Stephanie: Week 1

Anticipation or Anxiety?

I awoke in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, my heart racing. The sound of the rise and fall of my daughters’ breath hummed through the baby monitor. It was not my youngest daughter M’s midnight feeding that woke me but a horrific dream. In my dream I was working out to the point of exhaustion for weeks only to step on the scale to find that I had not lost one pound < cue the horror music>.  Maybe this dream is not very far fetched. I would not be the first women to try to lose weight and not succeed. There is so much temptation in the world to steer us off our path to achievement. Things like White Spot hamburgers, Dairy queen sundaes and glorious melted cheese get in my way.

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement. I was overjoyed when I found out I was a semi-finalist for the UrbanMommies and Fitness on the Go contest. I worked tirelessly on the questionnaire portion of my entry for a few days. Then I patiently…err, well my friends and family might not agree with that…well I waited for the results and was thrilled to find out that I was one of the chosen three. We were whisked downtown, thankfully before the Olympic road closures, for our Nike store photo shoot. I met Dan the Fitness on the Go guru, Jill the brains behind UrbanMommies and of course by my beautiful fellow competitors Michelle and Renee. We received our choice of new Nike runners, a shirt and a swag bag containing many other goodies. Bopomo studios snapped shots, one of which featured some pathetic failed pushups, we had a lot of laughs and went on our way.

I guess through the excitement of it all I didn’t really process the logistics of undergoing a major lifestyle change in the course of 3 months.  Priorities need to be identified then adjusted. Eating habits have to be reviewed and revamped. I am a stay at home mom of two beautiful girls. L is a funny yet demanding 3 year old and M is a happy and teething 5 month old. Running a household is a full time job in itself. Most women would agree that it leaves little time to do more for yourself then run a brush through your hair. Some days I don’t get out of my pajamas. But changes are about to be made…now I will just wear my work out clothes to bed, do squats when I fold laundry and stop brushing my hair all together.

Tonight I will be visited, for the first time, by my very own personal trainer. I am nervous about the pain I will experience tomorrow. Pain from working out is much like childbirth. With the first pregnancy it is fear of the unknown. With the second it is definitely fear of the known. I have not worked out in well over a year but I remember too well how I did not want to get out of bed the next day. Despite the fear, I am ready to take this experience and literally run with it. My goal is to run the Sun Run on May 9^th and do more than one feeble pushup at a time. I hope you all enjoy reading along with the success and setbacks in my journey and hopefully you will all choose to join along. Every mommy should seize time to take care of themselves. After all, if we don’t who will?

Picture:  The newest Nike spokesbaby