Category Archives: workout

Self

I listened to The Thick Thighs Save Lives Podcast today. It’s a fitness podcast, generally aimed at women, and today’s episode was called “Lift Like a Girl.” While the whole thing was great, the part that really stuck with me was when they pointed out this:

Why do we, as adults, go watch all our kids games and activities but when it comes time for us to go for our workouts, our practices, our games, our races, we leave them with the babysitter? Or we forgo activities altogether because we don’t have “time” in between their activities.  We are their roles models. I want my girls to see me work hard at something I love. I want them to see me succeed and I also want them to see me fail and try again. I want them to see that because that’s what I hope they grow to aspire to do themselves.

Photo by: Foster Chaffee Photography taken at the 2018 Natural Family Expo.

Admittedly, I already drag the girls along to many of my events but I’ve always felt a bit guilty for doing it. Not any more. They might not always love it, but that’s okay. Moms having been forcing kids to do things they didn’t want to do because it was good for them since the first two year old said “I don’t wanna!” It’s basically a requirement.

Not only that, I want them to see me as more than just a mom. I am a mom but also I’m a “real” person, who does things she likes to do. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle of family life. So easy to put the kids’ needs ahead of your own and suddenly, if you aren’t careful, the mom who facilitates everyone’s plans only has time for a quick bath and calls it “self care.” I want more than that for me and my girls. I want them to see me as a mom who still has a sense of self. And if they go down this road of motherhood, I want that for them too.

So Busy

I’m so busy, people.

Today I did the mom thing and the hobby farm thing and the author thing and the athlete thing and the swim coach thing and the president of a capoeira group thing and the lets spend an inordinate amount of time taking slow motion videos of my own feet while I jump thing followed by the Instagram thing.

I’m so busy, people.

It was super time consuming to even find a spot with enough light. Did you know slow-mo videos need more light than regular videos? Took me ages to find the right spot. And then I had to take like 20 videos to get all the jumping figured out. I mean I had to check out all the videos in between shots. But it was super interesting because now I know that my right foot lands differently than my left. Every. Time. I had no idea. I also discovered that my toes help push me around in a circle. I thought that one was a fluke so I re-did it another couple times and yup, happens every time.

I’m so busy.

I gotta do the blogging thing now, I don’t even have time to do the folding laundry thing or the dishes thing or the picking up the rotten pumpkin thing.

I’m just so busy.

Moral of the story. We are all “busy” in our own way. #dontjudge #priorities

Other moral of the story: GMB fitness is fun! They are doing 12 days of play with fun challenges and giveaways and if you join the fun via this link: https://wn.nr/rSPDdn  I’ll get extra entries because they’ll know my friends are awesome too! 

Run! But Only If You Have to.

Running makes me feel fat.

Now hold all your collective horses, I’m know I’m not fat. I’m not worried about it. In fact right now I’m eating an Oreo as I type because I’m active and muscular and except for the cookies (and cake and Diet Coke) I’m a fairly healthy eater but I still really hate running because it make me feel fat.

It’s the jiggle.

Because it doesn’t matter what sort of substance your body is made of, if it’s not a bone, it jiggles. And you know, probably the bones jiggle too – because running sucks like that. And jiggling body parts don’t feel good. They don’t feel good when they jiggle and they don’t feel good when they are done jiggling. They feel flabby and terrible.

Any other active workout leaves me feeling awesome. I like being awesome, so I do it again. Most days I workout, feel awesome and eat cookies. It’s a strategy that’s working for me on all sorts of levels.

It's ridiculously difficult and silly to attempt to take a picture of yourself doing a Les Mills Combat workout. And just the sort of thing I like to do around ten o'clock!

Non-running workouts can make you feel awesome like a rock star and then you take selfies!

But then sometimes I have to run (like when I have five dogs in my house and they need to be more tired) and I don’t feel awesome. I feel jiggly and decidedly un-awesome. Who ever thought to themselves, “Gee, I feel terrible both physically and emotionally now. I think I’ll go do it again tomorrow?” and ever had success with such a plan?

Nobody.

Because that’s a terrible plan, just like running.

Moral: Working out will make you feel awesome. But probably not running because, unless you are made of nothing but connective tissue and bone, running makes you jiggle and nobody likes jiggling. Don’t run if you hate it, find a workout that makes you feel awesome! Then eat cookies and blog about it.