First Week of Working Out Consistently In Over A Year

9 or 10 weeks after giving birth. Around 200 pounds, maybe?

Okay so I know that's a really long title for this post, but that's what this particular post is all about! I'm thinking that the first six months before I got pregnant I didn't work out at all. It might've been longer than that, but I really can't remember so we'll just assume I didn't work out for six months before pregnancy. Then, since I hadn't been doing anything before I got pregnant, when I found out I was pregnant I didn't want to start doing anything new. I probably could have, but didn't. On rare occasions I'd go for walks around the apartment complex, and then we moved to the country and all physical exercise stopped completely.

I think it's safe to say I haven't worked out in well over a year. Most of this is due to pure laziness. During pregnancy I gained almost 50 pounds. My midwife told me this was normal, but now that we're three months after giving birth I'm not feeling so great about my body and all this extra weight makes most of my pre-pregnancy clothes not fit properly.

I wanted to give myself plenty of time to recover from giving birth. For me, it was a hard birth and I had a lot of tearing which took it's sweet time in healing. Having fibromyalgia didn't help with that either. Nerve pain was horribly uncomfortable in those areas so any kind of movement for the first two months after birth was awful! During the third month I was starting to feel a lot better, and that's when I decided I needed to start working out.

I knew right away what I wanted to do, but getting there presented a little bit of a hurdle. Not only was my favorite Jane Fonda Aerobics workout on a VHS tape, but I didn't have a VHS player to hook up to our tv. On top of that? The bulb in our main tv decided to go out so I really didn't have a way to plug in a VHS player if I had found one! (We have a tv in the basement, but it weighs like 300 pounds-so it wasn't coming upstairs any time soon-and until recently I've avoided the stairs because they usually promoted that uncomfortable nerve pain again.)

One day, when I was starting to feel desperate I decided that the next time I was online I'd try and see if I could find the Jane Fonda workout on youtube. I didn't write this down, so the next week or so went by and those few times I was online I forgot to look. Finally I did remember to look and I FOUND IT!!! The next problem? Figuring out how to download the video so I could use it at home where I don't have internet. This took some work, but I did get it figured out. The quality of the video isn't fantastic, but it's good enough that I can follow along without any problems and that's all I needed!

So... On the last week of March I decided I would start working out with the video. Little Man was 11 weeks old and I figured it was time to start moving. Hubby had brought my ab lounge up from the basement the weekend before, but I had been busy with the major master bedroom redo project (see Part 1 here) so I didn't use it right away. Years ago one of my best friends and I would say, "we need to start working out again... let's start on Monday." Then we'd discover that that day was Monday and we'd say, "let's start next Monday!" We did this so many times. I think we eventually did start working out, but the point is: Monday and I do not get along well for starting new things! I decided Wednesday would be my first workout day instead. I hate middle of the week start-ups, but I had to do something I knew I wouldn't talk myself out of (such as the starting on Monday thing).

My current goal in working out: Complete the 40 minute Jane Fonda Aerobics Workout video and do 3 sets of 10 on the ab lounge. I want to do this 5 days a week. I chose Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. If I want I will have Friday & Saturday off (those are the days hubby is home and I'd rather spend time with him), but I could also workout if I was feeling up to it. I want to keep with this routine for four weeks and then I want to up the amount of reps I do on the ab lounge.

This is 9 or 10 weeks after giving birth. My 'before' photo.

Workout Info for Week 1

Wednesday, March 26th: JF Workout, 3 sets of 10 on ab lounge.

Thursday, March 27th: JF Workout, 3 sets of 10 on ab lounge.

Friday, March 28th: Did major grocery shopping = lots of walking and lifting.

Saturday, March 29th: nothing! day of rest.

Sunday, March 30th: JF Aerobics Workout, 3 sets of 10 on ab lounge.

Monday, March 31st: 3 sets of 10 on ab lounge, JF Aerobics Workout.

Tuesday, April 1st: nothing.

Wednesday, April 2nd: nothing. Weight: 196 lbs.