I never thought about my body’s health until I became a mother. I suppose because my body changed so gradually they went unnoticed for the most part. After the birth of my second daughter, I felt like a stranger in my own body and could not ignore the need to get healthier and lose weight.
My girls are fifteen months apart in age. All that time spent pregnant changed my eating habits for the better. I had cut out soda almost completely and learned to cook most of my meals at home. My eating habits began gravitating towards more fruits and vegetables and less junk food. The next step was to begin to exercise.
That summer 2011 I had never exercised before in my life, so I knew I needed to start out slowly. I began by keeping track of my daily intake of calories and calories burned through activities on www.myfitnesspal.com
Housework and caring for my kids were not enough to help me lose weight. I weighed around 178lbs when I started my fitness routine. Being a stay at home mom of two small children made getting to a gym a challenge. I decided to find ways to exercise at home, regardless of my lack of space for actual equipment. I had a Kinect and a fitness game to go with it. I would spend thirty minutes every other day doing various cardio exercises. Lunges, jumping rope, running in place, plus many other activities stretched my muscles and got my heart going. The other thing I began using in my new routine were the Carmen Electra Striptease exercise DVDs. I figured perhaps they could teach me some new dance moves as well as help me lose weight. It is not anything dirty, simply an aerobic exercise routine to be used to lose weight. The DVD set begins with a warm up and then begins to slowly introduce new dance routines. Starting off by learning to move your hips and walk to the music, and progresses to more challenging techniques with each DVD. There are five in total. It is really fun you almost do not feel like you are exercising.
My mornings were earlier than usual. I would wake half an hour before my kids in order to get in some exercise. Normally I would start with the Carmen Electra DVDs to warm up and loosen my muscles, then move on to the Kinect game. After my kids woke I would get us all breakfast. Mine normally consisted of toast and some fruit, or a bowl of high fiber cereal. After breakfast I would vacuum, care for the kids, and do normal household tasks until nap time. Once the kids were put down for their afternoon nap, I would spend another half an hour exercising to my DVDs. The rest of my day would go as normal with a light lunch and home cooked dinner. I logged every meal and every time I exercised to keep track of my daily and weekly goals. My calorie goal was to get 1200 calories a day, and30 minutes a day of exercise. Housework counted as well, so I normally was on target.
I learned quickly that even though I was not incredibly overweight, I was incredibly out of shape. A definite light weight when it came to exercise. I paced myself though, and knew it would get easier as I got healthier and stronger. Exercising daily was not something my body could handle so soon after giving birth and so out of shape, so I stuck to only using my DVDs every other day so my muscles would not be too sore.
It was soon apparent my new fitness diet and routine were working! As long as I stuck to my allowed daily calories and exercised every other day I was losing an average pound a week. It was quite exciting. By Thanksgiving, I was under 160lbs and fitting into single digit pants sizes again!
Currently, I am over 180lbs. This is because I am pregnant again. After this baby is born I plan to get back into my fitness routine. My goal is to get even more active with not only my indoor videos and games, but with outdoor activities as well like jogging and bike riding. Now that I have had a taste of starting a fitness routine, I cannot wait to get it going again and reach my health and weight loss goals. I am still pretty new to living healthy, but it is never too late to get fit!
