Beautifully Awkward

So let's start from the begining...I was brought up in a small town. I was never into exercise in fact, I walked the mile that you had to do in high school. I was a cheerleader but I hated exercise.

Me pre-baby..

I lost some weight by just going out and dancing. I love to dance! After I got pregnant with my first baby I gained a ton of weight...ummm like 80lbs. on top of being already 20 lbs over weight.  You really don't realize how much you gain until you have the baby and realize it's not ALL baby. Ha ha

Yeah I know kind of a chunk but I just had a baby.....oh denial is such a wonderful thing.
...Anyways, after trying to lose weight, watching what I ate, and doing what I thought was exercise there was no weight leaving me. Finally after I was done nursing baby was 6 mths, 2 mths later (when baby was 8 mths) I started losing weight. It was not easy...Getting up at 4:30 am 5 days a week doing 45 min of hard cardio...my pain of choice at the time was the cross-trainer at the Y going at about 180-200 at a level 5 resisitance. I later added some random power yoga and body fit (a strength training class) to my routine. I say random because I didn't do a class all the time After 8 mths of working out my hardest and eating approx 1200-1500 caloris (following the old weight watchers plan back when they didn't realize that you need extra points if you work out) I was down 80 lbs the baby was now 18-19 mths old.

I ran my best time 10k time ever 1hr 8min, that's with stopping to use the potty because I have the bladder of a 2 year old very tiny tiny... I loved running and once I got past the first mile I became a machine and really enjoyed the high you get from running.

As time went by guess what baby #2 came along. I was very diligent about watching what I ate and exercising the whole time, but with medication changes I still managed to gain 60 lbs. WTF..but with a healthy baby it was all worth it. I started working out again and managed to lose 35 lbs but still had that extra 25-30 lbs lingering...Damn it...

I didn't go to the gym like a crazy person because honestly I was so tired. My 2nd little bundle of joy was a total night owl. He was always up and this mumma needed her sleep while she could get it.

Finally in 2009 I was able to sleep a whole night so I decided that I should run a 1/2 marathon. I'm not really sure what I was thinking since I had a 5 year old, a 2 year old, I worked full-time as a day care provider, taught part-time at the ymca and was doing photography on the side. Yep...you can say it I'm a crazy person...So 4 times a week I would get up with my friend and we would go run in the fun Wisconsin cold weather...unless it was single digits, that is too cold for me. Hee hee
May of 2010 came I ran and I accomplished my goal. I didn't run very fast but I did it. I went from a walker of the mile in high school to a half marathon participant.

Along comes baby #3 in 2011. I still had that wonderful parting gift of extra weight from my previous baby and I made sure to watch it again but still gaining 50lbs...seriously my body has a pregnancy weight it wants to be at and there's no getting in the way of it. I have acknowledged it and realize that there's no fighting it..with that being said here is where my journey will start again.

I can now usually sleep through the night so their is no excuse. I have 80-100lbs that I want to lose to accomplish my goal of 150 lbs. I would like to push to 140 but I know my body shape and once I get below 150 I get alittle gaunt and scary looking, but we'll see what happens. The bar is set high!!!!






Me in the blue with my besties...