I didn’t really exercise at all for the last two years.  I wish it was an exaggeration but unfortunately it’s not.  Literally didn’t exercise for pretty much all of 2010 and 2011.  Ridiculous.  So in 2012, I’m starting up again.  It’s hard.  I’m out of shape and weigh more than I wish I did and my body is weak (or if you prefer, I have a weak body – that one’s for you, puppy).  And it’s a little tougher to exercise with Miss K.  She’s a little amused when I’m trying to exercise but mostly, she tries to climb on me or cling to my legs.  It just doesn’t work.  The alternative is to go to the gym after she goes to sleep but an hour work out ends up being a two hour affair, between changing clothes, driving, showering, etc. and usually that’s not until at least 8:30 because after she goes to bed, usually I’m cleaning up the dinner aftermath, working on the other blog, and generally wasting time.  🙂

Despite that, I’m happy to say that I’ve been making time to exercise over the last few weeks.  Nine workouts in the last 14 days – last week I logged 245 minutes of working out.  Not bad for me.  I’ve been squeezing it in wherever possible.  I’ve done a few run/walks with Miss K in the jogging stroller.  Running is a lot harder when you’re pushing 20 pounds of baby + another 20 pounds of stroller.  It doesn’t help that I’m so out of shape or that I need to lose 10 pounds or that I’m stiff as a board (but not light as a feather).  I remember when I was running more regularly, it would take a mile or so to “shake off the rust.”  This was the period where my body was warming up, I was working through the mental battle with myself (“I hate running!  Why am I doing this!” “Don’t be a baby!  It’s good for you!”  “But I don’t wanna!”  “Shut up, do it!”).  But I’m getting out there and doing what I can.  When I don’t walk/run, I’m doing workout videos at home.  So far I’ve done several yoga videos (in different levels of difficulty), the p90x cardio workout (tough but actually kind of fun), and Zumba.  Zumba is a funny thing.  I break a sweat every time and I do think it’s challenging.  I feel like an idiot a lot of the time, but I’m catching on.  It’s kind of cheesy but it’s keeping me moving for 40-60 minutes (which HAS to be good for me).  So I guess where there’s a will there’s a way.

I do think it would benefit me to get myself to the gym once or twice a week, though.  I tend to step my intensity up when I go to the gym and it’s good just to get sometimes.  Also, I’m not really doing much resistance training.  If I don’t make it to the gym, I’ll need to work in pushups, planks, squats, etc.  Some sort of weight training.  I’m tired though.  🙁  Maybe I will do an extra 20 minutes of pushups, planks, squats, etc. if I only do a 40 minute cardio workout.  The nice part is that I can do something canned with the Wii.  It doesn’t have to be exciting; I just need to do it.  Cardio for me has to be exciting.

So my goal with exercising is doing something 4 times a week.  That something has to be more than 30 minutes at once.  Most days I need to break a sweat for it to count, the exception being yoga.  I need to do yoga to loosen up my tense muscles.

The sucky part about this whole thing is that I haven’t dropped an ounce of weight (yet).  I’m disappointed about that.  I don’t know if it’s my age or my post-baby body but in the past I would have seen some return for this level of effort.  Maybe I just need to be more patient.  I think I can!  I think I can!  I think I can!