The Launch

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Yes, my friend, it is time to join me in the launch. Blast off to a lifestyle of health and fitness!

All cheese aside (in more ways than one), I am now officially on the road to baby weight loss and the general reshaping of my stretched-out physique. My primary goals at this point are to be able to wear more than one pair of pants and also to be able to wear my wedding ring again. (I had it re-sized last winter before I was pregnant, and now it's too tight.)

I don't consider myself a "dieter," so most of what I'll be doing is cutting out excess. All things in moderation, right? Sweet treats and snacks are my pregnancy nemeses, so they're the first and perhaps biggest food problem. I've decided, first of all, to be careful and deliberate about when I eat. Most of my snacking problems just stem from the fact that snacks are so readily available, so I find myself muching a handful of the dreaded animal crackers just because I'm not thinking. I think I'll stick to snacking and eating whenever I feed Clara. She eats breakfast, a snack/lunch before her nap, a snack after her nap, an afternoon snack, and dinner. If I only ate at those times, I'd be much better off.

Also, I am going to limit myself to two sweet treats (desserts) per week. If I need something the other nights, I'll eat fruit or yogurt or something along those lines.

As far as exercise, I'm going to take more time to figure that out. I'm planning on taking Clara on a walk this afternoon, so that's something, but I need to realistically figure out when I could go walking by myself or go ride the bike or whatever. When I have a better sense of that, I'll let you know, but for now I am planning to either walk (by myself) or ride the bike three days a week for at least 30 minutes. I plan to do core strengthening six days a week, building up crunches, etc. Maybe I'll bust out my Denise Austin video, which has an awesome ab workout that is challenging without being crazy or painful.

So there you have it! I finished up the weekend's leftovers for lunch, and now my eating for the rest of the day will consist of one more small snack then a dinner of baked beans and cornbread. That's it! I stand ready for your report...