When A Mom Needs to Workout

I had so many imaginations of being a mother. I would imagine dropping the kids at the daycare in the gym and getting my workout on. I imagined date nights away from kids with a trusted babysitter for a romantic time away. I imagined perfect sleeping babies who always behaved and went to bed without a peep. But the whole gym thing- that was going to happen.. news flash: it never did.

Here I am two beautiful babies, three and a half years later and I haven’t stepped foot inside a gym in nearly four years! It sounds pathetic but it’s true. With every intention, with every ounce of my body missing a good workout I was never able to get back into a gym setting with my husbands schedule. For almost a year it really hurt my mental health to a fault. I got depressed after my daughter was born, desperate for the moments of solitude and quietness of a gym with only my music playing in my ears. I missed the glimpse of my fit pre pregnancy body. I still do miss that atmosphere. However I’ve grown to see the bigger picture, it’s not about where you go to sweat it’s the fact that you do it.

Today, you can find me working out in my living room surrounded by toys and sometimes a crying child. I am determined to make lemonade from the lemons I’ve been given.

It’s had some advantages, too. My daughter acknowledges working out as something normal and understands it’s what I need to do. She attempts the moves with me and we bond over it. Growing up obese, yes “morbidly obese” actually..(that’s a story for another time), I am so grateful for my daughter to see being healthy as something normal, not a fad diet or a need to be thin; rather healthy.

Although I still dream of my lonely isolated workouts without drool and diaper changes while trying to stop toddlers from arguing over barbies, I am so thankful I’ve found such a peace of mind in working out and being healthy in the eyes of my children..One day I will be in the gym, and I will ache for the moments I have now.

Xoxox

Brianna

My post partum body

How can I feel so negatively about my body? See those pictures? I use to have “collar bones” showing and toned legs — the sad thing is that is the only thing I noticed about this picture when I saw it. How sad is that? How sad is it that I focused immediately on a “flaw” I feel I have, rather than looking at the beautiful little baby girl on my lap. 

How do I get over the fact my body is different? I don’t have a hard belly anymore and it drives me crazy. My face and neck have a “permanent” chub thanks to breastfeeding and hormones and it makes me sick to look in the mirror. My jeans fit but only when standing- when I sit my soft belly crumbles in them. My legs are chubby and pale with cellulite and I can’t bare to wear shorts after seeing that picture.  

I try so hard to accept my body. I try so hard to tell myself I will be confident in myself soon. I try so hard to believe that I will find my “workout motivation” again…But I feel guilty when I put my baby girl down in her swing or walker for an hour while I workout. Or I bring her to the gym and lay her down on her mat while I workout. I feel guilty I am taking time away from her to focus on myself – I know that sounds ridiculous to some of you.  And then when my husband is home I want to suck up every second as a family because I miss him every second he’s away (thank you Coast Guard). Which makes going to the gym when he’s home so hard. I don’t like leaving him when he’s home- I feel guilty about that, too. 

I need to start taking *me time*. I need to stop feeling guilty if I put myself first for one part of the day. I know I need to embrace *me time* and run with it. But it is so much harder than it sounds. 

Putting yourself first as a mom is the hardest thing in the world, and that my friends is something I truly never expected from motherhood.