It’s been a long time….

I have to admit, I’ve been cheating on you.

I’ve been blogging elsewhere privately during my pregnancy as I didn’t want this blog to become a pregnancy blog. I thought I could still write broad yet meaningful topics here on ThirtyStory while experiencing this life changing event – but, turns out – I couldn’t. I’m sorry about that – and sorry about my disappearing act.

As the day draws closer to actually having my son (we’re due April 23 – just a few weeks away now), I’m definitely feeling that same old current sweeping by me that I had before – that overwhelming feeling of “Can I do this?” And not the be a mom thing. Obviously, I’m doing that whether I’m ready or not, right? But my mind has turned toward those days and weeks after my son is here and I have no excuses to not be exercising regularly again. When I’ll be self-conscious again about my weight (not that that has truly stopped being an issue for me during pregnancy) and I won’t be buying clothes that are made especially for my large belly. At least, that’s the hope, right?

I’ve witnessed more than a few of my friends whip right back down to pre-baby weight and then some – and I wonder, will that happen for me? I’ve struggled with being overweight my entire life, can I honestly let myself believe that I’ll be one of the lucky few that bounce back to their pre-pregnancy bodies? Not that I was even all that happy with where I was BEFORE getting pregnant, but it would sure be nice to at least bounce back to that instead of staying bigger.

I am trying to prepare myself for battle. I know that finding the time and energy to exercise is going to be much harder as a new mom. Working full time, teaching, and having a little one is going to eat up most of my time, so I have to have a game plan. I know other moms and dads who find the time to work out – so I know it’s possible. I just have to find the right work out plan, the right timing and all that jazz. Unfortunately, I won’t know what the “right” plan is until I’m living it. I can’t predict what life will be like in less than a month for me. All I know is that I still have goals for myself – that I still want to reach toward being a healthier and fit person. I don’t want to lose that part of myself and I start this new chapter of my life.

Knowing who you are and who you WANT to be is a big part of any successful goal setting process. I think I have a pretty good grasp on both of those things right now – so it’s all about finding the right path to the goal. I know it will be another adventure – something totally new and different from anything I’ve experienced so far in my life. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I feel like I did the night before my first 5K – so afraid I’d fail, but excited to try.

And that’s what I’m sticking with – the excitement of trying.

When Nothing Else Works…

This whole being pregnant thing is a major cramp on my fitness parade. I’ve been trying hard to find ways to work out that still are fun and exciting – and of course, effective. But the word “effective” has lost it’s luster to me lately. What am I really doing, anyway? I think I’ve lived in a world where if I wasn’t dripping sweat at the end of the workout – I hadn’t really worked out. And I’m just not in a place at 31 weeks pregnant where I can push myself to that point, anymore. So I’m definitely stuck in a rut where I just am not inspired to work out because it doesn’t feel like it’s DOING anything.

I will say that my lifestyle is still pretty go-go-go. I’m not going home and immediately going to bed or sitting on the couch. On the weekends, we are still working on house projects, running errands, etc. I haven’t given up on life as I knew it – it’s just evolved to doing what I can right now. It’s weird.

Yesterday, I decided to try the yoga thing again. If you have read my blog along the way, or you know me at all (even though it’s been awhile since i’ve blogged here, I KNOW!) – you probably know that Yoga is not my thing. But I thought – I’m pregnant, stretching is good – I should give it a go. My chiropractor let me borrow a video that she had used during her pregnancy. I kept putting off doing it because it just didn’t sound exciting. But last night I finally hit play. During the intro part where the instructor comes on the video to tell you about herself, I kept repeating to myself: “Have  an open mind. Have an open mind.” I may have been making judgements about how the yoga was going to be just based on how this lady came across in the video. But I did it anyway – and I completed it.

But I didn’t really enjoy it. It wasn’t that everything was super easy and i wasn’t challenged. Having 25 extra pounds situated like a bowling ball between your lungs and pelvis is challenging even when I’m not trying to do a downward dog. But I kept getting distracted by how enormous my feet and ankles looks while I was in downward dog pose. And I thought – man, this is only going to get worse – I need more socks. More tall socks for sure.

But the video was a bit too “new age” for me. She kept saying things like “keep you heart soft!” and “breathe into the bottom of your belly – surround your child with air!” and I was like how the heck do I do that? I mean, a breathe is a breathe and lately – getting a deep one is a major win since my lungs feel like tiny little balloons right now. My favorite instruction from the yoga lady was “illuminate every cell of your body!” I literally had to just stop what I was doing and stare at the TV. What the heck is this lady on? If i knew how to illuminate every cell of my body, I probably wouldn’t need to be doing yoga. Or working – I’d be like a superstar or something. Or at least a circus performer.

I was irritated at myself by the end of the video. I wanted to have my mind changed, I wanted to find something that made me feel happy after the work out. But it’s just not yoga. Or maybe it’s just not THAT yoga video (I get that instructors make all the difference).

A lot of people have asked me what I miss most since I’ve been pregnant. Do I miss having a glass of wine with friends – for sure. Do I miss the luxury of a quick deli sandwich – yup. But I guess I’m realizing right now that the thing I miss most is just having a “go-to” work out that makes me forget about everything else. Right now – every work out feels “lame” to me – and I either try to turn up the intensity and realize that I can’t do that anymore – or I just feel like I’m not really using my time wisely.

I find myself thinking about what my work out challenge will be once baby is here. How will I challenge myself to get back into pre-baby shape? I’ll definitely have the motivation of extra pounds that need to be lost. But what about right now? I need something exciting, but healthy for me and baby. It just seems like right now I have a lot of questions but no answers.

I am crazy happy about being pregnant and can’t wait to meet this little guy. But I didn’t realize what I was missing until just lately – and I guess I have a limited amount of time to find something that is exciting before my requirements change all over again.

 

Spending Dollars on Grown Up Things

I guess part of growing up is realizing that you can’t spend all your money on flights of wine and clothes from The Loft. I suppose I have known this for awhile, but owning a home has definitely brought with it a whole new adventure of “grownup-hood” that I’m not sure I was expecting. Like that day when we came home to a hole in our wall because our new puppy decided that it should be there. Or that other time when we came home and our couch no longer had stuffing in the cushions (jury is still out on WHICH puppy did that).

Or when you decide that you hate your bathroom so much, that it’s worth saving up enough money to do something about it. Owning a house as a grown up means that you can’t rely on other people to do things for you, you can’t call your landlord to solve a problem – it’s all up to you. Sometimes it’s exhausting. A few years back, we renovated our smaller downstairs bathroom and it turned out pretty well! But we never really use that bathroom, so I don’t always appreciate it. This time around, as we considered our options for our master bath (which is also the guest bath), we came to a pretty clear conclusion: We are not doing this job, we’re going to pay someone else to do the work.

Another part of growing up is realizing what your time is worth, and with all the crazy going on in our lives right now – it just made sense to hire an expert to take care of it for us. It’s been a few years in the making – I’ve hated our bathroom since the moment my hubby bought the house – and I’ve literally daydreamed about it being ripped to pieces so we could start over again. But just in the last year, we’ve made progress on paying off our debts and saving money to go towards this project. We were finally able to afford the bathroom renovation without putting more money on the credit card. Today I took my very first shower in our new bathroom. It was glorious – particularly after a long night because our power was out all last night and it was super cold! But even if I’d slept like a baby – I think I still would have appreciated the new bathroom just as much.

There is something about seeing your ideas come to life – it was sort of fun coming home everyday and not sure what we’d find. What had been removed? What had been added? What would the accent tile REALLY look like with the tile we selected? Will the light fixture look cool? I’m certainly not the visual person in our family – so I can say I loved each of our selections independently, but it was hard for me to truly have a vision of what it would turn out like. But I’d like to say now, Better than Expected.

For those of you who enjoy a picture show – I took before pics, during pics and of course, after pics for your viewing pleasure. A big shout out to May Property Services who did this work for us. He had great ideas and was easy to work with and we would use him again!

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Pursuing the Christmas Spirit

Happy Holidays, Friends!

We usually do a cute holiday card and send it out to friends and family – but somehow the holiday sneaked up on me and we just didn’t do one this year. As I continue to come home to a mailbox full of holiday cards, I feel both guilty for not sending ours out this year and overwhelmed by how much I love my friends and family. As I’ve gotten older and the days of seeing all my best friends and family in the same place at the same time happens almost never (i.e. college and childhood is long over!), I so appreciate getting photo cards and little updates in the mail this time of year.

Since I’m a total slacker on the holiday greeting thing this year, I thought I’d do the next best thing and write a blog to express my holiday cheer to all the people who may stumble across this (which hopefully will include some of my friends and family who bother to visit me here on this blog!). So here we go:

Every year brings with it new challenges and struggles, and this year was no different. In reflecting on the last year – so much has happened in our lives and I can’t help but to dream about next years holiday season and wonder how much my life will have changed in just a few short months. If there is one lesson I’ve learned it’s this: Life happens SO fast.

I have gone through phases in my life where I spent a lot of time thinking about the true meaning of Christmas, and others where I was so riddled with my own personal brand of angst that I couldn’t see pull off the whole “be merry” spirit of things. I have had years where it was all about buying the perfect gift to give to someone in my life, or wondering what someone would get for me. And times of joy in just watching the children in our family enjoy the holiday so much that you can’t help but join in. I have had Christmas day’s where all I could think of was who wasn’t there anymore, and others when I wondered if I would ever find someone to create my own holiday traditions with.

This year, I have so much to be thankful for, including a wonderful husband who has answered my prayer regarding someone to start my own traditions with – and I have family both near and far whom I cherish so much. I have friends starting right next door and extending all the way across the globe who have been a part of my life for quite some time now. I’m so thankful for both these new and continued relationships in my life.

It’s easy to get caught up in the spending of money and picking out the perfect gift part of the holiday season. It’s easy to get bogged down by the last few days of work before a little bit of a vacation. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with trying to prepare your house, or pack your bags to travel during the holiday season. And it’s easy to get frustrated by family members schedules and food preferences and all your relatives’ crazy antics that will be in full force over the next week or two.

But what it’s REALLY easy to do is to forget what Christmas and the “holiday season” is all about. Even if you aren’t religious and Christmas season isn’t about celebrating the birth of Christ and being thankful to God for sending His son to us – I hope you can still appreciate that the Spirit of Christmas is about love, kindness and peace for all mankind. And not just appreciating it – but really actively pursuing that spirit by being kind to others, by forgiving people in your life who perhaps you’ve been mad at for too long. By doing something completely nice for a total stranger because it’s the right thing to do (all year round by the way, not just Christmas time!). It’s about not assuming people in your life know you care about them – and reminding them with your words AND your actions of how you feel. The Spirit of Christmas really boils down to relationships and the appreciation we should have for one another even if we haven’t met yet.

I hope that no matter what has been going on for you this past year – you can spend the next few weeks pursuing the Christmas Spirit – and I think you’ll find just by thinking about how to enhance the relationships in your life (to friends, family and strangers) you may find yourself overwhelmed by how good it feels to be kind to one another. And who knows, it might just catch on.

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all my friends – near and far. Be safe, be kind, and remember to pursue the Christmas spirit this year.

Half Way There

So – life has been busy lately. Somehow 20 weeks have passed and I’m sitting at the half way mark of this pregnancy. How did that happen so quickly? It terrifies me that in another 20 weeks, my whole life is going to be turned upside down.

20 Weeks! (and sorry! I am not giving anyone the bird, it’s extremely hard to hold my phone and take a bump photo – WOOPS!)

It makes me think about training for my first athletic races and how nervous I was….how much I was scared to even say out loud that I wanted to consider training for my first 5K, and then my first triathlon. Saying it out loud made it so real. And that meant that I had to actually start preparing my body for the upcoming race. Preparing myself for something that I had never done before and something I wasn’t 100% sure I could do.

Being pregnant is sort of like that (but on a much more epic scale). I knew I wanted to start a family, and that once we decided to actually do something about that idea, it was really throwing all control up into the wind. And when we were blessed to become parents – it’s been this really exhilarating and frightening experience – one that feels much like a race. Of course, it’s important to mention the races I’ve participated in have never been about beating anyone – it’s only been a personal challenge for myself. Being able to answer the question, “Can I do this?” with a resounding YES!

And so here I am, at the half way mark of this crazy adventure and I’ve had some major ups and downs, there have been tears, enormous physical obstacles to overcome (and more to come), there has been joy and fear. So much – and yet, I am still moving forward with my eye on the prize. I can do this. I am “training” for motherhood at this point.

Making tough decisions about work, my personal life, my health, my home, my finances – and mentally and physically preparing myself for what happens when I cross this finish line. Today definitely marks a special day in this adventure – where time seems very real to me and I can sort of see the outline of the finish line ahead. I can see the calendar months flashing by, taking me quickly to the point where I must be ready for what’s next. Or, at the very least, open to learning what I need to learn to move forward.

It’s definitely the most important challenge I’ve ever accepted in my life. It’s bigger than any other item on my bucket list and it’s a game changer. Every other decision in my life will be impacted by this one decision I made with my husband months ago – that we would try and start a family. And now – this little life is taking form inside of me – becoming it’s own little person. And somehow – at the end of another 20 weeks, I’ll be able to call myself a mom. That is pretty amazing.

Today I am Thankful

It is getting close to the day where we celebrate Thanksgiving and as I read status updates on Facebook, other blogs, and listen to my co-workers and friends talk about their traditions – it amazes me how much it varies from family to family. It’s supposed to be a day to give thanks for all the blessings we have in our lives, and so often I think it gets turned into something else. People stress about making the perfect dish, cleaning their homes to be ready to play hostess, stressing about having family all together in the same room for several hours and so much more. Did you know that Thanksgiving night is the highest alcohol sales for the ENTIRE year at bars/restaurants? More so than New Years Eve which is just basically a big party where you are supposed to go out. What does that say about our culture? What does that say about family time in America? Where people are so ready to leave their Thanksgiving plates in the sink and head out to a bar to get a drink instead of spending time with their families. I just think that is sort of sad. I’m sure there are people who have traditions of meeting up with friends and family at bars in the evening and that contributes to it, but mostly it just makes me think that people want to avoid their families.

My family is not perfect. To some, I’m sure we are weird. When we get together, we don’t do a whole lot actually. We sit and talk. Most of the time, we sit around and watch the pros handle all the cooking and baking. I usually find myself somewhere in the middle – not really that great at helping cook, but willing to try and lend a hand when I can. We watch television, we rest. It is mostly a break from real life…and that is something I’ve always appreciated about holidays with my family even if when I was younger I desperately wanted to be hanging out with my friends or boyfriend instead. But now that I’m older – I’m so happy I grew up in a family that for better or worse – we spent the whole day together. Just being together even if we ran out of things to say and just sat in the same room and watched a movie instead. Thanksgiving has always meant family time to me. I grew up in a family that never drank, so I don’t have any funny stories about a drunk uncle or cousins getting into fist fights over the last piece of turkey. I should mention I grew up in Kentucky and hearing stories like this isn’t so far fetched. So again, when we all get together for the holidays – there was no option to just drink more so you could “deal with your family” – that’s not even a part of my family tradition.

As an adult as I’ve hosted a few Thanksgiving dinners at my house – it’s interesting to see what lingers from those traditions I was raised in. I remember one Thanksgiving where several of my friends weren’t able to make it home for thanksgiving – so we hosted a friends thanksgiving at our house. It was just a different type of family! One thing that remained the same for me was I wanted to take a few minutes to say prayer and thank God for all the blessings in my life. This is something we always do in my family. To tell Him how appreciative I was of his forgiveness, mercy and love that I know I don’t usually deserve. I remember that it might have made some of my non-religious friends feel a little strange, but it was my house, and my thanksgiving and the person I am most thankful to is God and I thought it was important to remember that on a day such as Thanksgiving.

This year, I am thankful for so many new things because I have the opportunity to be a mother this year – and being blessed with such a miracle is absolutely amazing on Thanksgiving. I have been blessed with amazing friends both near and far who love me so much – and I’m constantly amazed by the power of friendship in my life. I am incredibly blessed. I have a husband who loves me even at my absolute worst and knowing that we’re going to be a family of 3 is such an exciting adventure we are embarking on this next year. I’m so thankful that I have him in my life. I have a wonderful family (both blood and not) who are supportive and feel more like friends as I’ve gotten older which is such a gift. Mostly, I’m so grateful I’m not one of those people who dread the holidays because they don’t want to see their families – I am blessed to have family who I’m so excited to see and spend time with through out the holiday season.

I know that next year, Thanksgiving will be completely different, my life will be totally changed. I’ll have even more family to love, and for that, I’m grateful for the opportunity to raise my own version of family and add to it the traditions I love so much from my family and new things that will grow to be important and part of my child’s traditions.

I hope that this Thanksgiving – you take time to be with your family if you can – whether that is friend family, blood family, adopted family – whatever. Just spend time with people you care about and be grateful for the opportunity to love and be loved by those in your life. Tell someone you are thankful for them tomorrow!

Back to My Primal Ways…

Well, I’m starting to feel more energetic lately, so that is good news. I’m not grossed out immensely by certain foods so that is also going on the winner board. So what does this mean for my healthy eating lifestyle at this point? I think I’m going to make the leap and go back to eating primal/paleo inspired next week and see how it goes.

The last few weeks we have been trying to eat LESS of the bread/wheat stuff in an attempt to slowly help me move away from it now that I’m not on the verge of being sick all the time. I’ll admit that bread is just comforting to your stomach for whatever reason – or at least it helped me get past a lot of the sickness/queasy stuff in the first three months. BUT – man cannot live on bread alone, RIGHT!?

I was really digging my primal eating ways pre-pregnancy and saw improved energy, less cravings, feeling full on less food and I did experience some weight loss from naturally making better choices particularly when I went out to eat. So I’m going to re-focus and see how this goes. Of course, I’m planning on discussing this with my doctor on Monday during my next check in. I expect that I’ll still have the occasional weird craving and I’m not going to be all or nothing about this eating style while pregnant because what’s most important is that I’m eating what baby needs.

But I’m going to take a wild guess that baby does NOT need a chicken filet biscuit for breakfast…really ever. Okay, you only live once – so maybe just a few along the way.

I’ll still be eating dairy – so not true paleo style but still in alignment with Primal eating. I’m focusing on healthy fats like avocado, raw nuts, olives. And of course, moving back toward more lean protein and veggies as my main focus. So we’ll see how I do.

It’s funny because when I started this Paleo/Primal (wheat/grain free) back in the summer, my husband hated me for changing our diet. He hated eating wheat free. He hated all the things he saw as limitations and complained about it ALL THE TIME.

It made sticking to the plan so much more difficult for me. But now he is the one who keeps asking if I’m ready to go back to eating Primal/Wheat Free because it made him feel so much better. Now we laugh after he gives in and eats a biscuit or something at breakfast because he is SO reactive to it – gets stuffy almost immediately. He wonders how he never noticed before (despite my constant attempts of explaining my theory!).

Amazing how much we don’t listen to our bodies even when we have pretty strong reactions to foods/drinks that we have on a regular basis. So this next week or so will be interesting to see how my body reacts to changing up my diet and getting back on track with eating good for me foods!

Of course, I’ll keep you posted.

 

Daydreams & Dentists

I started out my morning with a visit to the dentist. For some reason, I have memories of my dentist appointments taking basically a lifetime. But maybe it was just a case of “kid-clock” and 30 minutes felt like an hour. Or maybe my dentist office is just super speedy. OR (and most likely) I’m not a whiny kid complaining the whole time slowing down the process. Anyway, I always play this game with myself when I got to the dentist or to get my oil changed and I thought I’d share it with you. So because when you go to the dentist regularly, they schedule you for your next appointment 6 months out. It always feels so crazy to me to schedule something that far in advance, but I know I’m way more likely to keep my appointment if I just go ahead and put it on the old calendar. While you usually don’t make appointments to get your oil changed, I always pay attention to when they estimate I’ll be due to come back.

For both these occasions, I always end up thinking about what will be going on in my life the next time I’m at the dentist or getting my oil changed. Since the dentist is 2x a year – it’s interesting to think about where your life may be, what will have happened by then, etc. Six months is a significant amount of time. At some of my past dentist appointments I’ve thought to myself, “oh! I’ll have started my new job by then” or “I wonder if I’ll be engaged by then?” to “I’ll be getting married that week!” I am wondering if I’m the only person out there that recalls life moments via dental appointments?

Ironically enough, when I finished at my dentist this morning and scheduled my next visit I agreed with the receptionist that May 7th sounded just fine. After all, this far in advance, I can’t imagine anything going on. As I started to walk away, I stopped in my tracks and turned back around. I looked at the receptionist and told her “I’m sorry, I don’t think that date is going to work, after all. I’m due to have a baby the week before that.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. By the time I go to the dentist the next time, I’ll have a child.

THIS IS SERIOUS, my friends.

So we scheduled for later in June and my only response was, “okay – we’ll put it down, but i guess I have no idea if that will work for me.” I drove away thinking about how I would do things like “go to the dentist” with a baby. Who would take care of the baby while I went to the doc? Do you bring the baby with you to doctor appointments? I was trying to recall all the times I’ve  been at the dentist and trying to remember if anyone ever brought their baby. I have no clue. Is there a guidebook out there called “Where you can bring your baby etiquette?” Apparently I’ll need this.

Everything is going to change. I know this. I knew that before we even decided we wanted to try and have a baby. It’s just sort of frightening to have that moment of truth unexpectedly in the dentist office.

It makes me think back to what I was doing 6 months ago. It reminds me to think through the goals I’ve set for myself and see which ones are still relevant. I’m definitely in a different phase of my goal setting now since I can’t really make a goal to lose weight at this point. So maybe my goals looks different for the next 6 months than they have in the past. Maybe they are more about getting prepared, mentally and physically for this major life change. And that’s okay. Life is constant change, when we stay in the same place we become stagnant – we stop moving and things get murky and gross. So this next 6 months is all about change for me, just in a totally different way than I expected.

So I’m excited to go to the dentist in SEVEN months time and see how future Dre is doing. I’ll be a month in to the whole mommy thing and I’m pretty much expecting to fall asleep in the dentist chair. And when that day comes, it will be funny to go back and read this post and think, “man, Dre – you were so right.”

The one where I didn’t run

Today has flown by – full of appointments and even being interviewed for the student news station. Hopefully my hair looked nice

Last night’s work out class was a major flop. I would compare it to a belly flop in the water since we ARE taking about a water running class. This class didn’t suck or anything – it just didn’t actually happen! For whatever reason, the instructor didn’t show. So that was disappointing – and I’ll admit that I was a bit irritated because I was already in the water and ready. Only having a swimsuit is sort of limiting when you are at the gym. I certainly wouldn’t be running barefoot around the track in my Speedo suit which looks slightly less attractive every time I put it on now that I’m gaining weight/width in the mid section.

Pretty soon I’ll need some more forgiving spandex materials than the Speedo in order to get in the water. So since i was already in the water – but didn’t want to get my hair wet (I Know! I’m in the pool – just get your hair wet! But I had to get back to our house for our neighborhoods trick-or-treating events. I certainly couldn’t be left holding all that candy in the pantry. Kids, please take it away from me!) I decided I would make up my own version of water running. I didn’t work out for the whole hour or anything because I wasn’t really sure what else I should do other than “run” from one end of the pool to the other. I did add some chin ups at the end and flutter kicks upon recommendation of the other ladies who have been to this class before. I will say that “running” the length of the pool and back is actually pretty challenging. It got my heart rate up and I could feel all the muscles in my legs working. So I am looking forward to next week when I actually have someone directing me on what I should be doing for the class. I guess my official review will have to wait a week.

In the meantime, I would like to go on record saying I am very happy to have an excuse to wear stretchy pants throughout the holiday season. This is always a trouble season for me because I  basically like all types of fall holiday treats and being preggers makes it even more challenging to say no thanks. The exception to fall holiday treats I love would be fruit cake. I have no idea why those things exist. Does anyone eat them? I’m not really even sure what they are made of. Ugh. If only all fall holiday treats reminded me of fruit cake, I probably wouldn’t ever gain weight during this season.

As much as I’d love to eat everything on this platter…I must be stopped!

What are some strategies you use to help avoid gaining unnecessarily weight during the holiday season? I know that being pregnant means that I am not dieting – but it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try and eat healthy and avoid bad for me things! Some things will never change!

Here are my thoughts on ways I can stay healthy during the holidays:
When attending a holiday party – bring a healthier option to the party so you know that at least one thing is not terrible for you there
Use recipes from magazines like Cooking Light to find healthier versions of my holiday favorites
Give myself the ability to indulge every now and then so I don’t binge on sweets
Share a treat instead of hording it all for myself. “Sharing it with baby” doesn’t count!

Would love to hear your tactics on saying “no thank you!”

Water Wings & Things

I have no idea why I decided that reconnecting with my inner swimmer was a good idea as we start moving into the winter months. There is nothing more fun than being freezing cold BEFORE you jump into slightly chilly water and then being even more cold as you desperately grab your towel and gear to get back to the locker room to shower and dry completely off before you head outside into the windy night.

Great idea, Dre!

But, I have to be realistic with myself that “going for a walk” every day is just not going to cut it. First off, I only ACTUALLY go for a walk maybe 2-3 times a week even though my goal is every day. So that isn’t a great success rate. It’s not that a walk is difficult, it just seems boring to me after years of high intensity cardio kickboxing or classes set to fun music blasting over the speakers. I need something that challenges my coordination and my mind in addition to just being a good workout.

On the other hand, I realize that working out while pregnant is a different story than just working out in general. I have more things to consider, and like it or not, it’s harder to catch my breath now that things are starting to happen inside me. Walking up stairs winds me more than usual and doing something as simple as vacuuming couch cushions got me out of breathe. It’s super annoying. And then I remind myself that there is a greater purpose  behind all of it and it’s not a forever thing. That helps. A little.

Exploring a New Workout

I’m sure my aerobics class will be pulling moves like this in no time.

So, yesterday I checked out a water aerobics class offered at my gym. Other than it being sort of freezing, I thought it was a good class. Definitely more low key, low intensity than I’m used to – but that IS sort of the point, I guess. And she did have us do some drills where I got to push myself a little harder and I liked those. We worked a lot on resistance stuff – so I felt like that was something I don’t do often enough. We used water weights and did some shoulder work, triceps, biceps – it was good stuff. Everyone was super friendly, and I definitely think I’ll go back.

It’s sort of interesting being back in the “searching for what works for me” stage of exercise. I feel like I went through this process several years ago and discovered I really liked TurboKick and group exercise. So in going back to my roots, I’m remembering that I’m way more likely to keep up with work outs if I’m part of a class/group program. So the water aerobics fits the bill for that. It’s definitely a class you can chat during which is different for me – but I liked it.

On Wednesdays, our gym offers another class called Water Running. The same instructor leads it and she said it’s more cardio focused – so I’m curious to give it a go. Of course, I’ll update you on my thoughts. I’ve never considered a water running class before – so I’m not even sure what to expect! But the part I hate about running the most is the pain in my joints and injuries – so running in the water might be an awesome solution.

Hey – maybe I’ll even find a 5k water running competition. It’s always fun to train for something!

So – in going back to this place in my life where I’m trying to find what works for me again – it’s reminded me of a few key decisions you have to make if you want to try and lead a healthier life. Funny enough, deciding to be healthy is only one piece of the healthy lifestyle puzzle. You have to do a little soul searching, too.

1) What are your priorities? Write them down & rank them.
2) Does your schedule reflect those priorities? (As in: If your #1 priority is your health….are you making time to prepare healthy meals and work out? If not…this is a red flag!)
3) Think of a time in your life when you were successful at something – what were the key factors? How can you replicate this in your current situation? (Example: I’m always more successful when I’m part of a group who are trying to accomplish similar things – so I know for me, finding a workout I can do with a group of people will help me stay on track vs. just trying to do something on my own 100% of the time).

Once you have these three items checked off – you can move to the next step which is actually making changes to your schedule and exploring options that are a match for your preferences. Of course, we’ll talk more about those next time!