Emily's week 13

Saturday - yoga class (75 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Phooey. This is not going as planned.

Ok, girls, I want to know if the rest of you have the same problem I have. Namely that something always gets dropped each week. Every week I'm aiming for a clean house, clean laundry, healthy meals, quality kid time (reading, preschool, park, play, etc.) and exercise. (And church work and doula work and getting-ready-for Christmas, of course.) Every week something gets dropped. If I'm exercising, it is a good bet that my house isn't clean or I'm not paying enough attention to the kids. Rationally, it doesn't seem like it should be this way, but practically that does seem to be how it plays out.

Is this just me? How do you manage to keep all the plates spinning at once?

responses

Amie, how are you doing? Hope you're recovering and staying out of the hospital! Sounds like a nasty infection . . . so sorry you were ill! Especially with the three little ones running around! So hard to be sick when there are people who need you. 

Katie J - how's the biking? I was digging the mileage posts (again, love the numbers, it's just me . . .) - are you back in the saddle? So to speak? ;)

Christa - how's the veggie-centered meal planning going? And the Shred? And the (hate to ask, because I know sleepless nights suck) baby's sleeping? Hope you and yours are well.

Kelly, I'm interested to hear how your experiment goes. I've gotten used to longer workouts, so I can understand not wanting to go down to short ones, but it sounds like getting 40 minutes, just broken up, might still work really well. Let us know how it goes?

Also, I saw my dad reading The Spark this weekend (he's very into anything that combines brain research and education research) and I arranged to borrow it when he's finished. I knew I'd seen it mentioned somewhere, and now I realize that it was you!

As to brain benefits that go along with exercise . . . I don't know how exactly it's connected, but I feel that when I'm disciplined in exercise, I'm more disciplined in other areas of my life, particularly in getting my writing time in. That's a bit odd, because you'd think exercise would take away the time I need in order to write, but now I'm wondering if it's not just that discipline begets discipline (which is what I thought before, and what I still think is partly true), but that exercise does help me think more clearly and creatively (which helps the story-making!).

Emily, I think it'd be cool to hear more about what you're doing in karate, esp. as it sounds like the warm-up/stretching time has gotten a lot more intense with Charles in charge (heh).

Oh, and I haven't run yet, but I still want to. It's going to take getting to bed by 10 though, and that hasn't happened for quite some time! (Let's not talk about Sunday night, when I went to bed at 3:30 a.m.!)

today's workout and a shout-out to the quiet ones!

Did Personal Training with Jackie this morning. Did NOT run yesterday, but am hoping to try tomorrow (if I get to bed on time tonight). Our homeschooling year officially starts tomorrow, and the idea of hitting the ground running tickles my sense of humor.

So . . .  how are you all? Esp. those who haven't posted in awhile? This isn't the perfectionism blog, no one will yell at you if at the turning-of-the-seasons (hello, school! hello hot weather!) you haven't been working out regularly, or at all. But, I admit to missing the chatter. :) Check in, if you're willing!

-Jess

question for our runners

I went to a retreat this weekend, and one of the things I was thinking about was what refreshes me. Three of the things were exercise, silence and the out-of-doors.

Which made me wonder if I wanted to start running. Because that could combine all three. (Just thinking about trying it somehow on cardio days - I'm not giving up my weight-lifting!)

So, here's my question for you ladies who run: how do you handle safety issues? That's kind of a weird question, because I actually feel safe walking by myself in our neighborhood, but running seems different somehow. Maybe it's all those news stories that seem to involve bad things happening to female joggers. On the other hand, those female joggers always seem to be running through parks alone in the dark . . . anyway, I'd be running on main streets in the (early) daylight.

Is this something you're worried about? And what precautions do you take?  Thanks for the input!

ETA: I'm thinking about driving over and running on the university track. That'd let me run barefoot (it's an artificial track surface), which is how I'd want to go, I think. Plus, that might help a lot with my safety concerns. Anyone tried a track instead of the street or park?

-Jessica

Thanks for answering my 

responses

First, potty training is actually going really well. Better than it went with either of my other two year olds! Both of the girls seem to get #1, so it's #2 we're working on. Some progress there but . . . we've got a ways to go.

Still! Neither of my first two were ready this early, and I'm actually kind of thrilled. We've got a ways to go, but the progress we're making is enough to keep me from moving them back to diapers, and if you know me and my history with hating potty training, that's saying something.

Christa, is it bad that now I want to try a Denise Austin workout, just to enjoy the goofiness? It can't be worse than yoga booty ballet!

Katie P - I don't have any great tips about sleep, but lots of sympathy. It'll get better soon, but I hope that, for your sake, it gets better sooner.  (And the construction noise- ugh! I still just want to KILL anyone who interrupts naptime! I wouldn't, but it drives me (irrationally, I suppose) NUTS. Sorry that happened to you.)

Sorry also for the hard family-and-friends stuff. You're doing amazingly to be dealing with hard emotional stuff and still keeping up the good habits that you've established. I think it helps so much when we can keep up habits during hard times. Not just because it makes the hard time easier to get through, but because it makes it easier to get back to normal once they're over and the pressure is off. At least, that's been my experience.

I understand the whole being-healthy-but-not-satisfied thing, but I have to be honest, I'd take a peaceful mind over rock hard abs, any day. So, I'd go with your gut and skip the diet, and just keep up the bad habits. U. S. dollars to sand that's the way both a good body and a peaceful mindset, long term. Just my two cents! :)

Amie - I'm so glad Julie's off dialysis and home with her baby. Such good news! 

How's potty training going at your house? It sounds like it's good? is that right? Either way, good for you for going for it with a little (er) one in the house! That's what really intimidated me the first two times - what to do with the younger ones while the older ones need that one-on-one attention to learn this new skill.

And I'm sorry to hear that p90x takes that much time every day. It otherwise sounds like a program I'd be really interested in. Is it the sort of program you could split into 45 minute sessions and just take twice as long to get through?

Katie J. - I hope you like Personal Training with Jackie when you get it!  I hope your hip gets better.

Kelly - congratulations on the long run! Hope the scheduling change goes over okay. I'm working right now on booting us back up into a schooltime schedule - both for me and the kids homeschooling, and because Adam's schedule changes when the university gets going again.

Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism

Did this today.

Katie P. - I thought of you while I was doing this because there's a move in there called "standing mountain-climbers", and I remembered how you say the regular ones are your nemesis. It made me wonder if you'd think standing ones were better or worse. :)

-Jess

responses

-Amie, still praying for Julie. And I hope camping goes well!

-Katie J - I love the Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism workout too! Or, well, I don't love doing it, but I do it regularly and love the results!

As to workout times: lately I've been working out in the afternoon, during the twins' naps and the big kids' quiet time, but I'm trying to get back into the habit of getting up early. If I can do this, I'll get up early and exercise, and then save naptime for writing.

My husband and I used to do push-ups and pull-ups in the evening, but it was just too much. We'd get the kids down, then do clean-up and dishes, and adding exercise on top of that just made me dread the evening, because after supper, kids' bedtime, clean-up and dishes I really just want to sit down. :)

-Katie P - I think you're right to want to use lighter weights but do the exercises in the harder position, rather than do heavier weights in the easy position, because I think the hardest part of a lot of those exercises is just being in a plank position. I bet you see better results with the path you chose.

Curious - it sounds like you have more than one set of weights out when you work out? I do too. I have 15s, 10s, and 5s, and I always have the all out, because I always am wanting different weights for various exercises. And sometimes for the same exercise; sometimes I'll use a heavier weight for the first time through an exercise, and then a lighter weight for the repetition. Anyone else do this?

Regarding the eye surgery: the physical act of keeping my eyes open wasn't hard, if that's what you mean, because they prop them open. I admit, I didn't enjoy having them open; it's not a fun feeling to have bright lights shining in your eyes and not to be able to blink! But I did what I did during my c-section: I just said the Jesus prayer over and over! And my surgeon was really good about keeping up a patter, letting me know what he was doing, and that helped me a lot, because I didn't feel in the dark about what was going on.

Also, they give you a Xanax beforehand, to help you relax. Yay drugs! 

-Yolanda - it's good to hear from you! I think that it's possible that it's easy for some women to lose pregnancy weight, but my guess is that it's only easy for those who already have a long history of good habits. (This would not be me, it took me 9 months the first two times and 12 months the third.) For me, it was giving birth that prompted me to even start forming good health habits. I think that's true for a lot of women. 

Also, even if you had good habits before, trying to figure out how to implement those habits as a mom (and, for you, I'd imagine, as a grad student and then as a professor) is really like trying to figure out how to implement those habits as a whole new person. It's hard to underestimate the difficulty of that.

Also (gosh, I like using "also"!), when you talk about getting off track and trying to get back on again, it sounds so familiar. I'm becoming more and more convinced that you can't just decide something once. If you're really committed, what that means is that you are committed to deciding again and again and again. Commitment means deciding to decide. You can see it really easily if you look at marriage: you make your vows once, but every day you have to choose to turn towards your husband rather than away. The vow was to do it every day, to reaffirm your decision every day in your actions.

So I think it's no sign of failure that you find yourself starting up again. That's a sign of success.

And, I think, eventually, the gaps of time in your decisions will get smaller and smaller until it feels automatic. But you'll still be deciding, day by day.

Anyway, that's my philosophizing on the subject! :) Forgive my longwindedness. I've just been thinking a lot lately about the idea of commitment, especially in my relationship with God.

-Jess

Katie J - I'm slowly doing reviews of my favorite workout DVDs on my blog, but I've only got two up so far, so here's a list of the ones I have and use:

-30 Day Shred - I think everyone knows about this one at this point

-Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism - another Jillian Michaels one; imagine taking just the cardio parts of Shred and making them into a 40 minute workout. Basically, this is hard cardio for 40 minutes - lots of jumping, plank-based moves and kickboxing.

-No More Trouble Zones - this, on the other hand, is like taking just the strength parts of Shred, and making them into a forty-minute workout. Lots of weights and also some old-school matwork.

-Personal Training with Jackie: Power Circuit Training. - This is just strength stuff, and it's more systematic than Michaels' No More Trouble Zones. I love this one. She starts with hamstrings, and proceeds through quads, glutes, chest, back, biceps, triceps, upper abs, lower abs and obliques. It just destroys your body piece by piece. It moves very quickly too, which I really like, but others might not.

Dance Off the Inches: Hip-Hop Party (Jennifer Gilardi). - This is the one I did this week. Fun, lots of cardio, kind of goofy.

Dancing with the Stars: Dance Off the Pounds. - I'm just starting this one. It's a sweatfest, and the dancing's actually stuff you might do in public, if you ever got good at it. As I recall (I haven't done it in awhile), one of the three routines took up too much floor space to do in my small living room. But I liked the other two routines (swing and jive) enough that it didn't feel like a waste of time.

Dance With Julianne, Cardio Ballroom - This is another fairly new one to me, but I really like it so far. It has a jive section that's particularly fun.

Dance Off the Inches: Fat-Burning Belly Dance - This isn't real belly dancing, it's kind of belly-dancing-inspired cardio. But it's fun.

Fwiw, I like dance DVDs because they're a good option for me when I've done a hard strength workout the day before and am too sore to lift again. Also, in all honesty, I find the dancer's bodies such great inspiration. It makes me want to be fit just so that I can move my body in such energetic and free ways. (Hee, quoth Larry the Cucumber: "Libre y suavamente!")

Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout. My favorite yoga DVD, hands-down. Starts easy, gets harder as it goes. It's about an hour long, and, to my mind, the perfect Sunday afternoon de-stressor.

Katie J. - I also wanted to thank you for your observation about candy, and how it makes you feel. That's such a good reminder for me, because I love hard candies (like Runts and jellybeans), but they don't make me feel that great, and it's good to remember that.

Christa - you might like either of Jillian's other videos: the No More Trouble Zones or Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism, if you like the Shred. The second one does have a lot of jumping (is that "bouncy"?), but the first one doesn't. You might also like the yoga one - it does require coordination, I suppose, but it doesn't move terribly quickly, so you have time to get into the different positions. If you want something dead simple that will just get you moving, you might like one of Leslie Sansone's Walking Away the Weight videos.

Kelly, you're amazing. Hang in there. I think you're doing great to get anything more than childcare done when you're on your own with three kids. 

Katie P. - I'm glad to hear that your shoulder is getting better. Glad the tennis ball helps too! What a simple tool for such great results.

Emily - I'm curious - are you still able to do your green smoothies during your kitchen remodel? I know how much you like them (though I still think greens ought to be eaten with bacon).

Amie - is there any news on Julie? Still praying for her and her baby.

-Jess

not just yoga, POWER yoga. :)

Yesterday I did Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout. It felt good by the end of it (it usually does), but the kids all got up from naps or quiet time before the end of it, so it wasn't quite as peaceful as usual. And I was sore from the Jackie and Jillians workouts last week, so all the stretching was more challenging then usual. Still, a nice way to start the week.  I always feel so accomplished after I do the backbends towards the end. I'm never quite sure I'm going to make it (I've cramped and tumbled in the middle of them before). It's a good thing they're towards the end, when he has you all warmed up and balanced, or I probably wouldn't make it!

Do you guys ever do a workout and think, "I'd better enjoy this, because someday my body isn't going to let me do this anymore"? I've been thinking about that recently. You enjoy this body, but its capabilities slowly declined, and how do you wean yourself off of the joys of a willing body? I've had my ability to physically do things taken away at a couple of points in my life, due to injuries and such, but in each case, I could reasonably expect them to return, and they did. But that won't be true with old age.

Though it does seem - in some completely serious sense that I don't think I really understand yet - that the hope of a new body in heaven is part of the answer. I don't think I get that yet. But I can see that it's there to get. Does that make any sense?

anyway, just wondering if anyone else has thought about this at all. It seems we're all close to what you might call our physical peak, and I can see the downhill staring me in the face.  Wheeeee!  :D

-Jess

more chatting!

Katie, welcome! I envy you the stationary bike - reading while you work out sounds splendid!

And welcome, Christa! I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry Dan's having a hard time; I'll be praying for him. I hope your routine, um, routinizes again soon. So . . . how much of a habit do you have to get into for it to count as enough of a habit to buy weights? :)  If you get there, the cheapest place I've found simple 5 lbs. weights is Walmart, or, strangely enough, Marshalls. It's weird, but they often have lots of random fitness equipment there.

Kelly, good for you on the pushups! I know the arms are a lot of it, but I find they're really good for the back and abs too.  I'd have to differ from you on arms - I really like how cut arms look - but you're right about the legs making most of the difference when it comes to lifting heavy things (a must with little kids - you have to lift them and their stuff!).

Emily and Amie, I really like Rodney Yee for yoga. He's my preferred Sunday workout, when I work out on Sundays, because doing yoga with his dvd just feels so good. I reviewed my favorite dvd of his on my blog, and talked a bit about the spiritual side of yoga, and how I handle it as a Christian.

Emily, about weight loss . . . well, there's about a 5 lbs. window I like staying in, and if I'm above it, then exercise is for weight loss for me. Otherwise it's for maintenance, health and function. <-- By "function" I mean "keeping my body fit enough that it'll be able to do whatever I ask it to". I know that not everyone has that option in this fallen world, and since I don't have a disability, I want to show my gratitude for that by taking care of what I have. I'm expecting to get old and/or sick at some point, and become unable to do with my body what I can do now, and now, while I can, I want to be a good steward of my body.

<-- I don't think I put that quite right. But I haven't finished my coffee yet. :) Does anyone feel similarly and have a better way of putting it? What I just wrote feels incomplete, and somehow a little off.

Maybe because I left out the honest fact that I just love how it feels to have a fit, strong body. There's a strong element of pleasure in exercise, for me.

(On weight loss - I admit to being curious about what it'd feel like to be 10 lbs. lighter. And if what I'm doing gets me there, great! If not though, I'm fine with that. I don't care enough about it to do more than I'm doing now!)

On injuries - aside from the pregnancy-related stuff (which pretty much disappears if I'm working out properly and regularly), I have a knee that doesn't like running more than a mile or two and an ankle that doesn't like swimming laps. The ankle is the weird one - it's only swimming that bothers it. I think it's that full extension of the joint with pressure put on it while it's extended. It is, I think, a left-over from a pole vault injury (I missed the pit once), but it might also be helped along by the fact that I have hyper-flexible feet. 

So, swimming and running aren't good options for me, at least not any great distances.

welcome, Amie! plus weekends and sore necks and heat

First of all, welcome Amie! Glad you're joining us. :)  I'm curious: what's Ab Ripper X - is it part of P90X? Also, are you doing 10 pull-ups at a time, without rests? Or do you do sets? 'cause - wow! I'm happy to have gotten to the place where I can do two at a time! (Still working on it.)

And I hear you on the stomach surgery thing. I only had one, and I don't know if it was the surgery or the stretching from the twin pregnancy, but I had some real weakness that planks and push-ups helped with a lot. It wasn't till I started doing those that my back really stopped hurting all the time (I think my backaches were a combination of weak ab muscles and nursing position.)

I admire your goal of being a healthy role model for your girls! I don't think I've thought explicitly about that a lot, so thanks for the food for thought!

Emily, weekends are a different animal than week days, I think. They have their own pattern in our house, but it's not the same pattern as weekdays, and I don't try to fit week day stuff into weekends. If I work out on the weekend, it's because doing a dance DVD or yoga DVD sounded like fun. So . . . that's what works for me. Saturday has chores, but they're not the weekday chores, and for me, that includes working out. 

As for sore necks, I had a lot of trouble with this with the ab exercises in Shred, at one point. I just did less than they did, so that I didn't strain anything, and let it build up with time. (Because when I tried to keep up, at first, I hurt myself! So I decided I didn't want to do that again. :) ) I think there are a lot of exercises that require neck strength, but I've never found any that specifically build it, so I've just had to let it happen slowly while I did ab and shoulder stuff. With ab stuff, though, purposely focusing on tightening my abs or hip flexors, rather than my neck muscles, was helpful. Maybe focusing on the specific shoulder muscles you want to work will help your neck muscles relax a bit? Also - again, this is abs - focusing on the ceiling helped me not to yank my head up (thus straining my neck). Maybe on the forward raises picking a spot to focus your eyes on will keep you from craning your neck the wrong way? Because if you keep your eyes still, you'll generally be keeping your head level, and your neck in a neutral position. Again, I don't know if it works when you're standing, but it's worked for me when I'm lying down.

Kelly, I'm sorry about your hot run last week! Heat + exertion can just be a killer. Hope you're able to run in the cool of the day this week!

Oh, also - I'm responding in posts rather than comments because it just seems to be an easier way to keep the conversations going. I hope nobody minds, and please feel free to do it yourself!

on the 30 Day Shred, Water and the rest

Kelly, I did a review of the 30 Day Shred about a year ago here.  So, I've been using it over a year now. I like it because it's really hard and very no-nonesense. And it really works. I like that you can make it harder as you get more fit by simply using heavier weights. I like that even when she has you training smaller muscles (like biceps) she has you training larger muscles (like your quads) at the same time, so that you're still burning a high number of calories/minute.  

Also, it got me to a level of fitness where I felt comfortable trying new, harder things, like trying to learn to do pull-ups and a higher number of push-ups.

Thanks to both of you for explaining the water thing to me. Like I said, I drink a lot of water just because I feel rotten if I don't, and I'm always thirsty (this has been true ever since I started breastfeeding with my first, and especially since breastfeeding twins - you don't know what thirsty is till you've breastfed twins!), so I've never really had to think through other reasons to do it.

I drink at least one 32 oz. canning jar full of iced tea (just black Irish breakfast) a day and then use the jar to drink water from for the rest of the day.  That, and a couple of mugs of coffee, and often a glass of milk - that's usually it for me for liquids. So lots of water, a fair amount of iced tea and coffee, and maybe some milk.

Kelly, Pilates has never been terribly attractive to me (I don't like exercises that put a lot of strain on my neck, which Pilates seems to, to me), but I do understand the attraction of body weight exercises. I love how push-ups and pull-ups and plank exercises change my body composition!

Emily, good for you for closing the fridge! I know. Eating is just a lovely, drug-like experience. It makes you feel better.  There's some interesting stuff in Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy about Jesus' words that he has food to eat the disciples know not of, and how doing the Father's will is is food, and how that might be more literal than we usually assume. If nothing else, it makes me think about how we turn the wrong places for comfort so often. 

Kelly, it's interesting how you've ended up finding snacking all day a better pattern than three meals a day. I do much better if I just eat three meals a day and don't snack. It makes me realize that though all of us need to be ordered in our habits and need to find a way of exercising our bodies so that they're capable of doing our daily duties, those virtues of order and care are going to be played out differently in different people's lives! What works for you might not work for me, even though it's the same virtue we're practicing. 

:) I like this blog. Do we want to share it with other folks? Inviting them to read? Curious what you think.

Questions for Emily

1) What's with the water? Is it hard to get enough? I think I must be half fish, because I can't not drink enough water. Is there a particular health benefit to more, or is the idea just to avoid dehydration?

2) Don't you know that the normal way to ingest greens is with bacon?  ;)

-Jess