Getting Healthy

I really never sit down and make New Year's resolutions but there is definitely one thing I need to work on this year. My lovely daughter is 16 months old and I still have yet to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. It's definitely time to stop being lazy and get my rear in gear.

My biggest challenge is trying to figure out what to do and when to do it. I tried the whole get up before Laila does but that can be really hard for me. I am not a morning person. Plus, I really want to show her how important being physically active is. I am hoping she does not grow up with the weight problems that I grew up with. So, I took a friends advice and bought a jogging stroller. Now, I am definitely not a jogger but that is my goal. I obviously will begin out slowly but I am determined to to stick to this.

I have many reasons for needing to do this all of which are very important to me.

1. I need to be healthy for me. I hate the way I feel right now. I have never been super thin and that really isn't my goal but I do not like this extra weight on me. I still have 20 pounds left to lose before I get back to my pre-pregnancy weight and I can feel every pound. The truth is that I love food way too much to ever be a super model but I do need to get back to having a good sense of moderation with my diet.

2. I don't want to have this extra weight on me when I want to get pregnant again. I hope that doesn't sound selfish. I just know how uncomfortable I was with being pregnant the first time and having extra weight to begin with isn't going to help with that. Plus, if I don't lose this weight now then after another pregnancy I'll probably have double to lose. I'm sure that any other woman knows what I am feeling.

3. I am having children later in life. I had my first baby at 29 years old. I know for sure that we want to have another one but heaven only knows when that will happen. We have a time line in mind but if there is anything we know it's that our time lines don't always matter. It took us 7 years to get pregnant with Laila and so we have no idea what will happen the next time around. No matter if it happens right away or takes a while the fact is that we will be older as we are raising children and we need to be healthy to take care of our kids.

4. I want to set a good example for Laila and any other children that come along. I know that in the long run of their lives I can't control if my children will be physically active or if they will eat correctly or not but I do want them to see the benefits of living a healthy life.

5. I grew up over weight and don't want to go back to that. I can't say I was teased or taunted because of my weight because I wasn't. I can't say that my childhood was a nightmare because of my weight because it wasn't. I can say that I was definitely self conscience about myself and my self esteem suffered greatly because of the way that I looked at myself. I always made sure I was in the background of life because I didn't want anyone noticing me. About 5 years ago I set out to lose weight and one day I just decided to do it and never looked back. I was able to lose 70 pounds and it was life changing and I became a different person in so many ways.

So, those are my reasons. I am hoping that if I get this goal out in the open then that will make me all the more determined to stick to it. Wish me luck!