back the loaner car to the dealership today and picking up our new vehicle (long story, I'm not going to get into it because it is just borderline insanity) so I was car-less. I decided that the barbershop wasn't that far away and the kids and I could haul our butts up there the eco-friendly way.

When we got home I felt like my legs were going to fall off and I was dripping sweat. What a workout, though it is one that I hope to never have to do again. I know there are people who do these things everyday but I am glad that I am not one of them. I am far too lazy and dependent on my vehicle for such silly things as walking to get errands done.

I do feel proud of myself though that I was able to accomplish the task, especially since here in Massachusetts it was 75 degrees out. But now what I feel like doing is curling up with a frozen margarita and drinking the sore muscles away (I'll have to settle for a soda because I doubt my nursing daughter would be cool with contaminated breast milk).

Reality Squashes Dreams

photo credit

I know that one of goals was to start exercising but once I came back to the reality that is my life I realized that at this time it would be near impossible.

For the small amount of time that my almost two month old daughter sleeps during the day I have to accomplish such necessities as taking a shower, taking care of my other two kids and keeping the house from turning into a complete shit-pit. The baby is just so enamored with me that she loves me to hold her all of the time, which I usually do with the aid of the baby carrier. I don't mind spending every waking moment with her because I know that the day will come that she will want nothing to do with me- she is my last little snuggly baby and I want to snuggle her as much as possible.

So my dreams of six pack abs, like many of my other dreams, will need to be put on hold for a bit. I'll just have to lose the rest of the baby weight through diet and the extra calories burned from breastfeeding. But once my snuggly little baby becomes a little more independent, watch out post-baby jelly belly!

Not a New Year's Resolution...

photo credit

I hate New Year's resolutions. They are really lame, which is why it is a bit annoying to me that New Year's happens to coincide with when my doctor has cleared me to get on with my life and not have to worry about busting open my c-section incision.

Now that I'm cleared I am most definitely going to get back into shape. This was my last baby and I will be damned if I'm going to be content with having a post baby jelly belly (every mom knows what I'm talking about). I've already lost most of the weight but would like to lose a few more pounds and would definitely like to tone myself up. To do this I am going to literally dust off my copy of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred and somehow find thirty minutes a day to get my exercise on- I'll have to have a talk with the baby so that maybe, just maybe she'll let me put her down for thirty minutes.

Since I will be exercising and exerting energy I suppose I will have to start eating more during the day. I usually have some wheat toast and orange juice in the morning (with non-dairy butter) but somehow every day in the late afternoon I realize that I haven't eaten anything else and at that point it's almost dinner so I just wait until then to eat. My problem is that I am always running around taking care of the kids or attempting to keep the house looking like it doesn't belong on an episode of Hoarders. If I'm not doing that I'm sitting on the couch nursing the baby at which point I remember to eat but can't get up because I have a baby latched onto me.

So, to accomplish my get in shape goal (not a resolution) I am going to:
- work out five days a week using the 30 Minute Shred
- buy healthy, convenient and dairy free food at the store for quick lunches for me (most likely frozen meals)
- drink way more water and kick the soda habit (soda also aggravates my Crohn's Disease)

I'm not really that out of shape so as long as I can keep up my will power (I tend to be lazy in the exercise department) I should be back to my old self in no time. Or maybe after a week of exercising I will decide that I am in fact not that motivated and will wait until bikini season looms closer to scare me into getting in shape.

How Cheap Am I?

I have been doing the 30 day shred for two weeks now and I have been on level 2 for about half of that time. It has been going good- I have been exercising every day and I am starting to see my stomach flattening up a bit and I feel like my blah mood is slowly brightening up. I have taken the past two days off because I felt like it (great reason, huh?) but am going to pick right back up on level 2 tomorrow.

Meet my hand weights. Yes, this is a picture of two cans of Progresso Soup. I am that cheap that I refused to buy hand weights- why buy them when I have soup that I paid almost nothing for? Plus, I can eat the soup someday.

My husband thought that I was pretty ghetto using soup cans and would close the blinds when I exercised so none of the neighbors would see my using soup cans while shredding with Jillian from the Biggest Loser.

When I was at work today my husband went out and bought me these- real hand weights! How fancy and sophisticated. Now I feel like I need to get some nice exercise clothes- sweatpants and t-shirts are only good enough for soup can work outs.

Sorry soup cans- I am going to eat you now. The only thing keeping you alive was the fact that I needed you to exercise. Yum!

Butt Kicking Exercise

I started doing the 30 Day Shred last Monday and thought to myself "wow, level one is pretty easy- I'll move up to level two".

Holy crap- level two really kicked my butt. Maybe it was because I didn't exercise yesterday because I was too lazy to wake up early before work and when I got home from work I was too tired to do anything but sit and watch tv. What I really think happened was that I moved up a level too quick.

I think tomorrow I will go back to level one (doing the non-modified exercises) until I get to ten days on the program which will be Wednesday. Thursday I will move up to level two for ten days and then I will move up to level three for ten days. After that I will hopefully have a flatter stomach and my jeans will fit better. But, tomorrow I may just decide that I want to exercise until I feel on the brink of death and do level two again.

I know a lot of people swear by the 30 Day Shred but it is hard for me to see how just working out to a 30 minute dvd will give me my once hot body back. I guess we'll see!