The Great Fitness Challenge

So, if you have followed some of my ramblings from time to time, you may know that I am one of four participants in the best playgroup ever. Our kids are only separated by a month or so, we all are really compatible despite being very different, and we survived more than a few milestones together.

Of these many shared experiences, we have all spent too many hours discussing our bad body images and our struggles with the scale. Though none of us are obese by any means, we all would love to be the size we were when we were at our best (decidedly before children). Our struggles, I imagine, are shared by many women.

My own personal journey is actually a history of exercise fads. When it comes to dieting, I have only tried Weight Watchers (excellent) and then Jenny Craig (also good, and the perfect way to lose the last few, trailing postpartum pounds). But exercise is a completely different story.

My resume:

Body for Life (or, for me, one week)
The Firm (couldn’t get passed the Stepford instructors)
The Bean (fell off and never got back on)
The Abdominizer (lost my dignity and a layer of skin)
Nordic Track (never have I felt more empathy for a puppet)
Jane Fonda tapes (with Danielle, freshmen year, determined not to gain the freshmen 15)
Core Secrets (Which always prompts my husband to say, “Shhh, don’t tell anyone”)

So….where am I now? Well, my dear friend “sell-your-soul-to-the-devil-for-skinny” Susan, also happens to be a personal trainer and all-around healthy person (ugh..I know). But she’s been patiently hearing the rest of us complain, and has offered an answer: a fitness challenge.

That’s right: she has designed a fitness challenge specifically for moms, which not only works around naptime, but also our weaknesses (I am a nighttime snacker). We follow the plan and measure our success with a point system. We collect points through exercise (designed by her), avoiding our weaknesses, and drinking lots of water.

The challenge begins next week, and I will be commenting on my progress on this blog as another attempt to motivate myself. In the meantime, I have already started trying to drink the daily water requirements (64 ounces), and, after spending most of the day in the bathroom, decided a change of décor is in order.

Wish us luck…