Healthy and Strong

Chris and I used to spend a lot of time together working out and being outdoors. We were also younger and could eat what we wanted because our super high metabolisms took care of the extra food. Once we had children, our time to workout was greatly diminished and the whole getting older thing was a reality check for us on ‘eating whatever we wanted’.

There was always an excuse for me: I just had a baby, my milk supply would drop, I was sleep deprived, I had a new stressful job, my abs had some medical issues that prevented working out, I broke my toe, I had tendonitis in my ankle and so on. Chris and I are often motivators for each other, and since I wasn’t interested in working out, he wasn’t either.

Chris went from a size 34 to a size 36 (tight) and from 190 lbs to 237 lbs. I went from a size 8 pants, medium shirts and 160 lbs to a size 14 pants, L/XL shirts and 196 lbs. Neither of us liked how we looked or felt, but neither of us felt committed to eating healthier or to making time for a real workout schedule.

Last May Chris and I both started working out again by doing the Couch to 5K program. I think we were somewhat motivated by seeing my dad’s health in such a declining state. We both completed the program, but neither of us saw much change in our weight or bodies, except for maybe a 10 lb drop. Then I started a new job in August and then we went on vacation in September and everything fell apart again. We gained the weight back. I had hernia repair surgery in October and was on restriction from exercise. In November after starting to heal from surgery I decided I needed to make a serious change. I just didn’t feel like myself.

Just as I committed to a workout schedule in early December, my abs started hurting right near where I just had hernia repair surgery. Back to the doctor I went and I was informed that I had a recurrent hernia. I had to wait to have the second surgery because of the holidays and to allow more healing time from the first surgery. That meant a longer exercise restriction time.

So I got serious with My Fitness Pal (MFP), a smart phone app to help you track food and exercise calories. I figured if I couldn’t exercise, then I could at least learn to eat healthier. Back in September we had cut out red 40 from our diets because we noticed that it negatively affected Charlotte’s behavior. By cutting that out we had already cut out a lot of processed foods, which was a jump start.

We switched from regular pasta to quinoa, from ground beef to ground turkey, to all organic fruits and veggies, and started making dinner with a lean protein and two veggies, instead of one veggie and one starch. We also reduced how much we ate out.

By tracking my food using MFP I was able to see that I was eating close to 3000 calories (and some days way more than that) which considering I was maybe burning 1900 calories a day, it was no wonder I had gained so much weight! I kept tracking my food and exercise (daily walking to/from the train) and from December to middle of February my weight dropped from 196 lbs to 183 lbs.

After healing from surgery, I got back into working out. I started with very light cardio 2 days a week for 20 minutes. Then I increased it to 3 days a week for a full 45 minutes of cardio. After another week, I started 30 Day Shred for 2 days and did cardio 3 days, plus an hour of Pilates 1 day a week for 6 days a week of working out. This was only 5 weeks after surgery, at the beginning of March.

After 2 weeks of 30DS, I got bored and switched it out with other workouts. I started weight training/cardio 3 days a week, and at home workout videos like Butt Bible and P90X cardio videos 2 days week, while still going to Pilates for an hour once a week. I have lost another 5 lbs, but more importantly I am back in a size 10, I feel stronger, and more like myself.

Chris has been lifting and doing cardio 5 days a week. He is working on converting fat to muscle, so his results have been more in how he looks rather than in weight, inches or clothing size. He is at 224 and his size 36 are starting to get a little big.  He too is feeling healthier and more like himself.

The kids have come downstairs to workout with me sometimes (I go to the local recreation center and use our home gym for my workouts), and they do all the movements with me, or at least try to. Charlotte asked me the first time ‘why we are doing this, mommy’ and instead of saying ‘to look pretty’, I said ‘to be healthy and strong’. Now when we take them to the gym daycare, or if they are running around outside, they mimic right back to us ‘I have to get healthy and strong.’

I might be brave enough to post before/after pictures as I get closer to my goal. Mostly I’m just happy to fit back into some of my favorite (smaller) clothes and overall feel healthier.  I’m ladyace2078 and Chris is ace2078 on MFP if you want to add us as a friend.