So pregnancy is my horrible excuse for still not being down to the weight I would like to be. It's "horrible" because my son is only 3 months away from his second birthday (yeah, I said "second" judge me.) Before Harper was born I worked out about 5-6 days a week...in a gym...with my husband! It was amazing. Of course I didn't realize how amazing it was until I was fitting in workouts during naps, or in between feedings or not at all. I gained 51 pounds with the Crazy girl (gulp) and lost 56 pounds by the time I was (surprisingly) pregnant with my sweet boy (only 9 months later). And I WORKED that weight off! Some very lucky women seem to do nothing, just eat and breastfeed and miraculously their pregnancy weight just falls off of them. Not me. I was not blessed with those genes. After Harper was born I was very vigilant in exercising and eating right, and the weight came off. Then came baby number two. I gained only half of the amount of weight with Luke, mainly because I really watched what I ate and I worked out almost the entire pregnancy (I did p90x with the Hot Doc until I was 31 weeks; it was ridiculous!) I thought it would be so easy to get the rest of this little boy off of me. WRONG. When you have less time and less energy, working out kind of gets pushed to the back of the list. I could bore you with a list of workout programs I have done and not stuck to since Luke came into this world, but I won't. I have made a commitment to get this weight off before my Sweet boy turns two! This is what I have been doing:
1. Going to bed by 11pm each night (except Friday).
If you're a mom of small kids then you know that time alone is precious. I had been taking advantage of as much time alone as I could by staying up WAY too late. It was not uncommon for me to be up until 1-2 am. However, there is an extreme negative consequence to this when your kids get up by 7 am everyday; exhaustion. I was consuming copious amounts of coffee, and by the time nap time came I wanted nothing to with working out. (Also, there are many studies out there linking lack of sleep to weight gain/the inability to lose weight.)
2. Getting up before my kids to work out.
Say what?! Yes, that's right, for the last 9 days I have set the alarm, gotten up and worked out before my kids get up. The first few days were hard (well everyday is hard) but I have seen the benefits already of getting this done and out of the way, as well as getting some time alone before the two crazies get up.
I have been trading off doing this:
and this:
Both videos have different levels. The first one has three levels and the second one has two, so there are many different options between these two videos. AND (best of all) they are only 20-30 minutes each. However, those 20-30 minutes will kick your little bootie (or big bootie, whatever you have). Before these workouts I was doing Turbo Fire, which is an intense cardio workout. Most of the workouts are 45 mins to an hour long and I was just as sweaty and winded at the end of them, that I am after these! (I know, I know I told you I wouldn't bore with what workouts I have done.)
3. Eating
I have always had to watch what I eat in order to lose weight/not gain weight (we ALL have those people in our lives that eat just crap and still have this cute little body). After Harper was born I used the first South Beach diet book to help lose all that extra weight. I had half heartedly tried it after Luke was born, but was not committed. Now I am. If you don't know the South Beach diet, let me break it down very basically:
There are three phases. In Phase 1 you remove all sugar from your diet. That is sugar in all forms, so no dairy, no fruit, nothing processed at all. You fill your diet with lean protein, low GI vegetables (so no root vegetables and no corn) and healthy fat (olive oil, avocados, nuts). It can sound boring and daunting, and it can be if you're not prepared, but if the fridge is stocked with a wide variety of food then it's actually easy. This is where you will experience the biggest amount of weight loss. The first time I did South Beach I lost 7 pounds the first two weeks. This time around I have lost 3 pounds since starting on Wednesday (tomorrow will be a full week).
Phase 2 of the diet you begin to start to reintroduce dairy, fruit and whole grain products into your diet. The idea is to continue to lose weight, so you start slowly; integrating a piece of fruit here or a bowl of oatmeal there. If you get through a week and didn't lose any weight then you have added too much and you back it off a bit.
Phase 3 is the maintenance phase. Once you have lost all the weight you would like, you eat to not gain weight. I like the "Supercharged" version because it has a focus on eating "whole" foods; getting rid of the processed and prepackaged.
4. My head and heart
If you know me personally you know I have struggled with weight in many capacities. I have struggled with being overweight and losing weight and then being obsessed with working out and what I was eating, etc, etc. Neither end of the spectrum is good. It's not okay to disrespect my body in either way. What's the solution to this problem? Lean into Jesus my friends! I ask my Lord for discipline, for energy, for patience, for perspective, for eyes to see myself the way he sees me. I ask Him to show me how to not look at what the world says is beautiful, but what HE thinks is beautiful. And I totally suck at this, but luckily He knows that, and He is just so stinkin' kind to me!
So there it is folks, my very cliche moment. Two years later I still have baby weight. But in three months, I won't!
If you have any questions about the workouts or the diet please ask!
