Slow it Down Please

After sitting on the sidelines watching my daughter get her exercise on via our Exercise TV programming, which I'm always recommending and encouraging others to take advantage of, today I decided to get my butt in gear.

Actually, I dabbled in it a couple of days ago doing the 6min Zumba Fitness video. Since it was only 6mins, I did the video back-to-back. I just couldn't see it any other way. Anyway, today I added Yoga Sculpt to the mix and that damn instructor was going waaayyyy too fast for me. Considering I'm a novice at Yoga I couldn't keep up with the video and do the moves correctly! You know, Yoga positions are about focus and concentration. Imagine my struggle trying to focus on the pose and see what the instructor was doing next. Long story short, I made it through a solid 15mins of the 25min video, but I think that's pretty good for someone who prefers to spend her evenings watching t.v., blogging, or writing--oh yeah--and parenting.

No promises, now. Not even to myself.  But I'd like to do some Yoga or some form of body sculpting in the morning. Check in tomorrow for an update.

From the Fitness Guru Himself

Talk about nerve! My dad had the audacity to laugh at me when he learned of a recent purchase that I'd made of an inflatable punching bag. Yes, I'll admit that I got caught up in overzealous holiday shopping and bought the damn thing primarily because the popping yellow from the box was eye-catching in the conveniently placed bin containing tons of the "perfect" gifts for family and friends. Still, to be ridiculed by the fitness equipment guru of ALL TIME is inconceivable. I'm not kidding, either, about the guru status. Over my lifetime, my dad has bought just every health & fitness product available to man--juicers, vegetable steamers, fat burning products, ab lounger, ab roller, Tower 200, Total Gym, treadmill, elipticals. Need I say more. In fact, it's because of his addition to buy EVERYTHING advertised on television that I've made extra efforts not to do the same. And so far I've done pretty good for myself. To date, I've bought a stepper (back when step aerobics was IN), the bender ball, a treadmill, and a select few exercise videos. Not bad at all, considering the things I've been tempted to buy.

Time Out for Excuses

At some point it simply becomes time to stop making excuses. Initially I was going to begin this blog entry with an insult that I felt was bestowed upon me by a loved one. However, the truth is that it wasn't an insult, it was the truth--a truth that was hard to take from this particular person. Often times I complain about being too busy to do a lot of domestic stuff like cook dinner regularly and keeping my house clean and in order. I work full time. I have two children. I'm involved in many different activities and always on the look out for more. But the plain 'ole truth is that I just don't feel like doing it.  I have the best intentions to prepare healthy meals for my family, but I honestly don't have the energy after I get through running around after work. As for the house, I want it clean--even feel deeply agitated on the inside when it's not clean BUT again, I feel zapped by the end of the work day and when Saturday--the one day I don't HAVE to get up early--it's pretty easy to do other stuff. I quietly wish I was wealthy enough to have a cleaning service do it all while I run all around town doing the things that I really want to do. Who wouldn't prefer to have someone else clean their house??? I mean, besides the compulsive types, of course. But reality --whether we like it or not--is that, as the woman of the house it's my responsibility to maintain a clean home and teach my children to do the same. Therefore, I'm not going to allow myself to feel insulted by the comments that were made, but instead I will allow them to motivate me to get my butt in gear!

Workout Review

Okay, I took an extended weekend away from my exercise program. But on Tuesday, I got back to it. I was gungho about using my new Walk at Home Fitness video. So as soon as I got home, after I got my son started on his homework, of course, I popped the DVD in and got busy. What I love about this video is that it's progressional from 1 mile to 5 miles. Now, as I'm no beginner when it comes to fitness, I'd be doing myself a disservice if I only did a mile, so for starting out I completed 2 miles. The plan will be to increase 1 mile each month. That should get some of these newly formed rolls off of me.

The workout was great! I felt so accomplished. Afterwards, I ate a small bowl of spaghetti (unfortunately not with whole grain noodles, but I'm working on that). The problem came when it was time to go to bed. For the life of me, I could NOT sleep! And the longer I stayed up, the more hungry I became. Luckily, I didn't have any BAD food in the house or I would've been toast!

I've experienced this in the past and will modify my workout and diet. I'm sure the problem is that I didn't have a lot on my stomach before the workout so that's why I got hungry as the night went on. I'll fix that on the next go-round.

So What Now

This past Monday was the last session of the Weight Watchers program I participated in for the past 12 weeks. I wasn't as successful as I'd hoped--losing only 5 lbs--but I emerged with some important revelations as it pertains to my weight loss goals.

For starters, I've been on this journey since I gave birth to my first child fourteen years ago. Lucky for me, my weight loss battle has never involved a significant amount of weight to lose--never more than 20 lbs, and that's being generous. I gave up a long time ago of trying to regain my prepregnancy weight, which would have been my high school weight of a mere buck oh five. So, probably about five years into it, I decided that all I really wanted was to trim the fat off of my belly. Hence came my REAL problem.

In my mind, since I only had one part of my body that I wanted to change, I didn't feel like I needed to make that many changes. I was no stranger to exercise, having the best example with my dad, and avid jogger and bicyclist my whole life. While not athletic, I'd always been a walker, plus every now and then I'd do sculpting exercises like bicep curls, pushups, situps, etc.

After tweaking my diet as much as I thought I needed and exercising, most times consistently, but not always so, I didn't yield the desired results. This made me angry. It was extremely frustrating for me to witness others who didn't appear to be working as hard as me have the body that I so desired. They would still eat pizza, burgers & fries, desserts,etc. But it was like, when I did those things (admittedly more often than I should've), my body and self-esteem suffered.

The most important thing I learned from the Weight Watcher program was that I'm doing great if I want to stay where I am. I'm moderately active--taking brisk walks around the neighborhood and walking over my lunch during the week. I even have a gym membership so I can go there when weather doesn't permit outside exercise. I also learned that my biggest weakness is lack of preparation for evening meals. During the program, I would lose weight when I planned ahead for meals. I would gain that same weight back the following week when I didn't. Up and down. Up and down.

What I know is that I don't want to enslave myself to anyone's gym. I have way too much going on with my children, their activities, and my own activities. Plus I'd prefer to get my exercise by doing just what I've been doing and other activities that include my family (bike riding, skating, walking, playing badmitton, etc.) I'm more about having fun and staying fit.

Where does that leave me? Well, I still have dreams of a better looking belly. But now I have time working against me. I'm only a couple of years away from 35. And for women, that's about the time when weight loss gets extremely difficult because of a quickly declining metabolism. However, I'm no quitter. Now that I'm comfortable on my stance of exercising, I can more fully concentrate on my diet.

So Weight Watchers, here I come again.