Time to get in shape for summer – who’s with me?

I’m about to do a thing and it scares me. I’m about to post about fitness and nutrition and put pictures of myself in a bathing suit on the internet. I think I’ve lost my mind. I am not a fitness and nutrition person. I hate sports and jogging and the gym. I love pizza and salt and vinegar chips and wine and margaritas. So know that I realize that this is total madness.

But here’s the thing. I’m going to the beach for a week in the middle of June where I will (presumably) be wearing a bathing suit. Now, I’ve known that this was coming but did that stop me from eating pizza and drinking wine this weekend? No. Did it keep me from having delicious Thai food for lunch yesterday? No. No it did not. Now I’m not overweight (thank you genetics), but it’s been a long winter and the, um, “fluff” has accumulated. I feel bloated and out of sorts. And I’m out of shape – very out of shape. And it’s embarrassing to admit but I can’t fit into my favorite shorts and if I can’t fit in to my shorts then putting on my bathing suit is really going to make me cry.

The problem, though, is that I have 3 kids, a husband, a full-time job, a 4 hour daily commute, a consulting business on the side, 2 cats, a house that requires upkeep and yard maintenance, a leadership position in a women’s advocacy group and I occasionally like to sleep and bathe. When, exactly, am I going to exercise? Or cook a bunch of healthy food just for myself, because we all know that my family isn’t going to eat zoodles and salads. And it isn’t just me. We’re all busy. Super busy. How can we fit some amount of exercise and self-care into our already over-packed and scheduled lives?

That’s what I’m going to try and find out. I’m going to document my efforts to exercise, eat healthier and fit into my shorts. You are going to keep me honest and accountable. The objective here isn’t necessarily to lose weight (although I will *gulp* report my weight changes) – the point is to feel better and look better. And I have to do it in 10 weeks.

So, here we are at the “before”. God, I hate the before. The before is so humiliating.

• Starting Weight – 130.2 lbs.
• Starting Exercise –Walking; Fitbit step count average is 5,256 steps/day.
• Diet – Does pizza with peppers and onions count as a diet?

Before Picture (shield your eyes from my blinding whiteness)

Plan

• Weight and Health
  • To fit into my shorts – the number on the scale doesn’t matter
  • To build some muscle mass
  • To get healthier!
• Exercise
  • Increase step count to 10,000 steps/day
  • Start doing the free Couch to 5K running app at least 2x a week
  • Sit on an exercise ball at work for at least 3 hours a day
  • Maybe take a yoga class once in while and see if that’s possible with my DR (see below)
• Diet
  • Use the Fitbit app to watch my calorie intake
  • Try out new, healthier versions of what my family already eats (thank you Pinterest!)
  • Cut out all alcohol and fried foods except for one cheat day a week.
  • (**If I find any great healthy recipes I’ll share them here).

**Another thing I need to work on is my “completely open” diastasic recti (DR) – or separated stomach muscles. This is a pretty common condition after carrying a big baby (or multiples) and it affects core strength, pelvic floor function and overall strength. It also causes the “mom pooch”. My case is pretty bad – I can fit 3 fingers to the knuckle into the gap between my stomach muscles (thanks to carrying 15 lbs of babies and 6 lbs of placenta). The tough part for me is that most of the types of exercise that I enjoy, like yoga and pilates, need to be severally curtailed or avoided all together until you’ve either had the DR surgically repaired or you’ve strengthened your transverse abdominus sufficiently, which I haven’t done. So, I’m going to work on strengthening those muscles by doing these exercises at least 4 times a week. And I’m going to try to do some yoga but will avoid the problematic poses.

I’ll post weekly to give you an update and report on what’s working and what’s not working. Here we go y’all! (Anybody want to do this with me? PLEASE?)