Thursday, May 3, 2012

Moving and Shaking

I'm sitting here laughing as Ethan picks up his (closed) jar of baby food and chews on it. He knows the food is in there, but somehow I don't think he's too perturbed that he can't get to it. As long as he's allowed to manhandle the jar, he's good.

I've been thinking a bit about my exercise routine now that I'm a mom. Realistically, pretty much everything I think about is now filtered through my relationship with E to some degree. If I want to go to the gym, I have to make arrangements for him to be taken care of: usually leaving him with the Husband, which means waiting until said Husband is back from work. The other option is to use the crèche at the gym - allowing me to go any time in the morning and early afternoon I so choose - and fork out the requisite £2.80. The exercises I can do and the exercises I need to do are also impacted by having a baby. Or, more accurately, by having had a baby. Thanks to pregnancy there are love-handles that need taming, thighs that need slimming, and abs that are in a pretty sorry state. After all; stretching out over nine months to accommodate a tiny human being will do that.

The weight-lifting machines and free weights have become my close, personal friends. Me and that 7 kg medicine ball are pretty tight. Usually reserved for the big bulky guys who like to sling it around at high speeds, the 7 kg medicine ball is just the kind of heavy implement needed to tone my pathetic obliques. And, my latest source of enjoyment? Zumba class. Oh yeah, I've jumped on the bandwagon: I get to dance and shake my booty for an hour and call it money well-spent on my gym membership. I have to admit, it's more fun than hopping on the treadmill for the same amount of time. Don't get me wrong: when I'm in form I do enjoy running...almost in spite of myself. But I still have a ways to go to get myself back in the kind of shape I was in when we first found out Ethan was on the way and I ran the Grim with the Husband. And usually, running outside is preferable to the treadmill anyway. Well...unless you're gripped in the midst of some thoroughly English spring weather and armed only with a jogging stroller with two bum wheels. Needless to say, those two factors quite well put paid to any fleeting ideas I may have had about running out of doors. Shame.


In the mean time, I think I'll consider this a birthday present to myself as both a reward and incentive to keep up with my Zumba classes and the weight lifting to get my mom-butt back into shape. Le sigh: I always knew on some level that this sort of endeavour wouldn't be as easy as it was when I was A) in college and B) childless, but I still mourn for the end of my days in the Miller Centre with that StairMaster, my iPod, and an old issue of InStyle. Man, I was fit...

dear body: I'd like you back. Let's meet up soon. 'Kthxbye.

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