10 May

Fitness early or late, what’s your preference?

I don’t know about you, but I have never been an early morning person. The thought of getting up early to workout horrifies me. Working out after my littlest people are in bed is more my style. My concern with being back to work is, “will I be too tired to tack my work out onto the end of my day?”

After carefully weighing the pros and cons, I have decided to attempt waking up early to get my workout done! Monday morning my first day back at the office, I will be waking up at 5 am! This will allow me the time to squeeze in my 45 minute workout before the baby is up. Hoping she sleeps until 6 am, which will allow for a shower before she demands my attention. The energy I get from my workout, will power me through my first day. I will be full of positive, powerful energy….this is my hope-fingers crossed.

Since I started working out in January, I gradually realized that in order to get the results I wanted without getting sick was -NO MORE LATE NIGHTS! For those of you who know me, this is crazy talk. I am the queen of surviving on the smallest amounts of sleep. Since I was a small child, I have been a ‘Night owl’. Well I put an end to it, once I realized that was another huge contributor to my winter pit of doom. Andrew has been telling me for a very long time you need 7 hours of sleep a night. I never listened, I thought I was getting my ‘ME’ time- also known as kid free time until all hours of the night…well past midnight. It was my fitness coach that I finally listened to. Yes, that’s right I belong to a fitness accountability group. I don’t need the group to make me exercise, but I find the group helpful to keep me accountable for nutrition and sleep. Every day we have to check in with the group, we measure 4 items out of 5.

  • Exercise- You get 5 for doing it-No excuses
  • Nutrition-Following your program nutrition plan or eating healthy all of the time (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and 2 snacks all portion controlled and based on your body weight).
  • Water- Drink your body weight in water divided by 2. So if you weigh 125 lbs, you need to drink 62.5 ounces each day. Start your morning with 2 glasses before you reach for your coffee
  • Sleep-7 hours anything less, is not acceptable.

The sleep was the only adjustment I struggled with. I  got rid of my non-sleep habit fairly quickly as Rose was still getting up 2, sometimes 3 times through the night and then up by 6 am every morning. No wonder I felt like I was in a pit of doom! This is when I thought about what I was actually doing in the evenings that was so productive that I had to stay up so late to get it done. I realised I was watching mindless television.  Now I am growing my business, working on this website and  doing work for the clients I have. Sometimes I am up until 10:30 or 11 pm, but as Rose gets up at 6 am, I still get 7 hours of sleep even if I go to bed for 11 pm. I am getting shit done and that feels Great!

With my decision to get up early to work out, I will be going to bed and be asleep by 10 pm or I will be a disaster! I will update everyone after the first week. I will also give more details on the workout programs I am currently using. My results and how great it feels to be fit at 43! For me it isn’t about losing weight, it is about staying fit, keeping my mind in check and most importantly for my children. Okay- also because I don’t want to enter into menopause with my baby paunch. I am not sure if a six pack is possible at this point in my life, but I am going to push myself to get there.

08 May

The 2nd week is proving even harder…..

After last week was over, I thought my little Rose would be great her second week in daycare. Boy, was I wrong! Monday was a day of clinging to me as I tried to hand her over to her caregiver….all the while scream crying. I dislike Mondays to begin with , this just made it even worse! This event was followed up with some texts from the caregiver enquiring after Rose’s health over the weekend, bowel movements-anything that could explain her mood for the morning. Her temperature was even checked….I offered to pick her up as I was still broken from the drop off. Nope-she was going to see how she made out at lunch and being put down for a nap. To my relief the next text was a beautiful photo of my sweet angel fast asleep in her crib. Apparently, she no sooner was placed in the crib and she was out cold! Sheer exhaustion, my girl was starting her Monday absolutely spent. The fresh air over the weekend, the family time and the sadness she was feeling over not being with us. I can’t even imagine what has been going through her little brain. This girl is high spirited and has the patience of a non-saint! No doubt even when she gets over the initial shock of being in an unknown place five days a week 9-10 hours a day, she will still give the poor caregiver a hard time. Tonight she was so proud that she could hoist herself up on the couch unassisted, that she didn’t actually fall asleep until 9:30pm! No doubt her little brain couldn’t shut down….between trying to figure out how to climb anything she possibly can, she is desperately trying to say words in sentences. We understand most of the single words, she is also trying to get her ABC’s out! I love that my final child, my girl will be a match even for me! Love her to bits………..

02 May

That first week is hard……

Dropping your child at daycare is hard! I know how good it is for them…as I have done this before. It doesn’t make that first week easy, nonetheless.

Rose is fine! You can see from her photo’s above. Her wonderful caregiver has sent me photo’s of her everyday. I haven’t yet decided if it makes me feel more guilty about leaving her.  If  I didn’t see photos of her cherubic face enjoying herself without me around, would I feel less guilt? It really is hard to say. The struggle is real. I forgot how hard it is. Maybe its the fact that I know how fast time will go now that I am not with her every day. I also know, that moving forward into the weeks to come, that I will enjoy every moment I have with her. It will mean more than it did previously,  because I will understand what it feels like to miss her. The cycle of parenting begins again. I will get through it, and I will come out the other side a greater Mum than I am now, and I am pretty darn fantastic! 

19 Apr

A website about me- how come?!

I am days away from being done my website. I am happy with myself. I have wanted to do this since my now 6 year old was a baby and I was home with him for that first year. Being home once again on Maternity leave, which is soon to come to an end in 2 short weeks…I decided to get my shit together finally, and get it done! I have nothing to lose and can feel good that I accomplished something that I set out to do within about 3 weeks of thinking to do it. That is a record! Plus-I have done it solo, yes it isn’t professional grade, but alot of thought and time has been put forward. Thanks -Wordpress!

I started working out 6 days a week at the end of January and have been motivated in everything since. Yes, I wanted to get back to my pre, pre-pregnancy body, but that wasn’t the entire reason. For me it wasn’t about shedding pounds…… I felt like I was being sucked into a black hole of doom. I know very dramatic, but it is how I felt at the time. I have this wonderful man in my life who loves me and shows me his love on a daily basis, great children, a beautiful baby girl and I felt like – What is the fucking point! So I dug in and have been working my ass off ever since. If I miss a day, I want to kill someone! I guess it’s a good thing it is a daily routine. I am not surprised that exercising has changed my mindset. Luckily, I was able to do something to get out of the black hole of doom. Now, I have these endorphins pouring out of my body on a daily basis…sometimes I feel like I am high on something really good and realise, nah that is just my body naturally feeling Greaaat! See, this is why I do it everyday…okay, one day is a rest day and I am usually grumpy by the end of that day. I try to plan other activities that are not as hardcore, but I am still moving. I make sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I used to be one of those people that stayed up late even when I knew I had to get up early the next day. I thought, hey this is time for me. Ya, it was time for me to binge on whatever Netflix show I had moved on to. For example; Andrew would often say, “You know that I calculated how long it took you to watch all the seasons of Bones and you watched all 12 seasons in less than 2 months”. I know – Wow! It took me a while to get there, but I finally recognised that I had some very bad habits. I stayed up to late binge watching as much TV as one person could actually watch. We all have them, but I was done with it. Now, I limit my Netflix watching to maybe a movie on the weekend, and the odd episode of something here or there. Instead I find ways to be productive with my free time….which lead me to my very own website. A place to write about what I want to write about, post some of my creative creations and a place to publicise my bookkeeping company. With five children, I needed something just for me. I hope that you will enjoy my blogs and maybe get a little inspiration of your own.