I can hardly believe it’s already been 8 months since I gave birth to Luke. In the last month I realized that life isn’t going to get easier anytime soon. I’m not magically going to get an extra hour in my day. No more excuses; time to get serious about staying active.
I needed a kick in the pants to get myself to make the time to exercise regularly, so I joined Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp. The bootcamp is an 8 week program where she emails a workout program to follow. She also encourages you to set two goals each week (not necessarily related to fitness).
If you reach the goal of completing five workouts each week (the program includes six per week) as well as reach your weekly personal goals, you get your name put into drawings for weekly cash prizes and four $1,000 cash prizes at the end. How cool is that?! The workouts are varied and intense, and I highly recommend the program if you need some extra motivation or just a fun program to follow.
It’s forced me to focus on strength training more, which is something I really needed to do. More than anything, it’s helped me have some motivation and accountability that I hope will continue when the eight weeks are over (I’m more than half way through now). Just knowing that each week I have to fill in my check-in document indicating how many days I worked out motivates me to get it done.
There have been two out of five weeks where I didn’t get in the minimum five workouts. One week was our vacation week and the other was post-vacation week. The other three (and I’m going out on a limb and saying the remaining three) I did. My mindset and overall feeling of well-being is so much better when I’m working out.
Even when the motivation is there, time and energy don’t always follow. Because Luke is such an early riser, his and Meghan’s naps don’t line up. Most days I don’t have a break where both kids are napping at the same time. This leaves the following options for working out times:
#1: Wake early and workout before Luke gets up. Luke wakes up at 6am and is not sleeping through the night yet. Nope. This option is not happening.
#2: Do the strength portion of the workout when Luke is sleeping but Meghan is awake. I do this often and it usually works out, depending on what else we have going on that day. Then I need to squeeze the cardio portion in sometime when Tim is home. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.
#3: Workout after the kids go to bed. This summer Meghan’s bedtime has crept later and later, so most nights she isn’t in bed until 8:30. I have done this a few times, but most days I don’t have the energy.
The other option I need to look into is joining a gym so I can utilize the child care and get my workout done that way. And then I’ll have to convince Tim that this is a good idea. Ha.
Despite my time and energy restraints, I am so glad I decided to do Tina’s bootcamp. It’s been just the thing I needed to get myself on track.
I’m seeing definite changes in my body, too. My goal is not to lose weight, even though I’d eventually like to lose a few more pounds. I’m afraid if I try to lose weight right now it won’t be good for my breastfeeding supply (I have a 24 pound baby who only wants breastmilk–I need a good supply to keep up!) so my goal is to firm up some of the flabby post-baby areas. This is a work in progress, but just exercising consistently is making a huge difference.
Question: When do you workout? What time of day do you find you have the most energy?
Good for you! I started working out again a few months after my son was born because I knew if I didn’t, time would pass, my body would get too out-of-shape and it would be so much harder to start up again. It totally worked for me (strength + cardio). Lately, (he’s 2 and 1/2 yrs now), I’m finding it harder to find time & energy so I change it up a lot. I basically go with whatever feels right on any given day. Today I took him for a jog in the stroller. I try not to be too hard on myself & yet I want to stay fit. It’s a vicious dilemma sometimes! But bottom line for me is anything is better than nothing & keeping it enjoyable is key 🙂 Good luck!
That is my philosophy as well: something is ALWAYS better than nothing. It’s not easy at all to keep up with consistent exercise, but I feel so much better when I do so I think it’s worth the effort. 🙂
Good for you! This bootcamp sounds great!
I take a boot camp class at the gym once a week and I love love love it! It is my favorite by far. Today we did a basketball theme. Dribbling the ball up and down the room, jump shots, suicides, karaoke along with lots of pushups, squats, lunges, and abs. What a great workout! I would love to teach a class like this.
That class sound like something I would LOVE! At first I thought you meant you took breaks to sing karaoke…I was going to ask what song you chose. I’m such a dork! I guess it’s been too long since I played basketball. haha 🙂
Ahh, I need to do something like this too. I was doing really well keeping up with workouts for a while, but in the last couple weeks I’ve really slacked off. I was working out first thing in the morning before I even ate because baby would sleep for a little bit(or at least be happy if she was awake) and hubby would still be home to look after the others. I’ve realized I really can’t workout before breakfast though so that has to change. Not sure how I’m going to do things now. It’s so hard to organize things, but at least it’s cooling down during the day so I’m not opposed to working out later in the day. Great for you for doing something like this!!
I’ve been following your blog for a while now. I think you are stessing your post baby body too much. My sisters and I have been doing Sprint 8. It is a pace type workout that you can totaly taylor to yourself. No machines to buy either. If you do it right you can only do it every other day. ( It is that complete). And from start to finish, it takes me 1 hr. including before and after stretching and a shower. I could not believe how well it worked.
My sisters and I range in age from 30 to 45 years old. We all stay home and homeschool our kids. So there is not much time for exercise. This fits the bill.
Hi Stephanie–Sprint 8 sounds interesting; I’ll have to check it out. In what way do you think I am stressing my post baby body too much? I think it’s natural to want to get our bodies back in shape after having a baby. My expectations are realistic and it isn’t something I’m trying to do too quickly, nor am I trying to lose too much weight. I’m not trying to be defensive; I’m just genuinely curious in what way you think I’m stressing it too much.
First I must say from the pictures you look great. From the tone of some of your bloggingins you seem stressed about not being able to do the same stuff you did before. NO woman is the same (physically nor emotionaly) after having kids. That doesn’t mean you are not still an amazing being. Mental stress carries over to physical areas (low energy, intesified allergies etc). That was why I wanted to tell you about Sprint 8. It takes so much less of my time, that I feel a lot less stressed (about when to squeeze exercise in, and feeling guilty for “taking” that time from family). Hope this clears this clears thing up. Look at the video about sprint 8 with Dr. Mercola. He was a marathon runner too.
Thanks, Stephanie. I agree that mental stress can take a toll on us physically and I need to remember to keep that in check. I checked out the Sprint 8 and it looks like totally my style. Sprinting and a short workout time–I like it. I need to look into it more, but it definitely looks like something that I would like and would fit with my life. I’d never heard of it before, so thanks for the reference.
After we had gotten into a good routine, we added some other exercises like arms, back, abs etc. what ever we needed targeted. Just some simple hand weights that we already had. One of my sisters uses one of her kids to do bench presses. They think it is hillarious. and the weight is slowly increased as they grow. The mental picture of that always makes me laugh. Good Luck
Hi Maryea, I thought I would share my recent experience with you regarding the energy expended in breastfeeding. My darling son decided to wean himself last month after 21 enthusiastic months of breastfeeding. Towards the end we were only doing 1 or 2 small feeds per day and my assumption was there were minimal requirements on my body for extra energy compared to when I am not breastfeeding. My subsequent feelings of extra energy within a week of ceasing feeeding has caught me by surprise….though any extra energy is always welcome in a house of an almost 2 yr old and 4 yr old boys!! I guess it was reminder to me of just what it takes to be a “productive” nutrient producer 😉
Wow–very interesting! I think I do forget how much my body has to work to produce milk for the baby. Congratulations on 21 months of breastfeeding. 🙂 I hope Luke and I will make it that far.
I actually joined a bootcamp before the wedding, and I loved it…well, I loved to hate it 🙂 But I’ve been married a month and haven’t gone since I said I do…whoops!
I wanted to join bootcamp for a long time. I guess I’ll do it! 🙂
Good luck with that! 🙂
Good for you! sounds like a great program! For the last 6 mos + my neighbor & I meet at 6am and walk 4 miles (about 1hr). I would love to get in more strength & cardio, but for this time in my life….this works. The accountability is the only thing that keeps me getting up (we just bumped it up to 5:45 for school). And I enjoy visiting w/ her while we pound the pavement. I’ve added some strength in sometimes, but haven’t stuck w/ it as much due to the issues you describe (kids awake, non-coordinated naps, etc….). So glad you found something that is working for you 🙂