The road back to me

Physically speaking, of course.

There was a time in my life when I was fairly skinny. Some may even have said that I was of an athletic build. I was heavily involved in soccer, and was a pretty physically active kid all around, really.

Then puberty hit. And it was not kind.

At first I was excited for the curves to appear - my body was morphing in front of my eyes! (For a kid who read The Animorphs books, this truly was an exciting thing to see.) I was still fairly active, but then my social aptitude took a dive and I became more of a hermit. The curves I once thought were cute, became the bane of my existence.

Then I got that job at McDonald's.

Joining the Navy helped immensely. I went from 175 pounds* down to around 155. Twenty pounds in eight weeks. And when I first got out of boot camp, continued PT during A-School (technical training for my civilian friends) really helped to keep the weight off. That and whatever they put in the food at the galley. And no, I still don't want to know what it is.
*For my height of 5'8", at 175 I was out of weight range, but my recruiter and the people at boot camp flubbed for me, since I was going to lose it and be within regs anyway.

After A-School, I got a little lazy - I despise running, anyway - and became a member of the "3 Mile Club." Every PFA (physical fitness assessment) includes a 1.5 mile run. Our PFAs are held twice a year. I think you get the idea of how much I actually ran.

Then came kids. During my pregnancy with A-Girl, I had hyperemesis, couldn't keep anything down whatsoever for the first trimester and lost 30 pounds. So after I had her, I was right back to 150. Thank you, young body. My body was not so kind to me after BreMonster, though. I'm still dealing with things jiggling that really shouldn't be jiggling and soft areas that shouldn't be quite so soft. I have to be careful with wearing a belt with my jeans so I don't create a muffin top effect while still holding the jeans up around my waist. (Stupid me getting the stupid low rise jeans...)

I've tried and I've failed at different diets and exercise routines. But something clicked these past few months. I grabbed this workout system at Scheel's about a month ago called Barry's Boot Camp. It may seem cheesy because it's one of those As Seen On TV setups and makes the usual claims all those workout things will promise to get you to fork out dough. But it was on sale.

I can't resist a sale.

After conferring with MarvMan, he told me that all these workouts can actually work. It just requires that you actually commit to it, change your eating habits, and keep going even after the initial program is done with. (As in, if I wanna look like I want to look, I need to keep going even after I look that way.) Makes enough sense. So I'm the owner of the Barry's Boot Camp workout system. Thingy. Setup. Whatchamacallit.

I've been trying off and on to get started. The program they recommend is a one month program and you slowly build up to the highest intensity. It also included a "Code Red" workout guaranteeing rapid fire weight loss and toning in 6 days. Naturally, I shied away from it. The regular workouts were fine, and many of the exercises reminded me of what we'd done in boot camp.

And then I was inspired by a wonderful woman who writes a blog called Mommatudes. She's going for it. And I thought, "Hey. I can do this, too." So I signed up and I'm getting fit with her!

So I'm committed now. And started with the "Code Red" workouts to jump start everything. I thought I was going to die on Day 1. I'm on Day 2 now, and things are looking up. Hope I can get some results before I'm headed out to PA in July! I want to look good for that LFO concert!!

xoxo