Blog fail.

Sigh. 

I knew I didn't have the time for a blog.

So let me recap the last 11 months and justify the blog silence...

Shortly after my last blog I got one of these

Silence justified?

No?

How about if I tell you I was caring for 10 kids for 12 hours a day and my own for the other 12 too?

Anyway.

Pregnancy  recap...insert montage music.

I did keep up with my exercise routine until around 25weeks pregnant but I really listened to my body and adjusted my lifts and the amount of weight I was doing.  I ended my pregnant workout time with a bang by doing the warrior dash

Then I just enjoyed being lazy for the next 14 weeks until I did one of the most physically demanding things I've ever done.  Birth. 

Can't resist including a baby pic!!!

awwww!!!

Now here I am 2 months postpartum and still not back in the gym.  I was hoping to be back at it by now but we've had one cold after the next and not a lot of sleep happening(excuses, excuses!) so the gym has had to wait.  My plan is to start out slow, focusing on core strength and adding the rest in as I feel up to it.  I don't want to wear my body out too much since I'm nursing and still doing all my other normal life things.

Now that we're past the holidays we're back on the healthy eatting.  I threw out the last of the christmas treats and we finished off the break & bake cookies and the ice cream so there is nothing left to tempt me.  I still have a little weight to lose but I'm not sure how much since our scale broke.  I'm going to ignore all conventional dieting and just see what happens as I become more active and eat healthy.

Well this was a boring blog, I'm not funny without sleep.  I'll try harder next time!

bacon

this is my post about eatting healthy...can't you tell?

I think that in general if you mention eatting healthy most people think of weight loss, dieting, denying yourself the foods you want and other forms of torture. 
I counted calories when I was trying to lose weight after having Layla, my second baby.  It was awful!  I measured everyting I ate, I could tell you that 1 grape has 4 calories and would count out 25 everytime I was going to eat them.  I didn't pay attention to my body, to my hunger...I felt like I was starving myself and I was losing half a pound a week.  I wasn't nourishing my body, I wasn't giving it the fuel it needed to get through the day much less exercise, oh I still exercised but I was so drained.  I think my body started to go into starvation mode because I was eatting 1200 calories, going for a 4 mile walk everyday and getting an hour of exercise and seeing very little results.  After a couple weeks I was so hungry for junk that I started "saving calories"  My thinking went like this, chicken breast has 150 calories and that piece of cake has 150 calories then I'll skip the chicken, thank you very much!  By the end of my calorie counting I was eatting mostly empty calories, I even tried to make myself throw up once after I ate 3 cookies.  I was unhealthy and had spent a summer losing 10lbs in one of the worst ways possible.  I was at my goal weight but at what cost?  I was weak, I was what I now know as a thinfat. 

I vowed to never do that again! 

So a couple years later when I had baby #3 what was I supposed to do?  I went back to the healthy eatting that we did during my pregnancies.  I focused on eatting as much healthy food as I could and letting myself have a treat if I really wanted it.  I stocked our house with fresh produce, lean protein sources and whole grains.  I thought about the foods I really love(thai food!) and I used them to inspire some of my dinner creations.  Stir frys and asian soups both loaded with veggies became my favorite.  And salmon! oh how I love the fatty flavor of a good piece of salmon.  I was eatting right!  Feeling good!  I had the energy required to take care of a house full of kids and I was losing the baby weight.
I discovered that I feel amazing when I get a combination of cardio, stretcing and weight lifting.  I switched my exercise routine from mostly cardio with a little yoga and weights to a ton of weights 15minutes of stretching everyday and around 90 minutes of cardio a week.  I had to start eatting more to keep my weight from going too low.  I found myself eating 2 dinners, one full of good carbs before my workout and one full of protein after.  I am loving the way I feel and the way I look.  I want to tell everyone I know to put down the "diet food" to stop dieting all together.  Eat food that your body can use, give it fuel.  Don't waste your time putting in hour after hour on the treadmill or the elliptical and ignore the benefits that strength training and stretching offer you.  I have never been in better shape, I have never felt better.  I don't deny myself the foods that I want but I know how gross I feel after a binge at the thai restaurant.  This weekend we had thai food, ordered pizza and had pancakes and bacon  for breakfast, I feel bloated and nasty but I enjoyed every bite and know that one day of eatting right and I'll be back to normal.

muscles are awesome!

this is something I discovered recently, seriously it took me 27 years of life to find out that women have physical strength. 

I started lifting weights a little with my husband and I took the body pump class at the Y and discovered that I love it!  I don't do body pump anymore, it is more of a cardio with weights program or an endurance increasing class than actual strength training but I will always appreciate it for showing me weights and it's where I learned some of the lifts and about form. 

I was scared, not real fear more like...timid when I started. 

I was afraid of  losing my femininity by bulking up, making a fool of myself in the weight room or injuring myself. 

So to negate my first fear I went on the hunt for other women that lift.  I had a hard time figuring out what a woman that lifts weights looks like.  Googling is never a good idea, it led me to pictures of roided up, fake tanned freaks and olimpic lifters.  I wanted to know what a normal woman that weight lifted looks like.  What do they look like when they're not in the middle of their max deadlift,  when they haven't been dehydrating themselves and coating themselves in fake tan?  What do they look like when they're not flexing? I stumbled on a couple blogs( this is my favorite) and articles that made me feel like weight lifting is what you make it and that no one turns into a muscle freak overnight so if I start to see results I don't like I could just back off.

My second fear, doing something stupid where people can see me...I do this all the time in my normal life but have yet to make a fool of myself at the gym.  I discovered that most of the guys in the weight room mind thier own business and are nice and helpful when they have talked to me.  My first few times I was going to lift I came up with a routine at home, youtubed any lifts I wasn't sure how to do and tried to estimate how much I "should" be able to lift based on soome bodyweight charts I found.  I have never had my pants rip mid squat or had to have someone pull the bar off my chest, no one notices if I wimp out and only do a couple reps instead of a full set.

My third fear and probably the only one worth having is injury.  I now know how to do lifts correctly and I listen to my body.  I have respect for the possability of injury but I don't fear it anymore.  I love the feeling of a good muscle soreness for 2 days after a workout and I know that that doesn't mean I've done anthing wrong.

really Kristin? A blog!?!

People really want to read about my life and thoughts, I'm sure!  I have thought about doing a blog before but decided not to because of 2 very important factors.

1) time
2) arrogance

I don't have the time to blog!  It is just one more thing I will start and not finish, like my tote of unfinished crochett/knitting projects or my stairs that have the bamboo flooring cut and ready but not glued...for 2 months now!

I thought I was not quite arrogant enough to blog, close but not quite.  I have apparently crossed the arrogance threshold because here I am!