Feeling Thinner…and Feeling Awake

Yesterday was a good day.  According to the lack of sleep I’ve had in the last 10 days or so, it was almost strange that I felt so great.  But you know what?

I Feel Thin!  And it Feels good.

I don’t necessarily look any different than I did last week.  I don’t even weigh any less.  But I feel good in my skin. 

What a relief!

I haven’t felt this way since Christian was two-and-a half and I was student-teaching which was two years ago.  I like it.

The most interesting thing about how I feel is that I have had an awful cold for the past 10 days or so and so have both of my children.  I have not slept so little since Vivian was a month old.  It’s times like these when I want a mommy of my own to come and take care of me…to bad my mom is 700 + miles away.

I had no motivation so I only exercised 3 times this past week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.   The week before that I was feeling my motivation slipping away and only ended up exercising four days that week instead of my initial resolve to exercise five and make it to 20 day in the month.  I only reached 19. 

I was feeling pretty mad at myself about this but I realized that I need to cut myself some slack.  I don’t need to let my self totally off the hook,  but I do need to be proud of what I do accomplish.

At least I didn’t stop exercising all together and call it quits.  Now I’m wondering if my giving myself more days to rest and recover has helped me actually feel better.  I’ll need to ponder on that.  I do know that after I met Jared and stopped running 5 miles almost everyday and instead played tennis every few days I actually started losing weight faster.  Who knows?

Anyway, I enjoy this “thin feeling”.  It might just be a state of mind or something.  I don’t know.

I was reading in someone’s blog last week that they didn’t feel good about themselves when they didn’t look good physically.  And because they had gain about 20 some-odd pounds they felt like they looked lazy.  This really upset me.  I know I was taking it somewhat out of context, but made me realize that this person for some reason associated “extra weight” with “laziness”.

Honestly, I don’t think that because someone has extra weight on them they are lazy.  Some of the most busy, hard working, selfless people I know are overweight by a little or even a lot.  I don’t think that makes them lazy or even look lazy.  Besides, how can we judge how lazy someone is by their appearance as long as they’re clean?  Who knows if they have been pregnant and had medical issues that kept them on bed rest or grew up in a family that made them “clean their plates”, or told them that children in Africa were starving so they should eat everything given them.   They might be trying their very hardest to lose weight and have made amazing strides.   How can I know that just by looking at them?  I can’t.  Sometimes though, I do wonder if they might be too tired to care about exercise or perhaps they have a medical issue that they don’t know how to deal with or perhaps they are too tired to work on even trying.

I know that I have been tired.  So very tired and walking in a haze during certain parts of my life that all I could manage was to make sure I took care of the basic essentials of hygiene (showering,wearing clean clothes, etc) and survival (eating, drinking etc) on top of the other things I had responsibilities towards (such as taking care of my son).

I know that I do feel better about myself when I take the time to exercise, I know that I look better too.  My skin is clearer and more supple, my muscles are more defined, I don’t feel as though I jiggle as much, my mind feels clearer, and most importantly, I am less tired!

I know it’s really difficult to get started exercising, but that’s the hardest part and after you do it you feel so much better and your body thanks you in so many ways.  I’m really proud of myself for not stopping exercising this week even though I felt crappy and unmotivated.  It reminds me of something my sister’s art teacher used to say “Everything has to have an ugly stage”.  Because these last 10 days have felt like a major ugly stage.

It was such a surprise to wake up yesterday and feel thin and happy after nights and nights of little sleep.  I attribute it to keeping up the exercise even when it was drudgery.  Thank goodness I didn’t throw in the towel because I feel thin, I feel strong and I feel awake!

Challenge…

First thing, I’d like to announce that happily, to date, I have lost 40 lbs.  since having Vivian 7 months ago. 

That means that I’m actually 7 lbs less than I was before I got pregnant with her.  Of course, I did end up about 58 lbs heavier at the end of my pregnancy with her than I was before I first got pregnant with Christian. Thus, I have at least 18 more lbs that I’d like to lose and if possible more than that… But despite all that.  I’ve about 2/3 of the way to my goal weight. Wahoo!

Sadly, I still do not fit my old clothes that I could wear when I was seven lbs heavier before I got pregnant with Vivian.  They are still too small.  Dang it.  I guess I’ve kind of re-constructed my hips and ribs from being pregnant but they will (hopefully) go down and I am getting a lot closer.

If anyone’s interested in how I achieved my weight-loss since last I posted about this, I’ll tell you. 

Diet:  I had every intention of being on the South-Beach Diet, but that never quite worked out.  So, instead of beating myself up with a diet, I just cut out sweets except for once a week.  I actually have a thing for chocolate so I have a bar of high-quality very dark chocolate that I let myself have one square of if I feel desperate for it.  I figure it’s better that I have something with anti-oxidants in it than something that’s just purely sugar. :)  With my meals, I try to make sure that I have enough protein to keep me full and twice as many vegetables as protein.  I haven’t cut out carbohydrates like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes but I have do try to keep these proportions small (I do have a four-year old who is learning what is healthy by watching me and I need to be a good example).  I do not eat food that is ready-made (cold cereal doesn’t count) as a rule though once a week, I let myself have something from a restaurant, fast-food, deli or even a take-and-bake pizza.  As far as beverages go, I limit juice or soda to once a week, and only drink water or rice milk the rest of the time (I’m lactose intolerant, otherwise I’d be drinking regular milk too).

Exercise:  I started out exercising with a video three times a week.  This worked really well until about a month ago when I was just not losing any weight so I decided to up the frequency and go to four times a week.  This really helped me feel like I was accomplishing something.  That’s why two weeks ago I started exercising five times a week.  Holy Cow!  I feel fantastic!!!  I promise, I’m not just saying it!   I’ve been exercising three days, resting one, exercising two and then resting one.  It’s the days that I’ve rested are actually the days when I’m more tired, have less energy and feel just not as great.  It seems so ironic that I feel better when I’ve worked out than not. 

This brings me to the other thing that I wanted to write about.  It is the concept of  “challenge”.   As I’ve have the opportunity to be the mother of two human beings, I’ve been able to observe their development and how one moves from one skill set to another.

For example, from the time Vivian was about 3.5 months old, she would do little crunches.  Anytime you’d lay her flat on her back she would push with her little abdominal muscles with all her might and get her head up and  try to sit.  After a few weeks of this, she had gained enough strength to roll over.  After a few more weeks she figured out that if she rolled in succession she could actually get somewhere.

Now she can sit up straight for an indefinite amount of time once she’s put in the sitting position but she’s not quite to getting to the sitting up position on her own.  What do I find her doing all of the time?  I don’t know what else to call them but oblique exercises.  She lays on her side and does side kicks while she crunches in a side-ways manner.

All this observation has made me realize that:

1. One must challenge  themselves to get to a goal

2. It takes consistent trying to achieve any goal.

When I first started working out consistently, there was no way I could put as much energy into the moves as the person on the video.  There was just no way, I didn’t have the speed, strength or agility to do so.  That was okay, as long as I kept on trying.  Each subsequent time that I use a particular video, I try to challenge myself to do various moves with a little better posture, a little better form, and/or a little more energy the whole time while smiling (to try to convince my subconscious that this is supposed to make me feel good) and imagining my muscles getting stronger. The results have been remarkable!

As I finished my workout today, I realized, I wasn’t tired.  I felt great.  I felt energized, strong, beautiful and accomplished!  It didn’t feel like drudgery or something boring that I had to do.  I feel amazing!  I looked in the mirror today and realized I’m liking the way my shoulders are becoming more defined.  I’ve never really noticed that before.  It feels awesome!

I’ve been talking to my sister about this for a while, but I’m going to do an 100 days of exercise challenge.  I’m going to do 100 days of working out within six months.  I’m hoping to be able to do it closer to four months than six, but I’m going to give myself a little more time allotment just because I may be moving in the next couple of months, sick days sometimes happen and what can I say, life happens!  So, for the next few months I’m going to be challenging myself to be very consistent in my workouts.  These are my rules/guidelines to make sure that I can keep this up.

1.  Workout at least 20 minutes to count (preferably 10 minutes warm-up 30 minutes workout and 10-minutes cool down).

2.  I can count any kind of exercise whether it be yoga, Pilates, kick-boxing, dancing, running, weight-training…etc) as long as I do cardio 3 times a week.

3.  No excuses about fitting in my exercise.  I am a stay-at-home mom who has two children begging for my attention, but if I make exercise a real priority, it really can happen.  I can wake up before they do, let my 4-year-old join me while the baby sleeps, do it while they both sleep, or fit it in once my husband gets home.  That’s four options!  I really have no excuses do I?

4.  Remember this is about me.  This is about me taking care of me.  Not me trying to look like so-and-so.  This is me teaching my children to honor their bodies and see that it’s an important responsibility to take care of the body we’ve been given.  It’s about being my best self.

So, if anyone out there  cares, wish me luck.   I’m excited to see/feel how I will be when I’m finished with my 100 work-out challenge.