Friday, February 3, 2012

At Home Fitness! (30 day challenge)

I suppose I have a lot of explaining to do!  A few people have asked where I have been.  Well, honestly, I began to feel my blog fall out of my control and thought I needed a step back.  I love writing and my blog began as a writing exercise and really turned into so much more.  After my months away, I have decided the best thing I can do is focus on specific areas.  This blog is currently going to focus on one of my biggest passions.  Fitness.  I love to write.  I love to work out.  Why no write about working out? 

Let me tell you a little about my fitness background.  I spent most of my life as a gymnast and a dancer.  This created a desire for performing.  When I was in college I was in characters at Walt Disney world.  There I spent more time dancing and performing and generally getting a feel for the performing world.  It is its own world, I can tell you that.  Through a friend of mine from characters I auditioned for a show called Pirate's Dinner Adventure in Orlando.  She seemed to think, because of my dance/gymnastics background, I would make a great aerialist.  When I observed the show and saw what this part entailed, i.e. climbing 28 feet off the ground, hanging by my neck, spinning around in a move called the helicopter (need I really say more?), I thought she may have lost her marbles.  However, I decided to give it a go.  In one rehearsal, I fell in love with the mid-air version of dancing!  I was hooked.  I spent the next decade of my life playing aerialist to audiences of thousands between the several different shows I began in. It was a dream job. 

During that time, I had my first child, to my greatest fear, via c-section.  I had to then, not only recover my pre-baby body, but also rebuild post major abdominal surgery.  This was daunting, to say the least but I was beyond determined to come back stronger and better than I was before.  It was 12 weeks post c-section when I returned to perform back in my first show as Jane in the Tarzan Rocks show.  I had the help of physical therapists and it was by far not my best performance, but I worked harder than I ever had in my life to ensure I was healthy and strong.  I did it and I was very proud of myself for how hard I worked.  These days, everyone and anyone seems to be an aerialist and I have since fallen away from that world.

That being said, without constant access to equipment and people and, well, let's be honest, time, it became difficult to stay in that kind of shape.  So this is where I begin.

I am now 35 years old and have had 2 children, both via c-section.  Both times, the second I could move again, I was on board, ready to work out again.  I worked out throughout both pregnancies and ate very, very healthy.  I gained very little weight; 20 pounds both pregnancies.  Both children were the exact same size at 7 pounds and 19.5 in.  I only tell you that because I have had many, many, MANY people wondering if I was healthy and eating right and basically wondering if I was starving myself so I wouldn't get "fat".  That would be pretty selfish of me to hurt my baby because of my body, now wouldn't it?  I often felt pretty offended by those comments.  I can assure you, I ate a perfect diet and exercised to the extent that was perfectly healthy for my pregnant body.  My youngest just turned 3.  I was pre-baby weight both times before 6 weeks were up.  I walked and walked and swam when the weather permitted. 

After baby 2,  I was not in the aerial world anymore, so I got into P90X at 6 weeks.  This was difficult post c-section, but I was not going to give in.  I modified for my situation and pushed right on through.  After P90X, my best friend sent me Insanity.  Now that was my favorite ever!  I have now been through Insanity twice and have begun doing double Insanity.  I do run sometimes, I do lots of work on a bar in my doorway, I basically try to find cures for my boredom.

Why do I do that?  Because I do not have a gym membership and at this point, it does not seem like something that will be in my future.  I have been very proactive in finding ways to work out at home.  This includes using water jugs, chairs, therabands, trees, park benches, playground equipment, children in strollers, any number of unconventional things to challenge my mind and body without paying for a gym membership.

I thought it might be a good idea to put some ideas out there for other people who may not have a membership, may have kids, and may have a busy schedule.  I am currently homeschooling a 7 year old and a 3 year old, I am in school for medical transcription, and still run my household since I am also a frugal mama!  It gets to be a challenge, but that is my specialty! 

I am now beginning a 30 day challenge with a program called Body Rock. (Scroll to the bottom to get to Day 1 week 1.)  Yesterday I took the fit test.  I felt pretty good with my scores coming off Insanity.  I will be posting here.  It think it would be great if some of you would join with me! We can post ideas, results, whatever you want!  I think having a little system of anti-gym folks would be awesome incentive!! It is an at home thing.  I did notice you need some other pieces of "equipment" but I will  be somehow modifying this.  For instance, day 2 uses sandbags.  Essentially they are in a backpack looking thing.  I took 2 large ziploc bags,filled them with sand, used packing tape to seal them, and put them in an old backpack I got from the hospital where I had my daughter. 

Here were my results from the first fit test.  Each exercise is done in 50 seconds with a 10 second break before the next one begins. Let me preface with the first exercise being a squat jumps, I failed to write that score down and didn't notice until halfway through.  I thought it was 45, but to be sure I put an acurate score, I went back at the end to re-do it!  So the number you see is actually after I did all the other exercises:

Squat jumps: 48
Push-ups (on feet not knees): 32
Burpees: 20
High knees: 152
Switch lunges: 54
Tuck jumps (I hate HATE HATE these with a passion): 50
Sit ups (the old fashioned way): 33

Feel free to go onto the Body Rock page. Scroll to the bottom to get to day 1, try it and then come back and post results or maybe ideas or thoughts!  I would love to have some people take the challenge with me! 

4 comments:

  1. I am so excited about this. I'm sure I'll be doing Body Rock once I'm in the Navy, because I won't have time to go the the gym. Keep reporting back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's awesome girl, glad you're writing again. Just so you know, I started running about a year ago and go on long runs on the trail every weekend. Should you care to join me, I would love to have a new running buddy :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. bodyrock is great! I can always bust a sweat and I use whatever equipment I have a round. There is alwyas a body weight exercise you can sub or burpees work all the time. Can't wait to see how you like it!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, I h have gotten pretty creative over the years with alternative exercises! I am looking forward to what Body Rock has in store! Great find!

    ReplyDelete