Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Moving My Matter

Christmas tree hunting last Saturday
Sorry to Katy Bowman for pretty much plagiarizing the title of your book that I haven't even read (yet!) for the title of today's post. Her book, Movement Matters, looks really good, and I definitely want to read it soon, but I've been listening to her podcast recently, and thinking a lot about how I move and why I move and how I can improve both of those things.

For so long time I haven't taken as much ownership as I should for where I am physically. For the past 11 years I've spent a lot of time pregnant or nursing, and a lot of times it almost felt like my body belonged to those little people more than it belonged to me. These past few months I've been thinking about how I'm moving out of those years, and how my idea of "me" is a little less clear than I want it to be, in many ways, physically, mentally and spiritually, and how I want to move into the future more mindfully.

This last summer I had So. Many. People. ask me when I was due (it's a little insane how many people asked me). I have a really short torso, and do carry any extra weight right around my middle, so I do end up looking pregnant if I have any extra weight on me. I think I was really lucky in that my metabolism was really high when I was pregnant and nursing, so I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted during those times and stay at a pretty comfortable weight, but as soon as I stop nursing the weight starts to climb back up, because I have a hard time stopping the habit of eating whatever I want... So my weight had been slowly climbing the last year, and I finally decided I wanted to change my habits and figure out how to keep my weight where I am comfortable sans pregnancy and nursing.

But I'm realizing I'm not really all that good at the whole fitness and nutrition thing, so I'm trying to start learning more and moving more, but I want to do so in a way that is sustainable and that fits who I want to be. For now I'm not planning on joining a gym, I have always hated gyms, and am not fond of the idea of leaving my kids to go run around, and am hoping to find ways to do things with my kids instead. This may end up being a terrible idea, and I may join a gym in the future and become a gym convert, but I want there to be a way that fits me better.

I've been looking at GMB programs a lot recently, specifically Elements and Focused Flexibility, and I like the focus of the company, and that I could do those programs at home without buying any equipment, and that Jefferson and Duncan (and probably Karl as far as his attention span goes) could do them along with me if they wanted, so I think I'm going to try starting with one of those and see how that goes.

Katy Bowman also keeps telling me I need to walk more, which is very true, but I struggle wanting to go outside when it's below 50 degrees outside... Which is going to be most of the next 6 months, so I need to get over that somehow. Anyway, this post was pretty ramble-y, but I guess this is a "here is where I am, and I'm trying to make a plan to be somewhere else" post.




1 comment:

Spencer and Julia said...

I just saw that you posted and I just wanted to say how great I think you are and how glad that you are my friend. I sure wish we lived closer.