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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Exercising ... Baby Steps

I've been exercising this past month...no gym or anything offficial, but when I have a moment during the day, or feel couch potato-ish, I do a few sets of push-ups and sit-ups and other things. It's a conscious part of my look better/feel better attitude and my journey to become healthy and awesome. Exercising is not the most bothersome thing to do, as I used to think. It's actually fun to do with the kids. Here's how I involve them:
  • I lay the baby on a blanket on the ground, facing up. I do 10 push-ups, kissing his little face each time I go down. My toddler, in the meantime, is usually mimicking me on his own rug.
  • Then I do stretches, e.g. things I learned from pilates. Like sitting up with both legs folded to one side, and stretching arms up and then down over my head to one side, then up and bending down to the other side (called the mermaid stretch...click HERE to learn more). And we do some toe touching and leg stretches too. The baby is very entranced and amused by my movements. The toddler will try these moves with my encouragement.
  • For core work - I do bicycle crunches. Alternating right elbow to left knee, then left elbow to right knee, etc. and stretching the straight leg out as high as possible. I find that doing these well, engaging my core, really makes a difference. I'm feeling muscles I haven't used in months! Maybe years! My toddler loves "helping" by trying to push me up from behind.
  • Then I do some jumping jacks. These are the kids' favorites. It's very stimulating for the little one to see his mommy huffing and puffing and jumping around. And the toddler loves counting or doing ABC's with mommy as a way of multi-tasking during this exercise.
  • We also dance whenever there's music on or when we play dancing video games (xbox kinect is very fun!) or when his cartoon theme songs come on. We may watch tv quite a bit but I interact with him and dance and sing as much as possible!
  • If I'm feeling ambitious, I do some tricep dips or bicep curls, but I think my arms are getting a workout every day when I'm lifting my 15-lb baby and carrying him around everywhere. And of course, there are the vacuum lunges I do, marathon laundry days, wax-on/wax-off dusting...(j/k on that last one)...basically, keeping my fitness in mind while doing chores makes things more interesting and maybe more calorie-burning.
Another thing I've been trying to keep in mind is to NOT finish my son's food. Being a picky eater means he leaves a lot of food on the plate, sometimes wasting half a sandwich or bowl of rice for example...well, I stop myself from popping that perfectly good piece of food into my mouth, and falling prey to what every parent becomes at some point - the human garbage disposal. I'm trying to only eat when I need to (not just because it's there) and to stop when I'm full.

I'm also drinking (a little) more water these days. A cup of warm water to start off the day and end the night is nice, comforting, and calorie-free. That said, I am still addicted to sugary snacks and drinks. At least, the hubby and I are eating less fast food (like maybe only once or twice a MONTH, rather than a week).

RESULTS: I haven't been tied to the scale, so I'm not sure of exactly how long it took, but I'm seeing numbers I haven't seen since before my first pregnancy 3 YEARS ago! It took about a year to get the baby weight off the first time. Then with the second pregnancy, I gained less and lost it all in these past few months. I probably lost a pound or so when I cut off all my hair. And now, I'm losing even more, zooming by that pesky "pre-pregnancy weight" mark that's been looming over me since February 2009. And that weight was a whopping 25 lbs more than my "wedding weight" which was only 9 months before (it was a tough 9 months*). Needless to say, I have a bit more to go before I reach my previous wedding weight. Maybe in time for this summer's whirlwind of weddings to attend?

*Here's a helpful timeline:

May 2008 = wedding weight

{June-July 2008 - studying for and taking bar exam #1             } 
{Aug-Dec 2008 - waiting for/recovering from bar exam results } 
{Jan-Feb 2009 - studying for and taking bar exam #2              }
= +25 lbs

Feb 2009 - got pregnant {this was my official pre-pregnancy weight}
Feb-Nov 2009 - pregnancy #1 - gained 28 lbs
Nov 2010 - Jake turns 1, I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight
Jan 2011 - got pregnant again
Jan-Sept 2011 - pregnancy #2 - gained 20 lbs
Dec 2011 - back to my pre-pregnancy weight
Feb 2012 - lost 5 additional lbs

Feb-May 2012 - lose another 10 lbs!

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