Excersize

Well its only 10:30am and my day has already begun hours ago. The baby woke at 5am today, screaming beucase hes teething. I gave him tylenol, a bottle, and rocked him back to sleep. I dont know whats been going on with my husband lately, but he has no interest in helping me with the baby anymore. He likes to play with him, but thats about it. And only if I'm home and he can give him back when hes done. But thats a whole different blog!! So the baby and I got up and went to church while my husband slept. I am trying to attend on a regular basis and we just registered to become members because its very important to me (and my hugely religious catholic family) that he be baptised. Again, my husband seems to really have no interest. When we got home from church I took the baby for our morning walk. See, my whole life I've never had a problem with weight. I have amazing genes and have been blessed with a tall slender body naturally. But as I've gotten a lil older, things have changed, and I have to work a lil harder at it now. Its been hard for me to get in an excersize routine because I've never really done it before, but I have found its an addicting stress reliever for me and I love it. Like my info says, I was married a year and 5 months ago and had a baby 6 months ago. Pre wedding I was very nervous and had tons of stuff going on and I lost a lot of weight...standing exactly 5'6" I weighed in around 115 lbs. After the wedding I put some of that weight back on as most ppl do after getting married. Then 2 months later I got pregnant. I weighed myself the day I found out I was preggo and I was at 125 lbs. I gained very little weight for about the first 7 months of pregnancy, so much so that the Dr.s were getting a lil worried. At 7 mo. I had only gained 11 lbs. But I had a very easy and healthy pregnancy and was determined not to be huge! I worked the entire time on my feet all day, ate healthy, took vitamins, and never had morning sickness or anything like that. At 8 months I finally started gaining a lil more weight and by 9 months I was up to an 18 lb weight gain. They say the majority of the weight comes in the last few weeks of the pregnancy when the baby gets all its fat and plumps up to come out. That, along with my 3 weeks off of work pre baby to rest and get the house ready, I ended up with a total weight gain of 30 lbs!!!!! I was devistated, but I just accepted the fact that I had to give up my body in order to have my amazing lil boy. I breast feed for the first 2 months which burns tons of calories, that along with being a first time mom and hardly ever finding time to eat, within about 2 weeks post pardum, I was back to my pre pregnancy weight. BUT my body had changed. While my weight was back to normal, my body didnt look like it used to. So, I've adapted a excersize program. I used to do push ups, crunches, and lunges before bed every night just to keep myself sorta toned, but that was not cutting it now. I have come to realize that I LOVE cardio. Every morning, after the baby has his first bottle, I take him for a walk around the lake in our apt. complex. The view is beautiful, there is a calming waterfall that drowns out all other sounds, and the baby loves to be in his stroller. We walk until I get tired. My dad is a marathon runner so I had him estimate how far he thinks we walk and he says its appx. 3-3.5 miles. Just by doing that I have toned my legs and butt again and dropped a few lbs in my waist. Then I remembered about a year ago I ordered pilates videos off of an infomercial, the only time I have ever ordered from the television, but I swore to the hubby that I "needed" those DVDs. Of course when we moved to our new apt. they ended up in a box somewhere and I've never given them a second thought until recently. So I dug them out and now I do my pilates when the baby takes his afternoon naps and that has helped sooooo much to tone my body back, esp. my arms and stomach. I'm back to 120 and on my way to reaching my goal of being back at my best weight of 115. I have also started eathing healthy. My husband, who has no motivation to work out but really should, has a tendency to eat at strange hours and loves to eat lots of junk. Living with someone, you tend to adapt their habits and I was doing the same thing. So I've stopped and am really struggling to fight the temptations of junk food as its really my weekness. I have my coffee (its a must if I want to function) and peanut butter toast or a bagle with cream cheese for breakfast. For lunch I either make a salad or have cottage cheese and fruit....which I actually do enjoy. Then I started cooking all the time for dinner. Its a lot more healthier than eating out and seems to be cheaper too. Growing up my mother cooked every night, and I want to do that for my own family not only for quality family time at the dinner table, but so that they get at least one balanced meal a day. My mom has me in the habit of always having a meat, a veggie, and a starch for dinner, and I make sure to keep my portions just enough to fill me up. After dinner which is usually around 6pm I dont eat anything else for the rest of the night. Then the baby and I go for another walk around the lake to wind us both down for the night. After I put him to bed, I work out again for about 30 min. So far its working amazingly. I'm dropping weight quickly, but also toning back to my old self. I actually enjoy looking in the mirror now and being able to see all my hard work pay off. I still have 5 more lbs to go, but I'm a much happier person now that I feel like myself again!