My Fit Transformation...It's Happening
Ya, I totally jumped on the young girl bandwagon and got Kayla Itsines app for my phone. I had started noticing the #BBG a few months back and started seeing the before and after pics. All this #transformationtuesday bit hadn't really hit home with me until I realized I'd made quite a transformation in the past several months, both mentally and physically - I'm getting stronger in both areas.
My sweet #4 baby, Emma, finally started sleeping consistently through the night around 18 months. Of course, like all the babies before her... I hadn't made the transition quite so easily. That constant "mommy alert" brain that takes over in your subconscious was primed and still ready. SLEEP. That's all I wanted. Well, I finally started to get it and feel like a new human again. Which led me to pushing myself to hit the early morning workouts like I had years before when I was in the business world.
I picked up running after baby #2, Ollie. I was working full-time for a .com in Richmond, VA, and couldn't fit the workouts in consistently during the day. I was a dancer growing up and did lots of yoga. Of which both I still love, but making classes wasn't happening with a husband, kids, and job (not to mention my mom was sick and dying). One day my neighbor and now best friend encouraged me to try running with her. She was an avid early morning runner, even being a stay at home mom because it freed up her "kids at school time" to get life done.
I was scared. I stalled a bit, but was going through some challenges trying to find the right birth control method that didn't make me gain weight or feel like a crazy lady. I hadn't worked off the baby weight from #2, so I gave running a shot. I told myself that the middle school track meet where I was forced to run the mile race because no one else would do it didn't mean I couldn't run. Ya, this was the slightly traumatic and humiliating track meet where I peed my pants slowly running and crying like multiple laps behind the other actual runners, but my coach made me finish. AWFUL. It definitely hampered me trying running again anytime soon... But it didn't really mean I couldn't run... right? Maybe it was time to see.
I couldn't even run a mile when we started. I swear the only thing that kept me going was the amazing social hour before the rest of the world was awake combined with my friend's patience. I slowly began to build muscle and mental confidence to become a runner. And the baby weight fell off. And I got into "being a runner." God bless you, Jen. For all the conversations and support and our amazing friendship that grew from all those dark morning runs. Can't fathom where I'd be without you today --- for so many reasons.
Fast forward to baby #4. I've now birthed for a full decade. Baby #1, Lola, was born in 2004 when I was 26. And baby #4 was born in 2014, when I was 36. Exactly 4 days shy of the same birthday. Crazy!! As my dear husbands newly deceased grandmother once said after Lola was born, "Our family REALLY likes Valentine's Day!" (Her birthday was 11/12, my husband's mom's bday is also 11/12 and his sister's bday, 11/14...) Ha! Seems we sure do!
Anyway - so I'm now 38, almost 39, and I had started running again the spring of 2015. Making myself get out there with my double jogger BEAST. I was overwhelmed after Charlotte's birth and really put mothering and helping her and my older kids adjust to the new family dynamic, so it had been years since I'd run. OUCH! Running is hard. Mentally and physically. BUT running sheds the pounds like nothing else I've seen, especially when you are pushing a jogger with two babies down by Bell Island while waiting for Ollie at Passages Camp and up and down our neighborhood hills here in RVA after the big kids got on the bus.
SO, now I'm back in my Pre-baby jeans, but feeling 38. My booty is a little saggy, my boobs are basically non-extant after a decade of nursing and weight fluctuations, my tummy looks flatish when I stand straight, but when I bend over there seems to be nonmagical folds of wrinkly skin that I just didn't have the after the first two babies - but with third and fourth baby, my tummy just didn't pop back like it did when I was 28.
Enter my first TRX class at the Tuckahoe YMCA. I was the clueless woman who didn't know you needed a reservation, but the instructor gave up her strap for me without making me feel bad. And BOOM - I began a new passion. Getting strong. I started in October of 2016 and have been going 2 mornings a week since then. I started adding in some cycle classes and boot camps and really anything I could get my hands on or body to. I am building muscle to do pushups and burpees and all that stuff I'd seen my husband do in the backyard for years.
I LOVE IT. So what's next? More of the awesome. I don't want to give up the awesome early morning community I've found at the Y (and friends I've talked into joining me in the wee hours), but Kayla's Bikini Body Guide is interested. Not because I'm dying to look like a super model in a bikini, but because I want to feel like a badass woman every damn day. That morning kick of adrenaline is my drug of choice. And her app is awesome. I did the free trial and almost didn't keep it, but decided to try it for the full 12 weeks. I wrote a little ditty on my app thoughts to date. You can check it out, if your curious what the #BBG bit is about.
Lotsa love,
Leah
