I had started this “postpartum” fitness plan post back in May or June of 2018 when I was thinking it was time to get fit after having my baby in March 2018… I never posted it… And I never finished it… Let’s just take a quick read at what I was going to say…
It’s official… I can no longer use the excuse of being pregnant for my extra weight… And now that I’ve waited the appropriate 6 weeks (okay, it’s more than that… but whatever…), I can get started on getting back in shape…
Of course, as with every new project, this starts with a spread in my bullet journal. For my initial spread, I took to pinterest for ideas and found this one:
I believe I actually did make myself a version of that in my bullet journal at the time… I’ll have to dig back in to that book…
But that was over a year ago… almost 2 years ago now… And I never did “get back in shape”…
“But round is a shape…” Yes, yes, I can always find excuses for being overweight and sluggish, but I want to be healthy, and my current weight is not healthy for me. So, as I mentioned before, one of my themes for 2020 was to “de-frump.”
I left this theme purposely vague because I wanted to allow this goal to change over time, and also to give myself some leeway when making the goals to cover a lot of different aspects of my “frumpiness”… And with the current worldwide COVID-19 pandemic adding anxiety and throwing curve balls at everyone’s regular routines, giving myself some leeway is probably the best thing… Ultimately, though, the goal is to get fit and healthy…
So, after all this discussion… Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. At the beginning of April, I thought it would be a great time to start my new goal… I started writing this post then, but got sidetracked by life, and am now just coming back to this post to finish it… Anyway… I’m going to try and make these goals cumulative, so I’ll start with one or two habits or goals each week, then add on to them the next week. I’m going to start simple to get myself started with some easy successes.
April De-Frump Goals:
Week #1: (April 1 to 5) Go to bed by 10:30pm on weeknights & brush my hair every morning.
The better sleep I get, the more energy I’ll have and the better I’ll be able to tackle other aspects of my life. And I know brushing your hair every morning sounds like a given, but honestly, my hair is so straight that I don’t often *need* to brush it, and normally when I get out of the shower I just throw the wet hair in to a messy bun and forget about it. I think that putting a it of effort in to my hair will make me feel better about myself and my appearance, even if I’m not actually seeing anyone really…
Week #2: (April 6 to 12) Get up at 5:30am on weekdays & take my vitamins every morning.
If I want to have any time to myself before the little monster wakes up, then I’ll need to get up before him… He typically wakes up around 7am, sometimes we can push it to 7:30am, so a 5:30am wake up time will give me some time to be productive, either on stuff around the house, my personal goals, my blog, or to get some work done. Also, I have totally fallen off the wagon of taking my vitamins… After years of being good (especially while pregnant and breast feeding), I’m not even sure why I got out of the habit… But it’s time to get back in to it.
Week #3: (April 13 to 19) Go for 2-3 runs & drink 8 cups of water a day.
I’m going to try getting back in to running in the mornings. Since I am not “single parenting” my mornings anymore, I can totally get up early (hence the 5:30am wake up goal) and get out of the house before anyone else gets up. I think that getting some early morning exercise will help my mental health along with my physical health, and will probably help me be better focused when I sit down to work. And I’m *pretty sure* that I am drinking the required 8 cups of water (mostly in tea form) a day, but I haven’t been tracking it for a while, so I want to get back in to that too…
Week #4: (April 20 to 26) Wash my face and apply moisturizer every morning.
This is another one that might sound like an obvious one to most people, and I do wash my face most mornings, but I rarely put moisturize on my face… And I’m not getting any younger, my skin could use all the help it can get to keep from getting too wrinkly as I get older, and my moisturizer has sunscreen built in, so as we approach summer, it will help keep my paleness from getting lobster red sunburns.
Week #5: (April 27 to 30) Don’t eat anything after 9pm.
I’ve heard that not eating after a certain point in the evening can be very good for your health. I believe this is probably true for multiple reasons, but for me, the big one would be that I never eat anything healthy late in the evenings. I have heard 8pm to be the magic time, but honestly, the little monster’s bedtime often bleeds close to 8pm these days, and I typically need/want to have a bit of a snack after he’s gone to bed so I can actually pay attention and enjoy whatever it is I am eating… So I’ve picked 9pm for my time. If I’m still doing the 10:30pm bedtime, it still gives me an hour and a half between my last food and bedtime. That should be good enough to mostly digest the food…
Of course, setting goals means a new spread in my bullet journal:
Of course, now that it is midway through April, probably best to show you an updated version of the page:
These goals have been created with the assumption that we will be remaining in this current social distancing lock-down until at least the end of April, which I’m pretty sure is pretty safe to say based on all the news I’ve seen.
What do you think of my goals? Too simple? Too complicated?
Daffodil Photo by Anthony Young on Unsplash
All-Round Better Me 