New to this - overwhelmed!

mommyofone099

Hi Everyone, I want to start off by introducing myself.

My name is Tanya, 20 years old, and mother to my beautiful almost 15 month old daughter, Adelyn. I am engaged to her father, his name is Justin and he is currently going to college & work part time and also in the army. I work part time at a retail store.

Over the past year I have had some major issues with my weight. After I gave birth, I went down to my pre baby weight, which was 150lbs. While I was on maternity leave for a year, I gained all that weight back and then some. I'm 5 pounds more now than I was when I was 9 months pregnant.

My sister in law and I decided last February we would start taking Zumba classes, we went consistently for about a month, and I lost 3 pounds.. which discouraged me, so we pretty much stopped going. About 2 months ago my fiance and I joined a fitness bootcamp, and it was going good, but then life got in the way there was always something we had to do on the night of classes, so again eventually we just stopped going. My fiance had lost about 10 pounds..me I lost about 4, which again discouraged me. Now he's off the bandwagon, and I sure am too.

I want to find a way to motivate myself. So question for you all: What motivates you to get up and out of your pjs to work out? What do you do to work out? I had some good cardio workouts I could do at home, but I could never find myself motivated enough to do them. What helps you?

I hope we can support eachother!

fancycupcake

Sounds like you are relying a lot on working out when it comes to losing weight, but I don't see anything in there about your eating habits... Diet is a huge part of weight loss, so be sure to watch what you're eating and weight loss will be much, much easier!

As for exercise, I am not big on going to the gym AT ALL! But I love being out in nature and spending quality time with my friends...so I look for trails around my area and walk or hike them, I play tennis and frisbee and swimming. If you're not crazy about the gym try to find more fun ways to exercise - and have a friend with you!

Make a tradition of certain things...Tennis Tuesdays, Weigh-in Wednesdays, (Healthy!) Taco Thursdays - to keep yourself on track week by week! Small accomplishments means constant happiness when it comes to your progress!

athminbri

I have two things that I do. First, and most important, the gym I belong to has swim lessons for kids. I signed my daughter up for them. Even on days that I do not want to work out, I have to go anyway to take her. So, I figure I may as well work out while I am there. It gets me in the gym at least 4 days a week.

Secondly, I HATE cardio. So, to make that go by quicker I listen to audiobooks on my mp3. I love to read but rarely get the chance to read anything other than textbooks. Right now I am listening to Dean Koontz "Demon Seed." I actually want to go to the gym tomorrow and do cardio just to see what is going to happen next.

BTW, feel free to add me if you want some support.

Oh, and I also had henna done on my arm that says "Just do it. Even if you suck." My procrastination usually comes from perfectionism. This has helped remind me to not worry about being perfect. Anything is better than nothing.

Connie


Edited for typos.
And again for more typos. Ok, if there are any more I am sorry. I am tired. Deal with it! LOL

leslisa

I do stuff I like. Sounds like Zumba and bootcamp were not it. I really like to walk, bike, jump rope, hoola hoop, dance (not organized), and now I'm running.

How do I start, I think just 10 minutes, I can do *anything* for 10 minutes. Then I think "Wow! I'm at 10, I can do another 10." and so on.

Do you have a place you can bike? Put the little one in a bike seat or one of those trailer things and just take in the air?

Also, watch what you eat. Start making substitutions. Each Special K chips instead of potato chips. Put them in a bowl for portion control. Add fruit to everything. Drink lots of water. Keep some sugar-free jello and Redi-whip in the house for a quick desert. Buy 90 or 100 cal granola bars instead of candy bars. Learn to snack on cheerios and puffed wheat.

You can do this. You deserve this, deserve to be healthy and happy and show your daughter how to be healthy.

Cheers!

Jaulen

I hear you.

I had a son (4 yrs ago now...) but after I had him, I only dropped 12 pounds from right before having him, to after I gave birth. About 6 months after having him, I started weight watchers, and joined a gym and got a trainer, in 4 months all I did was gain weight. Depressing! So i just stayed depressed and didn't do anything....then I went back on birth control a year later and dropped 20 pounds in a month! about 5 months after that, once my body got used to the hormones again all that weight came back on.....super super depressing, add in job stress and well, disaster.

1) Take small steps, don't go whole hog on an exercise program, you'll burn out. Do something like "I'm going to go walking for half an hour sometime today" (I try to do it on my lunch break.) Once you get used to making activity a normal part of your routine, start amping it up.


2) Log log log what you eat. I've found logging what I eat a) keeps me conscious of portion sizes b) keeps me 95% of the time from eating something I don't want to write down for someone to see

3) Never compare your weight loss to that of a guy. Sad fact is they will lose weight faster, doing practically nothing, than a woman will. Comparing yourself to your fiance will just set you up for instant sabotage. (Heck, I'd been logging and watching what I eat, and walking and going to Curves and my hubby? Nothing other than a 2 mile run 5 days a week for two weeks....no cutting down on how much he ate/drank and he lost 5 pounds to my 1)

4) Quiet the voice in your head that tells you "Oh! I ate a candy bar today/Missed my workout! There it is, all my effort has gone to waste! Bring on them oreos!" (not you, that's my voice). Everyone makes mistakes, just think "Oh well, I did great for the last 7 days, this one slip up won't fully derail me, better choices for the rest of the day, and I can get back on track tomorrow."

Good luck!

celesteflenory

Hi Everyone, I want to start off by introducing myself.

My name is Tanya, 20 years old, and mother to my beautiful almost 15 month old daughter, Adelyn. I am engaged to her father, his name is Justin and he is currently going to college & work part time and also in the army. I work part time at a retail store.

Over the past year I have had some major issues with my weight. After I gave birth, I went down to my pre baby weight, which was 150lbs. While I was on maternity leave for a year, I gained all that weight back and then some. I'm 5 pounds more now than I was when I was 9 months pregnant.

My sister in law and I decided last February we would start taking Zumba classes, we went consistently for about a month, and I lost 3 pounds.. which discouraged me, so we pretty much stopped going. About 2 months ago my fiance and I joined a fitness bootcamp, and it was going good, but then life got in the way there was always something we had to do on the night of classes, so again eventually we just stopped going. My fiance had lost about 10 pounds..me I lost about 4, which again discouraged me. Now he's off the bandwagon, and I sure am too.

I want to find a way to motivate myself. So question for you all: What motivates you to get up and out of your pjs to work out? What do you do to work out? I had some good cardio workouts I could do at home, but I could never find myself motivated enough to do them. What helps you?

I hope we can support eachother!

:flowerforyou: Here honey. Looks like you could use some flowers. If you ever get the off chance to read my profile, i know all about falling off the bandwagon, loosing and gaining, and gaining somemore. What motivates me is a combination of things. I guess in the order in which I feel the most intense:

*I AM JUST TIRED OF BEING FAT. Most of my adolecent and adult life I have been classified in varying stages of obese and morbidly obese. And it used to annoy me, and then I went through a phase when I really was comfortable with how I looked naked, and then I am not sure what happened, I just started becoming disgusted with the way I look. ONLY ONE WAY TO CHANGE THAT: gotta get off my behind and do something.

*I am afraid of developing type II diabetes. That and heart disease run on both sides of my family. I do not want to be a diabetic.

*Did she just say MORBIDLY OBESE? When my doctor first said those words to me, I thought, "How in the hell is THAT suppose to sound attractive?" I mean, I consider myself a pretty woman, but lately although I can look in the mirror and SEE a pretty face, I do not FEEL attractive, and I haven't for about a year and a half now. I am not used to feeling that way about myself, not at all.

So through the past seven and a half years of gaining, loosing, gaining, gaining, loosing a lot, gaining it all back and then some, depression, frustration, Every single diet pill and diet out on the market (No, seriously, I can tell you about ANY of them, name one, and I can give you a run down) I got tired of all of this and what I am doing to my body. Bottom line: I do NOT want to die prematurely due to heart disease or diabetes. Period. End of story...Oh, did I mention I am tired of being fat? ;-)

To answer your question, what motivates me is that... well... I made a commitment to myself to focus on HEALTH. That meant focusing more on strength, flexibility, and heart rate rather than loosing the weight. It took the pressure off of me, so that I could focus on what was important. And believe me, it was NO piece of cake. I had to realistically look at my schedule, and in the beginning, I only had a ten miute window when I woke up, and another one right before bed... I youtubed some bedroom workouts, and I made each ten minutes count until i was sore and sweaty. Since I got tired of cramming for my workouts, I started to find longer chunks of time where I did not have to work so hard, but that I was still working. And once you make the commitment to yourself, establish the routine, and stick to it no matter what, the results will follow. (Well, I say no matter what...but we gotta be realistic, life happens... lets just say as best as can be helped, sometimes I just physically could not eek out my second ten mins.,,so i would do what I could--the plank, and go to bed)
But I saw my results. I can now do more work in 30 mins with a lower heart rate than I could three weeks ago, and that matters more to me than the fact that the scale actually went back up. Now does that mean I am not going to examine my eating habits? Pffssshht No. I got work to do, but that is just it--I made a commitment to myself. And just like I would not break my word to my SO, I have to take that same kind of consideration and sacrifice for myself.

Hope this helps you some.