My 5 week old has more upper body strength

I'm a day late, well two days if you count Tuesday (the day that I did not exercise).  After waking up the next day and barely being able to move my arms I decided it might be a good idea to give myself a day of "rest" in between doing the Shred workouts.  I plan to use this day to do cardio if I can (good old fashioned walking will do). 

So yesterday I did the Shred for the second time.  I had a harder time doing it than the day before!  I did find my 3 lb weights (insert laughter here) so I used those instead of the 5 lb weights I had to use the first day.  I cannot do push-ups.  I don't even mean REAL push-ups I mean girly ones.  I can get halfway down but I cannot go all the way to the floor and back up.  I just cannot do it. It's embarrassing.  So yesterday I did the Shred, and then went outside to walk with my son and daughter for 15-20 minutes.  Today I hope to get some walking in when my husband gets home from work and can watch the kids for me.  So this morning I weighed myself, totally against my rule for weighing yourself (one day a week, same day).  And I have lost a little over a pound!  I've been trying to avoid sweets, or at least keep them to a minimum and eat healthier, so hopefully the combination is going to kick my weight loss into gear.

Background and Goal

So, in the interest of full disclosure I'm going to put a little weight background out here in the blog world so that if anyone is going to read this you can at least see where I started and where I'd like to be.  Before getting pregnant with my son in January 2007, I weighed in at *gulp* 180 lbs.  Yikes.  5 days before delivering him, I weighed 213 lbs.  That's right.  Let it sink in.  Surprising that I had horrible back pain, huh?  So when he was about 6 months old, I had pretty much stopped losing weight and was at 182.  Not too bad, only 2 lbs above my pre-preggo weight.  A few months after that I decided that I wanted to get healthy, fit and get to a healthy weight.  I am 5'9".  I started walking 6-7 days a week, for 45 minutes to an hour, doing some strength training about 3 days a week.  I gradually started going to the gym and eventually started running as well.  My weight loss stalled at about 155.  I was more than pleased and felt great.  I stayed that weight for over a year.  Then we started trying for another baby.  Well, things didn't go as we had planned and I stopped working out as consistently, also had 2 miscarriages so that put a cramp in my workouts as well.  At my first official weigh-in at my OB office I was at 165.  Well, I gained almost 40 lbs this time.  I vowed not to break 200 and of course I did.  My little girl weighed over 9 lbs but at almost 5 weeks postpartum I've still only lost 20 lbs.  So my current weight is 183.

I usually work out and run/walk at the gym.  I can put my son in their childcare service and have an hour to myself to exercise.  They don't take children until they are 6 weeks old and honestly I don't feel comfortable leaving my baby that early anyway.  I would prefer to wait until 8-12 weeks.  I've been exercising 2-3 times a week for the last 2 weeks.  Mostly walking around my neighborhood.  The problem is I can't do that very well because my baby hates her carseat and therefore my jogging stroller.  Plus, I have to wait until my husband gets home from work because otherwise I have to somehow take my almost 3 year old as well.  SO...until I can get to the gym, I'm using videos and trying to eat as healthy as I can (I'm nursing this time as well).

So, now you know my beginning weight, my goal is to get to 155 again, even though my alltimewillIevergettheregoal is 145.  I have no real reason for this number being my goal, other than I want to at least weigh as much as my husband and not vastly more.  But that's what I get for marrying someone with smaller bones than me, and a little shorter.

Saturday I purchased Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred and today I did the workout for the first time.  I found it kept my heart rate up and I feel vaguely sore at this point.  Tomorrow might be another story.  I'm hoping to do this and then get some walking in on the weekends when I can go in the mornings on my own because my husband can stay with the kids. 

Starting a weight loss blog

I'm starting this blog to chronicle my efforts, pitfalls and hopefully successes in losing the weight I gained during my most recent pregnancy with my daughter.  I am one who does better when I am held accountable and even if no one reads, at least I will know that at the end of the day I'll need to take 5 minutes to type and post how I've done with exercise and with healthy eating.  Here we go...