Un-Exercises

I haven't been on a fall hike or for a 2 mile run for a few weeks. I think I've lost my chance to see the fall colors. Drat. Newborns will do that to you though, as will sick toddlers (Sophi had a fever last week and has a cough still.) I got an exercise bike off of the classifieds last Thursday, and I've been able to use that a few times, still working on a schedule I can stick to, but maybe that's not realistic right now.

These past two weeks I've spent a lot of my free time laying on my Miracle Balls doing some "un-exercises" as she calls them. I lay down in my closet with some Piano Guys music on my shuffle, feeling the tension release a little as I exhale the "s" sound, per Petrone's instructions. I'm still pretty tense in my shoulders, as that is where my body likes to hold all my unconscious stress. The little booklet that comes with the balls explains how to use them. Good stuff.

The kids keep using them as their toys over the years, so they've gotten lost and thrown over the fences or something and are always disappearing and I'm having to buy new ones, we're on our 5th and 6th ball right now, and since I only have these two purple pregnancy balls I keep a close eye on them and do my best to keep them out of the kids hands. But I totally love them.

During our international trips, they are one thing that we've made room for in the luggage. There's little 1 year old Wes using the ball as his pool toy in Brazil in 2007. We could live without them, but prefer not to. :)

Focus on the Positive

Last week was a little rough. I didn't exercise much cause I was recovering from my lunges which killed me for some reason... I did them faster than usual, so maybe that upped the intensity and thus lactic acid and left me walking around in pain for several days, leaving me feeling slow and slumpy and in need of a pick me up, which I unfortunately found in chocolates I got at Costco. I was able to move by Thursday, which was good cause I went to play in a soccer game at Soccer City with my lil' sister Jerusha. It was good. So I did the soccer game and planks one time and that was it for exercise last week.

This week I've refocuses myself again again, and it's going better than last week.

• Monday - 12 min planks plus six 30 second sprints. 
• Tuesday - Resistance training (Biceps, Triceps, and Hamstrings) and I hiked up Y mountain with Joseph and Ethan. That was a good 1 1/2 hour workout.
• Today - 10 minutes of jumping in the front room - 180s, jumpy frog, and skater lunges. 

And I also had an epiphany... we've talked to the kids about "you get what you focus on" - and I realized that I've been focusing on the wrong thing as I try to NOT eat treats. I'm trying to be a good fun mom and have treats for the kids, but it creates an unhelpful environment for myself, thus my bad week last week as I ate too many Acai chocolate covered treats and chocolate covered almonds and chocolate. So instead of focusing my thoughts on "Do not eat candy and sweets" and stay away from me, I should be focusing on what I can bring to myself and think more along lines of "I will eat 3 heads of Romain lettuce today", right?! We've been telling this to the kids and I have seen it in other areas of my life, like focusing on happy family time instead of focusing on who is arguing, (Don't focus on the serpents!) but I hadn't seen it in myself and how I've been approaching food. So I'm hoping that will help me from here on out. I made my goal of 151 pounds two weeks ago, and then this past week I was back up to 155. Instead of focusing on removing pounds, I'm going to focus on building muscle and lifting weights - two positive things, right? Building and lifting instead of removing pounds and shrinking my waist as if I'm trying to disappear. Jonathan Bailor brought that concept to my attention on this blog post (second video there or link straight to it here), but again, I hadn't thought of how I was doing it wrong with my thoughts about food.

 I think it will help me!