Body of Work.

Source

For the past two months, I've been working out three to six times a week. (My rule is to exercise at least every other day.) This always means going to the YMCA, since our membership comes with eight hours a week of childcare, but I switch things up a lot and take Bosu, Zumba, weights-only, and Pilates classes or sometimes I just climb on the elliptical for 45 minutes with a couple of magazines and my iPod. The first two weeks or so were ehhh and then it all of a sudden became like ohhh. I look forward to my workouts, and Tessa looks forward to going to Y Play, and it's even encouraged Nekos to get back to the gym; he's been getting up at 5 a.m. three times a week to go to spin class before work.

All this working out has resulted in me getting back into three old pairs of jeans and losing four pounds. Four really hard-fought pounds. Sweating my face off, gasping for air, blotchy-skinned pounds. I'm really proud of this small loss because it's come through an honest combination of diet and exercise. In the past, I would join Weight Watchers and lose weight from dieting alone (with lots of Diet Cokes and low-fat ice creams and low-fat chips along the way), but this time I'm doing it on my own, the right way. And I'm honest to God having so much fun doing it and loving the endorphin explosion that comes with exercise.

The reason I'm blogging about it is because I think this blog has been part of the reason I've worked so hard, and I want it to help me stay accountable. Because the truth is, no one cares how much I weigh except me. I've been 20 pounds heavier than I am now (post-college pudge attack), and Nekos, God love him, didn't blink an eye. But I care, and it helps motivate me to spell out my goals in a public place. I blogged in December about wanting to get back to my pre-Tessa weight by the time we go to Key West in February. With four pounds gone, I only have four more pounds to get there. And this time I'm going to be not just slimmer but stronger, too.

This improving-my-health thing wasn't so much a New Year's resolution as it was a turning-29 resolution. I started slowly by giving up aspartame, which I thought would be terrible but which has been A-OK (and given me better skin!). However, I started drinking more lattes in the afternoon to make up for the missing Diet Coke and my insomnia got temporarily worse. One visit to the chiropractor later, and I realize what a dope I am for drinking coffee in the afternoon and then complaining of sleeplessness. I realize now that coffee aggravates my anxiety, making the already sensitive me hypersensitive to this loud, wild world. I am the sort of person who can have one cup of coffee in the morning and that's it for the rest of the day. Total epiphany. That doesn't mean I'm sleeping like a champ every night, but it's gotten so much better and I'm relying far less on sleeping aids.

Besides the fact that I want back into my size 8s, all of this self-improvement is geared, too, toward one very important, very exciting future event: another pregnancy. I want to be back to my happy weight and completely off of sleeping aids by the time we try to get pregnant with our second child. Sometime this summer, y'all. Doesn't that sound soon? I'm not looking forward to the morning sickness, the mood swings or the stone-cold-sober lifestyle, but I am looking forward to having another freshly baked mocha muffin around the house. And I want to be ready.