I worked out. Once. Barely.

My blog yesterday got me kinda down, so I decided to shove my face into some pancakes for dinner last night.

But this morning I decided to walk the kid and dog to daycare. It’s about 2.5 miles round trip, so yay me.

When I got home, I thought, “perhaps I’ll try some situps and pushups”.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t done much of this since before I was pregnant–so it’s been more than four years now.

I seriously lay on the floor for like 15 seconds trying to remember how a situp works. Like, my body was in disbelief that I wanted it to contract my stomach muscles.

And ah…

There’s the problem.

I have no stomach muscles.

So it was not pretty. But I did do some. Poor form and flopping arms and all.

But ya’ gotta start somewhere.

The Mac Dad will make ya jump, jump

Or not.

I haven’t written in forever and a day. We’ve been busy with a couple of big things.

1. We went to New Orleans for a family vacation. Which was super fun, but resulted in five days of eating like this.

Not the place to hang out when you are trying to eat healthy and lose weight. But I did walk a ton. So that’s something… right?

2.We have been madly debating buying this land.

It’s 1.5 acres southwest of town. Out of town. Away from breakfast tacos, public swimming pools, libraries, and our awesome friends on the East Side. What the fuck are we thinking?

It’s been a lot of ups and downs–and basically just majorly stressful. It’s a big decision and a big financial commitment.

But I guess we are officially moving forward. And will eventually get to design our own home. Which will be awesome–yet again with the stressful.

So this past weekend things were finally calming down. I took the kiddo to the trampoline park for some rain-free fun. We’ve gone a few times before and it always surprises me how easy it is on my body. You’d think the bouncing would be jolting and hard on the joints. But as long as I wear the right bra and pin those puppies down, it’s all good.

This time, not so much.

This time, my ankles/achilles were like FUCK YOU. I kept stopping to stretch, but nothing helped.

Finally at the end, I moved to a different trampoline and it had way better resistance or something and didn’t bother my legs at all. I’m no trampoline technician, but I’m going to guess I was partially struggling on the first one because the springs needed to be tightened or something.

And because of my weight.

Which, oh yeah. There was some new signage at our jump park.

And it’s funny because 1) it took me a while to notice it and 2) my first reaction upon reading it was like “Duh. Makes sense.”

Until I quickly realized I WEIGH MORE THAN THAT. My 225 makes me illegit to jump.

And then the shame. Rolling waves of shame.

And wondering if I was breaking the trampoline with my fat ass (saggy springs, remember?) and if I should jump again, or somehow trick my clingy 3 year old into jumping without me.

Right.

He’s totally great about playing by himself without me participating.

Ha.

I just wanted to leave. Run away and cry in the car.

Which I didn’t. I just got really short-tempered with my child. Cuz that’s fair.

I did do a little jumping, but basically felt really self-conscious and fat the whole time. The only thing that made me feel better is all the times we’d come before and that sign WASN’T hanging.

So back to this healthy at every weight thing.

Great for you if you can dance or do Ironmans at a heavier than average weight. I still wonder what you are doing to your knees, but whatever.

And I have tried to embrace not focusing on weight, but on healthy habits.

But I like to fucking jump around with my kid. And I can’t fucking legit do that now. Or at least not comfortably–because what my self-esteem doesn’t need is breaking a fucking trampoline in half.

I actually really need to acknowledge the weight. I mean, I acknowledge I’m overweight, but my goals actually need to specifically include losing weight. I think they always have in the back of my mind, but I was trying to be more “healthy” in my mentality. Which I still think is true. I don’t want to go on some crash diet. I want to build healthy habits. But damn, those habits have to actually lead to losing some weight.

I want to jump.

I want to be able to chase my kid. Because that is one of his favorite things to do. Anywhere, but especially at the trampoline park where we have these long slippery straightaways to run down.

And then we fall and my hair does this.

And then my kiddo cracks up and his laugh is worth dying for.

Or at least worth losing some weight.

Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon

Listen to the bass go BOOM

Back in the day, I got really into this kickboxing class. I wasn’t so much into the classes where we did pad work and performed little punching routines, but I LOVED the classes where I just spent an hour beating the crap out of a bag. Yeah, those were punching routines too. But I didn’t have to worry about breaking anyone’s nose.

This was when I weighed my least as an adult. Like, post-college adult. Because now that I’m all old and 35, I’m going to go ahead and call college kids, kids. I weighed 165 and was feeling pretty fucking confident. It was right after my solo hiking trips. After I’d realized I was ready for a husband, not a boyfriend. And right around the time I met said husband. Coincidence? I think not–you feel confident, you get out there, you talk to people. Sometimes to just the right people.

Any hoot. When we saw this 30-minute kickboxing place open up near our house, the hubby and I were pretty excited. He’s ex-Krav Maga guy, so he likes to hit shit too. We decided to try it out.

Here’s how it went for me.

The setup is a 30 minute workout broken down into 9 rounds. Each round is 3 minutes, with 30 seconds of some sort of other activity in between rounds. It’s variety. It keeps you moving. And you get to punch and kick.

It starts with a warm-up: jumping rope. Luckily, I’d  worn my most supportive bra. I start slinging rope, though I haven’t jumped in years. And OMG. There is nothing like watching yourself jump rope in a mirror when EVERYTHING on your body is jiggling. I know, I know. Body positive, accept yourself. But I’m human. And somewhere in there is a shred of pride. That’s not the right word. I’m proud I was doing it. It’s ego. And this was brutal to my ego. But on I jump. And trip. A lot.

The next 8 rounds are a variety of core work and punching. I have no core. I’m pretty sure the kiddo ripped out my stomach muscles while being born. I’m actually like “What’s the alternate activity?” because I CAN’T reverse-bridge and lift up an arm. Let’s be honest, I can’t reverse bridge. It’s a reverse sag. But once again, blow to the pride ego that I have to ask for the baby activity.

This workout is way more intense than my walks around the block. I’m having to “walk it off” quite a bit so I don’t just pass out alongside the heavy bag. Meanwhile the hubby’s all “this one is an easier one.”

But damn.

It felt good to punch. And kick. And just move. My hips were all loosey goosey by the time we walked out. In a good way. Like I freed them from chains.

And to be clear, the only judgement happening in this gym was coming from me. And perhaps my husband who was mainly trying to judge if I was about to die or not. Everyone else working out was busy sweating–there was even another lady as large as me. Everyone who worked there was just supportive and offering the occasional technique tip.

I think this is the kind of exercise that many of us heavier people are scared to jump into. We think, “When I lose 15 pounds, I’ll try it.” “When I can fit into size____, then I can jump up and down.”

But as sore as I am the day after, as embarrassing as it felt at times, it also felt really good to just do it. Even if I sucked at it. Even if I looked weak and uncoordinated. Even if I spent more time catching my breath than actually working out. (OK, it wasn’t quite that bad.)

I still DID IT. I moved. And though I still don’t know everything that the body positive movement is about, I know they believe you shouldn’t hold yourself back, or feel judged, because of your size.

But for me, the real truth is in feeling all the embarrassment and self-conscious bullshit, and doing it anyway. At least that’s where it’s got to start. Because I’m not going to magically grow some confidence testicles. (ok, not testicles) I’m going to earn it by proving to myself that I can try something new, and that it’ll be ok.

Not beautiful, but ok.