Bodies In Motion
I placed it face down on the grocery store check-out conveyer, hidden under the twenty-four pack of environmentally friendly toilet paper, hoping (for some reason) that no one would know I was making such a purchase. Then, when I got home, I found myself hiding it in the bathroom, always face down, this time underneath my dad's custom hot rod magazines; perhaps, if found, other family members would think it belonged to him.
This is about the time that I noticed -- hey -- I'm being secretive. How odd. I am not easily embarrassed, but something about this recent purchase clearly went against my self-perception and fell outside of what I considered acceptable or normal behavior for myself.
Hi. My name is Fyshmom, and I bought a fitness magazine. (I'll wait for the supportive applause; thank you for your acceptance and understanding.)
Welcome to my new obsession. This is an addiction I've been trying to cultivate for some time, and had actually made progress in that direction prior to the very difficult and painful pregnancy this past year that led to nearly six months of immobility, two of which were spent in a wheelchair TOTALLY immobile. Before that, I had joking referred to myself as "pre-buff" as I was lifting weights a couple times a week and doing three or four hours a week of aerobic exercise. At this point I am perhaps "pre-pre-buff" though working very hard to get back to "pre-buff" as soon as is reasonably possible.
For my birthday, I bought a cheap, old, used bike from Craig's List and have been using it at least three times a week ever since. I am really enjoying biking, and am casually looking for a (cheap, used) mountain bike to keep out at the farm and ride through the fields when I'm here, since riding on the roads (too much traffic driving too fast) doesn't really appeal to me at the moment. On the days I can't bike, I walk, and on Thursdays I dance; I've even started to wear wrist weights as part of my Gothic Aerobics workout. I've also started doing yoga again, crunches (I *must* get my core, abs, and back muscles strengthened if I'm going to haul around this gigantic baby and not injure myself), wadon exercises (learned when I was taking Tai Chi), and various stretching and toning exercises that I can do around the house in my spare time. Tomorrow I'm going to rejoin the local recreation center with weight room and hope to lift at least once, hopefully twice, a week.
I am *so* loving doing all of this - it feels really, really good. If I miss a day, I can tell, and part way through the next day I am starting to go a little nuts. Any time I have a few minutes during the day, I do something -- maybe a few sets of the Salutation to the Sun, or five sets of crunches, or a few hip stretches. I have been moving toward "moving all the time" for a few years now, but with pregnancies and how much time I have spent sitting still nursing babies, it has been a difficult habit to cultivate, but now it seems to be working.
I've also been working on changing my diet -- not "dieting," per say, but changing my diet. I am going for something reasonable that I can maintain long-term, not something that will just work to take weight off as quickly as possible. My dream-goal is to be one hundred pounds lighter a year from my son's birth than I was right before he was born, and at this rate, I think I can get there, or if not, pretty darned close.
So yeah - I bought a fitness magazine -- wanna make something of it? I have to say that I actually learned at least ten valuable things from it that I have used in my day to day eating and working out. I am pleased that the tips it gives always seem to come from a *health* perspective, rather than a "lose weight quick" perspective, and that they also include a lot of advice for "normal" people who are looking to live a bit healthier and fitter life. In fact, I liked it so much that I subscribed to it. Now it will be sent straight to my front door, thus saving me the embarrassment of hiding it in the grocery store under the toilet paper. Hmm…. perhaps I could request that it be sent in a plain brown wrapper……
This is about the time that I noticed -- hey -- I'm being secretive. How odd. I am not easily embarrassed, but something about this recent purchase clearly went against my self-perception and fell outside of what I considered acceptable or normal behavior for myself.
Hi. My name is Fyshmom, and I bought a fitness magazine. (I'll wait for the supportive applause; thank you for your acceptance and understanding.)
Welcome to my new obsession. This is an addiction I've been trying to cultivate for some time, and had actually made progress in that direction prior to the very difficult and painful pregnancy this past year that led to nearly six months of immobility, two of which were spent in a wheelchair TOTALLY immobile. Before that, I had joking referred to myself as "pre-buff" as I was lifting weights a couple times a week and doing three or four hours a week of aerobic exercise. At this point I am perhaps "pre-pre-buff" though working very hard to get back to "pre-buff" as soon as is reasonably possible.
For my birthday, I bought a cheap, old, used bike from Craig's List and have been using it at least three times a week ever since. I am really enjoying biking, and am casually looking for a (cheap, used) mountain bike to keep out at the farm and ride through the fields when I'm here, since riding on the roads (too much traffic driving too fast) doesn't really appeal to me at the moment. On the days I can't bike, I walk, and on Thursdays I dance; I've even started to wear wrist weights as part of my Gothic Aerobics workout. I've also started doing yoga again, crunches (I *must* get my core, abs, and back muscles strengthened if I'm going to haul around this gigantic baby and not injure myself), wadon exercises (learned when I was taking Tai Chi), and various stretching and toning exercises that I can do around the house in my spare time. Tomorrow I'm going to rejoin the local recreation center with weight room and hope to lift at least once, hopefully twice, a week.
I am *so* loving doing all of this - it feels really, really good. If I miss a day, I can tell, and part way through the next day I am starting to go a little nuts. Any time I have a few minutes during the day, I do something -- maybe a few sets of the Salutation to the Sun, or five sets of crunches, or a few hip stretches. I have been moving toward "moving all the time" for a few years now, but with pregnancies and how much time I have spent sitting still nursing babies, it has been a difficult habit to cultivate, but now it seems to be working.
I've also been working on changing my diet -- not "dieting," per say, but changing my diet. I am going for something reasonable that I can maintain long-term, not something that will just work to take weight off as quickly as possible. My dream-goal is to be one hundred pounds lighter a year from my son's birth than I was right before he was born, and at this rate, I think I can get there, or if not, pretty darned close.
So yeah - I bought a fitness magazine -- wanna make something of it? I have to say that I actually learned at least ten valuable things from it that I have used in my day to day eating and working out. I am pleased that the tips it gives always seem to come from a *health* perspective, rather than a "lose weight quick" perspective, and that they also include a lot of advice for "normal" people who are looking to live a bit healthier and fitter life. In fact, I liked it so much that I subscribed to it. Now it will be sent straight to my front door, thus saving me the embarrassment of hiding it in the grocery store under the toilet paper. Hmm…. perhaps I could request that it be sent in a plain brown wrapper……