I’ve been watching my husband transform himself into this work out warrior lately.  Usually the New Year arrives with great expectations of being in shape by the time our beach vacation rolls around.  He starts working out, drinking these turbo shakes, and bringing home stuff from the grocery store that frankly, pretty much just scares me. . . like organic peanut butter for example.  Usually he’s over it by Valentine’s Day.  This year, he’s not. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling a little June Cleaver-ish, as in, if I don’t have a cake in this house, it’s just not home.  Big I and I have been meticulously trying out from scratch, cake and icing recipes.  Last week we found one that truly rocks.  It’s a Hershey’s chocolate cake with homemade creamy peanut butter icing.  We added chocolate chips to it for fun.  It is was delicious.  I kid you not, my husband ate exactly two slivers of that cake.  When I say sliver, I mean turn it sideways and it barely exists.  Big I and I inhaled ate the rest.  Where is this motivation coming from?  To be honest, it’s starting to tick me off a bit. 

As I’ve said previously, I am having some motivation issues.  Nursing Lil C has taken off the weight and then some, so much so that I’ve had to go buy some new clothing.  I continue to watch what I eat, considering the whole gestational diabetes thing during pregnancy. And by "watch what I eat" I mean that I only eat one slice of cake instead of four.  But if I watch what I’m eating any more than I currently am, I will soon develop super powers.  As in, turn sideways, and I will disappear in the same fashion as my husband’s sliver of cake.  I don’t need to lose weight; I do need to tone up.  I’ve been looking for something I could do that would tone and tighten, and help with my karate too.  Mat suggested this workout and today when Lil C took a marathon nap after I showered, started laundry, ate lunch, read some blogs, worked a bit at my part time job and ran out of other things to do I thought I’d give it a shot.

The routine, straight from Mat’s comment that he left me on another post is as follows.  His plan is in italics; what I did is in regular type:

warm up, like 5 minutes of little jumps, or running, or cycling or whatever works for you.  Move heavy bag onto mats so it won’t make noise and wake up Lil C when I hit it.  Decide this is enough warming up, because Man, that heavy bag is. . . well, heavy.

Stretch a bit.  Sort of do this; kind of skip it because Lil C may wake up at any moment.  I know I’ll pay for this tomorrow.

Then, the fun starts.  Is he serious?  Because I’m starting to feel an overwhelming sense of dread. 

Do a kata, or a kihon, in whatever order you learned them.  Kata one, Nai Hanchi Shodan. 

Then, 10 push-ups.  (Girl ones) because really, there’s no alternative.  If there is one part of my body that doesn’t ever change, it’s my arms.  They are sticks; they do not tolerate man push-ups. 

Another kata  Kata two, Nai Hanchi Nidan

Then, 10 sit-ups  I did crunches.  I have a bad back after all.  I admit I may have lingered on the floor for an extra minute or twelve because it felt so good to just lay down.

Another kata  Kata 3, Wansu.  Think in head how much easier this kata is to do, now that Lil C isn’t taking up a heck of a lot internal space which was seriously cramping my kicking.

Then, 10 squats  That’s it?  Bring it on.  I could do more. . . 9, 10.  Yeah, I think I need a break now.  Push on, my brain says, so I do.

Another kata  Pinan Nidan

20 push-ups  Wait, did he really say 20?  20?  How will I manage to move my arms enough to even pick up my child tomorrow if I do 20?  15 is sufficient.  Yeah, 8, 9, oh 10 should be enough.  Yeah, that’s good.

etc etc etc etc.  Pinan Shodan, 20 sit-ups (I actually did these) followed by Ananku (sort of, because I’m still learning it.)  Then, because they’re short, I did each waza, broke a bit of a sweat and decided that was about enough for now.  After all, yesterday I didn’t get a shower until 10:45 p.m.  Having achieved a shower before lunch time today?  I’m not willing to muddy it all up with sweat.  I’ll save that for class later tonight. 

After 30 minutes, I swear you’ll have had enough of these. Instead of squats, you can also do kicks. Like drop low, rise, kick. Always raising the repetitions. I start with ten and usually, I get to 50. By then, I’m exhausted.  Yeah, after about 15 minutes, I was pretty much ready to call it a day.

I cool down with the bike. It really is hard. But you work on your karate, train the right muscles and you need nothing to make it work except your 4 members.  My cool down was walking to the kitchen and grabbing a nice chocolate chip cookie.  [Squints eyes and glares at internet readers who are probably shaking head and judging me] What???  It was a WHOLE WHEAT cookie.  It’s all good.

The hardest part is always deciding to do it…  Ain’t that the truth!

good luck!  I’ll need all the luck I can get, between finding the motivation, having the time (Lil C napping for more than 5 minutes) etc. etc.

I really don’t know what my problem is, but I am beginning to suspect that holding a 17+ lb. baby all the time because she just got her first tooth and "Mama, Mama"-hold-me-all-the-time-because-when-you-hold-me-I-feel-better is starting to take its toll.  Did I mention that she got a new tooth in that garbled sentence there?  A tooth, as in, she has added a new weapon to her arsenal and all I can really say about it is ouch and I’m tired and ouch.  I think that Lil C is so clingy because this tooth has pretty much assaulted her sweet little gums.  She was just going through life, happy as could be, when this tooth, this miserable sharp bugger of a tooth made its very unwanted appearance.  She’s just plain annoyed with it which is why the umbilical cord has apparently been reconnected. 

I’m sensing it’s going to be a while before the motivation returns for Lil C to sit and play without a constant stream of Mama’s affection.  I know there is a direct correlation between this reattached umbilical cord and my work out motivation.  I’m thinking that my version of the work out isn’t exactly what Mat had in mind, but maybe after a few days in a row of a shower before dinner time. . . I won’t actually mind sweating a bit.