On the road to a healthier me

With both of my pregnancies I only gained 19 pounds.

 

After both children were born, I lost those 19 pounds before my six week follow-up.

 

Before both of those pregnancies I was nowhere near my ideal weight.

 

Both times, once I returned to work, I put the weight back on.  This time around, I've put on more weight than I did my whole pregnancy.

 

It's not that I'm eating more.  It's just that I'm not moving much.  I'm just so wiped out after getting up at 6am, getting the kids ready for their day, getting ready for mine, getting the kids to daycare, working all day, picking the kids up from daycare, making dinner, putting the kids to bed, cleaning, laundry, blah, blah, blah....I have little energy to do anything else. 

 

I have come to realize that my sedentary lifestyle has probably contributed to the increase in my blood pressure (well, I knew it before, but now I want to do something about it).  So about a month ago, I started going to the gym.  At first it was with a friend of Hubby's, but now she's my friend too - let's call her Cracker. 

 

Cracker has a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness that let's her bring a guest every time she goes for free.  This was good for me since I wanted to get in better shape but didn't think I had the money to spend on a gym membership.  This was good for her because she wanted someone to workout with.

At first I was a little skeptical.  Cracker is in far better shape than I am and weighs a heck of a lot less.  But, as it turns out, we work well together.  In fact, we have even signed ourselves up for weekly torture, erm, sessions with a trainer.  We've had two sessions so far.

 

After reading through Miss Zoot's archives and seeing her achieve her goal of running a marathon, I've been inspired to set a goal for myself.  Since I'm so out of shape, and haven't run since races at summer camp, I decided to aim a wee bit lower. 

I want to be able to run a 5k by my next birthday - April 10th 2010.  If I'm able to do it sooner than that, great!  But I also don't want to set myself up for disappointment.  I am going to follow the Couch to 5k program starting today.  I have joined a gym on my own so I don't have to depend on Cracker whenever I want to work out. 

 

Also by my next birthday, I want to be 100 pounds lighter.  I'll settle for 75 pounds, but I think 100 is possible and I don't want to aim for a weight that I wouldn't be happy with since I fear I might stop once I reach whatever goal I set for myself.

 

We have 14 sessions left with the trainer.

 

Wish me luck!