Lack of Motivation

I have no idea what is wrong with me!  I have absolutely ZERO motivation to workout this week!  Maybe it’s hormones…who knows?  I have been continuing my schedule and I’m on workout 17 today but I really don’t want to do ANYTHING!  Maybe it’s because it does take a chunk of productivity out of my day and is a sacrifice.

Hopefully this drudgery feeling will pass and I’ll get back into being more excited about my workouts so that I can enjoy them.  Maybe I just need to switch things up a little and find something new to do to get my body moving…

Faith Affirmations

A girl from the hypno-babies group forum asked for some “Faith Promoting Affirmations”.  I put together a list of them.  The first ones are referenced to scriptures in the Bible and the next group are directly related to either The Proclamation on the Family, or other LDS scripture.

 

 

Faith Affirmations

From the Bible

My baby has a divine nature and destiny.

(Jeremiah 1:5)

My baby is a heritage of the Lord

(Psalms 127:3)

I have the power of love and of a sound mind

(2 Timothy 1:7)

I will be patient

I am doing God’s will by giving my baby life

(Hebrews 10:36)

I will have Faith that my baby’s birth will be beautiful

(Hebrews 11:1)

Every good and perfect gift comes from God

(James 1:17)

My baby is of a chosen generation

(1 Peter 2:9)

God’s divine power gives my baby’s life

(2 Peter 1:3)

My baby is a child of the Lord

I am a child of the Lord

(Deuteronomy 14:1) (Psalms 2:6)

God makes me a joyful mother of my baby

(Psalms 113:9)

My baby is pure and beautiful

(Matt 18:3)

God is my strength and my power

(2 Samuel 22:33)

I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord

(Micah 3:8)

From The Proclamation on the Family and other LDS resources

My baby is created in God’s image

My baby is a beloved spirit child of heavenly parents

My baby has chosen to receive his or her body

I have been chosen to be this baby’s mother

The creation of my baby’s mortal life is divinely appointed

I have been given the solemn responsibility to love and care for my baby

I have been given a sacred duty to love my baby

I have been given the sacred charge to provide for my baby’s physical and spiritual needs

I am responsible for the nurture of my baby

Because of Eve’s great choice, I can have my baby and my baby will bring me JOY

(Moses 5:10)

I need not fear for I am the Lord’s

(Doctrine and Covenants 50:41)

The power and goodness of the Lord is over all the inhabitants of the earth

(1 Nephi 1:14)

Jump back in!

I am very proud of me.  I worked out 6 days in a week the first week of August and 4 days last week before we headed out of town.  That is 10% of my goal!  Not too shabby.

I was pretty much dreading getting back into my exercise routine last night as we drove in from UT (it’s about a 12-hour drive with all the stops we have to make with two children).  But this morning, I got up before Vivian and got right to it.  Man, I’m proud of myself.  That is one of my biggest set-backs—going out of town.

I figure if I can work-out at least 20 times this month I can reach my goal with no problem.  Planning seems to be helping me stick to it.  Wish me luck :).

Time to Plan!

As we left town this weekend, I felt like I was losing my mind, being unable to know what to plan for in the future.  If you know anything about me, I have to plan or it makes me crazy!

We had been told by the people in UT that they would get back to us in the middle of the week.  Well, it was the end of Thursday and I was going crazy with the anticipation.  So, I begged Jared to call them as I started the drive out of Phoenix.

He didn’t get the job, though she told him he was a strong applicant.  I’m so relieved to know.  So, Jared emailed the people who gave him the offer in Mesa to accept.  They emailed him less than five minutes later to say how excited they were to have him.

I’m so glad.  I’m glad to know that Jared has a job to jump right into as soon as he’s done with his internship at the end of August.  I’m so grateful that I will not have to rush and move somewhere, that Jared can take public transportation into work until we can move closer.  I have friends here that I won’t have to leave.  We can sign Christian up for Soccer with the same program we already have used. I can find a preschool for Christian, I can find more students, I can find a violin teacher, I can get my piano back soon! 

I’m happy!

It would be nice to be closer to family, but as it is, the drive to UT isn’t too long and if we’re making more than we were previously, we can probably fly up a couple times a year.  It will be okay (as long as I get to see snow and mountains sometimes).  It’s not exactly what I want, but I can be content for now, knowing we’re we’ll be for a while and being able to put down a few roots.

Hooray!  I can plan!

Challenge: Let Motion Be Your Lotion

Today was day 7 of my 100 day workout challenge.  I have to say…I love the way my arms are getting more definition in them.  It’s nice.  I mean, they’re still far from perfect, they are pretty much relief society arms, but I really can see a difference.

I like that I picked 100 days because it makes figuring out percentiles easy.  I’m 7% done with my goal.  It may seem small but if I exercise three more times this week I’m already 10% complete with my goal and I will still have five and a half months to complete it.  I like that.

About the time that I decided I was going to challenge myself to 100 days of exercise in 6 months I started having problems with my left hip “sticking”.  I’d be sitting down on the sofa doing something and then I honestly couldn’t stand up without being in tremendous pain because my hip didn’t want to unfold itself.  Not only is it a pain and painful, it makes it really difficult to help Vivian when she needs me.  It also makes me feel like an old lady—I’m only 28 for crying out loud!

I think it’s probably because A). Because of my scoliosis, my hips are not turned out evenly  and though my surgeon tried to  pull them out a little more and make them more even, there was only so much he could do.

B). Is because I had a baby less than a year ago and my body has not quite recovered yet.

I realized that it happened on the days when I didn’t do my kick-boxing videos but I had done my aerobics videos instead.  I wondered if there was perhaps a correlation with getting my hip stuck and not kick-boxing.  So I tried an experiment and it’s true—my hip doesn’t stick on the days I kick-box.

I told my younger sister this and she thought it was interesting and told me of a saying she’d heard that’s “Let motion be your lotion”.  I guess it’s true in my case, because the days that I exercise are the days when I feel the best physically as well as mentally and emotionally. Even today, I was really dragging my feet to workout but once I was finished, I felt refreshed, awake and ready to start a productive day.

I think our bodies are made for motion and when we deny them that motion, they complain and make us feel worse and then we think we can’t possibly move because we feel so crappy.  Once we do start moving consistently we feel better—inside and out.  Maybe exercise really is a little oil in the joints that we need to avoid creaky hinges.

Challenge…(day two) Kicking and Kids

I started my counting of work-out days yesterday since it was the first Monday of the month, I figured it would be a good day to “officially” start.  Honestly, after working out at least every other day since the beginning of June, it wasn’t some magical or painful thing to do :).

My favorite workout to do at the moment is kickboxing.  Honestly, it probably is because it makes me feel no-nonsense, tough, strong and powerful.  Another bonus, for me in particular, is that kickboxing is supposed to be done in an upright position and doesn’t involve twisting of the spine (something completely impossible for me).

Okay, this may be annoying, but it’s time for a commercial…well kind of, it’s really more of a recommendation…

My favorite kickboxing workout is on the Kathy Smith Cardio Knockout.  It’s the second workout on the DVD (the first workout which is aero-boxing,  is, at the moment, rendered impossible for me to do because it takes a pretty high level of aerobic fitness and jump-roping for over 75% of the workout…I’m just not quite there yet).

Anyway, the kickboxing workout on this DVD is awesome… At least I feel awesome when I do it. 

I love that they go over proper form with the punches and the kicks in the intro and have reminders during the workout of what good form is.  Another nice thing is that they go over each move slowly before they speed it up.  There’s also a great leg section at the end of the workout that I really like where you practice the kicks slowly.  I love that each day I do this, I can actually see my legs shaping into something more sleek and powerful looking than they ever did before.  It’s pretty encouraging!  There’s also a great ab workout on this DVD that does not have any crunches!  Hurray for me!!!  (I have a full spinal fusion for those of you who don’t know so no bending for me)….besides, who really likes to do crunches?! My baby belly has stopped doing that hang-over thing and is starting to look just poochy instead of poochy and flabby.

The point is, I love these workouts.  It’s a good thing to love what you do…especially if you have goals to do whatever thing a lot.   If you haven’t tried kickboxing, I highly recommend it.   Besides, it works more muscles than running thus burning more calories.  Plus, it’s fun (especially once your kicks start getting higher).

On a similar note, I’ve decided that though it can be a little hard to motivate myself to do workouts at home (or in general), it’s probably a pretty important thing for my children to see me exercising.

When I was growing up I thought exercise was just for people who want to lose weight.  I didn’t realize that fitness was actually a part of being a healthy whole person.  I do want to lose weight, but I also want to be a whole, healthy person.  Exercise really is part of being a whole healthy person.

I hope that my children seeing me exercises  will help them learn and understand that exercise is just a part of a healthy lifestyle.  Something that is important to do consistently throughout life and with a moderate level of enjoyment. 

Values are the most easily taught through examples.  Just talking about something doesn’t do much to influence others—it’s actions that inspire.  Talking helps but no one takes anyone seriously who just talks the talk and can’t walk the walk.

One of the things I like about this whole working out at home  is that Christian has made it his goal to remind me everyday that I need to exercise.  He also joins me in the cool downs and the ab exercises and then tells me what a great job I did that day.  How’s that for motivation?!  I love my boy.

So, hopefully in conjunction with  my own improvements, I’ll help my children with their own out-looks on exercise and health…that’s one reason to smile during a workout!

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.