Workout on Limited Time

I have been a stay at home mom most of the last 18 years.  I have worked a few jobs in that span, but basically have been at home with my children.  For the last 4 years I have been a runner.  I am in the best shape of my life at the current time.  I am strong, have endurance, but I still have muffin tops and too much fat in my gut.  I am steadily moving toward accepting this.  When I work out, make mostly healthy choices with my food, drink a diet Dr. Pepper per day, drink a lot of water every day, eat a piece of pie sometimes, eat some cookies now and then, run some miles in a week, control my portions and move more, I can't expect any more from myself.  I think that is a healthy, balanced recipe for me.  If I do all of that and still have muffin tops and a flabby gut then I believe God made me that way and I should just be happy with that.  Let's face it, have we ever met anyone that is completely happy with their body?  Even when I lost 30 pounds last year and was the skinniest I have been in my adult life I was not happy with the way I look, and to top it off, I wasn't eating enough calories in a day to even feel good.  I was skinny but didn't feel good.  There is a healthy balance.  I feel great right now with my muffin tops and my flab.

I have a new appreciation for our working moms out there.  Since I got my temporary "job" driving the Blue Hairs for the retirement community, I have been working every day.  I am exhausted.  However, I have really dug deep to figure out how to get some exercise while I work every day.  It sounds glorious when you see posts from your friends who stay home and how they spent 2 hours at the gym or two hours running.  Great!  But who has time for that when there is homework, housework, dinner, baths, etc.??  These are things that kept me up at night when I first started my job.  If you want details about my new job, click here: http://funthoughtsonlife.blogspot.com/2014/02/calls-from-god-conversations-and.html

Anywho, I have several suggestions on how to get some exercise when you have very limited time.  Some days I have gotten up early and put in an exercise video to do.

This is the video I have.  I love The Biggest Loser video series mainly because they have regular looking people doing the workouts with belly flab like me.  People like me who just want to be healthy and not sport a six pack and Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a six pack but I have never had one even last year when I was too thin.  God didn't make me to have a six pack.  Another thing I like about the Biggest Loser videos is that they are 10-20 minutes long.  On days that I am tired, if I get in 10-20 minutes it is better than no minutes.  Amen.  These workout videos are also wonderful when it is freezing cold outside.  I have run many runs in the freezing blistering cold.  This winter is not one that I am running.  I have not run since my Disney race in mid January.  I will get back out Saturday and run but for the most part, I am taking a break from running and strengthening my muscles.  Today, I just finished my video.  After dinner, I went to my living room and was like Nike.  I Just Did It.  My new word is OVERRULED!  When I feel like I don't want to exercise because I am tired, I say to myself, OVERRULED!  and I just do it.

Something else I do at work is do lunges or leg lifts on the elevator.  I know it is such a short ride but I am doing something.

Instead of beating ourselves up for what we don't do maybe we should spend some time praising ourselves for what we did do.  Like do a workout video for 20 minutes.  Maybe we should praise ourselves for eating 3 donuts instead of our normal 4.  Folks, the journey to healthy living starts with one small step.  One little tiny victory.  The journey to healthy living does not mean we will all be skinny, it means we will live life making healthy choices and enjoying life.  It is not a life of constant denial, it is a life of balanced discipline and rewards.

I love The Biggest Loser.  The finale of the last series was a week ago.  I was a little disturbed by the winner's ultimate physique.  She weighed 105 pounds.  A lot of people weigh that and look healthy in their petite frames, but she was tall and looked unhealthily thin.  I looked it up and they had been allowed 800 calories in a day.  I felt like, as wonderful as she looked, it was a little bit too thin for her.  An unhealthy thin.  No one can eat 800 calories in a day and feel good.  I know because I tried that last year and lost a lot of weight doing it, but felt like dooky.  It isn't worth it.  Being healthy does not necessarily mean we will be thin.  God made us all different and all of us are not made to be really thin.  We all have our own version of healthy.

I feel a bit like today's blog is a lot of rambling, but someone must need this because this is what God laid on my heart today.  I pray that whoever needed this rambling today be blessed.  Thank you so much for reading my blog and don't forget to visit my website at www.funthoughtsonlife.com

Have a great day!!
Jennifer