Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Postpartum Fitness Series - Love Your Body


It's been a while, but here's the final part of a four-part series on getting fit after pregnancy. If you missed the first three they were:
This part is about loving your post-baby body. Having kids changes your body, and although you may be able to get back to your pre-pregnancy weight, everything is not in the same place it once was. You now have stretch marks or other scars. And that's OK. You earned every mark and those squishy spots and love handles, too.

Be confident
That's a lot of stretching going on!
What I hope you take from this series is not to focus on losing weight and trying to attain some ideal body image based on what you looked like before having kids. Rather, focus on being healthy, being an example for your kids and feeling good about yourself.

Having kids is rough, and it's easy to feel like you're constantly doing things wrong, and then you look in the mirror and all you see is that 20 pounds you're still carrying around even though it's been 2 years since your last child was born. Just remember that you're awesome. You're raising your kids, taking care of your family, going to work, maybe taking care of your parents as well. It's a tough job, but you're doing it. 

Take time for yourself
You devote so much to your kids and family, but don't forget about yourself. Managing your health and well being helps you take care of your family as well. Having confidence in yourself sets a great example for your kids.

So if you want to lose those last few pounds, go for it! If you just want to eat better, do it! Want to tone up the looseness that's still around? Let's do it! I've got a Facebook support group starting up June 23 for moms who want motivation, support and recipes. Get started, commiserate with other moms in a comfortable environment. Comment here or email me at prcfreelancing@gmail.com to join.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Moving On

I have been wanting to write a blog post for a good week now, but I can't seem to get my thoughts to still enough to do it. I am going to try anyway tonight. After my last blog post, I'm just not sure what to follow up with. It doesn't feel right to jump right back into the health talk, so I will speak personally one more time.

Friday was my dad's memorial service. I had a tough time leading up to it. He died two weeks ago. The first week all I wanted to do was sleep. The second week, I had two jobs to help out with the service: make a video of photos and make the program. Going through pictures was freakin' hard. On the days I spent time looking through pictures I found myself flipping out about some small annoyance later in the day and bursting into tears. That was a lot of fun for everybody else in the house. My husband does all the video making, so eventually I had to just hand it over to him.

The hardest part about the photos for me was seeing the change. There were pictures of my dad when he was young and reckless, leading up to him settling down and being a family man, to him getting older, and then a sudden shift to after his stroke. That shift was the hardest to see. You could see it coming in some ways in the photos, just that his health was fading. He had diabetes and high blood pressure that were poorly managed. But nothing prepares you for a stroke. You never know what the result will be. For those who don't know, my dad ended up paralyzed on his left side and in a wheelchair. He had a lot of ups and downs, battling multiple illnesses and infections along with his loss of function.

Back to the memorial service. It was very nice, and a lot of people came and paid their respects. I thought having it would give some kind of closure, but I don't know if you can really get closure on losing your dad. I am trying to take the event as a point in time to say that it's time to keep moving forward. My husband has a lot of interviews this week, and I was bumped up to the next rank in my health and fitness business. So we're keeping busy and looking forward to having new opportunities. But in the quiet moments, I still sit back and just remember.