Mommy of Many™ Goes To Boot Camp-Day 1

I am a 38 yr old woman who’s given birth to 9 children. I’ve watched my body change many times. Some changes were great and some I was totally uncomfortable with. Over the last 2 years I lost 35 lbs. I attribute the weight loss, in part, to having my youngest child getting older, no longer breast feeding and making a few changes in the choices I made when eating. I didn’t adopt an exercise plan or a strict way of eating. I started to feel GREAT. I loved the fact that I went from a size 14 to a size 6 and had to buy all new clothes! But over the last couple of months I let stress bring some old and unhealthy habits back into my life and I’ve watched 10 of those lbs. find their way back to my body. I hate the way it feels and, frankly, I know it’s just time to TRULY ditch these bad habits and ways of thinking and get into a better frame of mind. SOOOOO, I decided to join Kraze Boot Camps and let the energy of a group and the commitment of blogging the journey, carry me through to a point where I can make a healthier way of living and feeling more energetic, MY way of life.

Day 1-I’m glad Kateri has decided to join also. I’m glad there will be a friendly and perhaps sympathetic face in the group! We leave later than I wanted and I’m tense. I miss the turn and we have to call for directions. We’re nearly late…this also makes me tense. Grrrrr….I am not the best with new things and I’m nervous and tense and I don’t know what to expect. I have my hand-weights, my mat, water and am dressed for the occassion (though I’ve decided I’d like pants w/ an elastic band instead of a tie-had to retie the stupid pants twice…GRRRRR!). We find places for our mats and it all begins.

Warm ups-By the 2nd repetition I realized 2 things #1-I am woefully out of shape. I can’t actually remember when the last time I was “exercising”.  I mean really exercising, not just picking the kids up or being on my feet all day. Truly! I know I took some step classes at the YMCA, but that was probably around the time that Luke-Xavier was a few months old because he was in the class with me and happily stayed where I put him. Long time ago! #2-I can not and should not drink much water BEFORE the class. I have a M.O.M. bladder. This is not a good thing. I should probably be doing more (many more) kegles. I had to leave for the bathroom and figure out the best plan of action for what was happening when I participated in the Jumping Jacks. I opted for the old “sweatshirt around the waist” look. You can bet on 2 things-I will not drink much water before tomorrow’s work-out and I will ALWAYS have a sweatshirt with me. ‘nuf said!

After my 2 important revelations, I went back and joined the routine. The final part of the warm up was a 2-lap run. I don’t run. I wasn’t even sure if I COULD. The closest I EVER come to running is screaming at one of the older kids to HURRY and get Lex out of the street before he gets hit by a car. I walk. I bike ride. I NEVER run.

I ran…more than once.

After a bunch of stuff, we were pointed toward stairs and told to run to them. Yep *run* to the stairs. Under normal circumstances I would have looked at those stairs and heard the music playing and envision Rocky as he tackled step after step. These were not “normal” circumstances and I didn’t think of Rocky-not once. Tells you where my head was. Instead I was glad for a visual marker of how far I needed to run and I hoped that the black dots that had started to form in front of my eyes wouldn’t hinder me or make me fall DOWN those stairs. With encouragement I did, in fact, run to those stairs. I could not, however run up them, instead I walked, 3 times. But each time I was leery of going down because of the black spots. The good news is that I neither passed out nor fell. Success!

Then it was back to our mats for ab work. This was the simplest part for me. THANK YOU LORD for a simplish part. Notice I did not use the word “easy”. That would be a lie.

So, I successfully completed day 1. I know that this week is going to continue to be challenging. I know that I’m going to want to quit. I know that I’m going to be sore (starting in my bum and one calf, already). But I also know that I’m going to continue because I want to know what it feels like by week 3 and then I want to know what the last day of week 4 feels like.

I’m thankful for a program that I can do that’s early enough in the morning that it doesn’t hinder my family’s day. If this was not happening at 6 am I’d be hard-pressed to figure it into my day. Seriously!

When I got home, around 7:30, I had just enough time to shower, get dressed, apply make-up, fix my hair, make sure the 4 youngest kiddos were fed and dressed, pick Kateri up from her apartment, get her to work and get the lil kids to VBS by 9am. Whew! Then is was off to the high school to pick Anna and Maddi up from summer school, take Mariah to work and get back to the lil kids to be picked up by noon. I then handed them to Maddi to be fed lunch while I ran a couple of errands. Then off to the park for some fun time. My point?…

If I can find a lil time in my days of Doing the Dance of the Children, I’m pretty sure anyone can. I’m here to encourage you to join me and step out of your comfort zone and find a little time to get in a healthier place. The better shape my mind and body are in, the more natural energy I’m going to have (hint, hint on trying to drink less caffeine).  It’s a good goal!

Doing the Dance of the Children on Day 1 of Kraze Boot Camps~

This entry was posted on June 21, 2010 at 8:09 pm and is filed under attitude, encouragement, mom, sharing, weight loss, working out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.