@wintermom that's awesome about the kayak! @Soror I loved your pic! You look awesome! 45 minute walk last night, 45 mins of running and a little walking this morning, and will squeeze in a weightlifting session after lunch. I probably won't be checking in until Tuesday because I have a lot of family stuff this weekend. Hopefully I will get in a little swimming here and there, but we'll see how the weather goes. Have a great weekend, y'all!

Yesterday was so busy I forgot to post anything. I did walk/run intervals at the park (it was SO HOT!) then weightlifting after lunch (also SO HOT!). Wow. So far our summer here has been mild and rainy, but that appears to be over. I thoroughly enjoyed my weightlifting, especially since my new pair of 50 lb plates came! Now when I deadlift, the bar will start at a more appropriate height and I won't have to load up all my 10 lb plates. I was able to do a couple sets of 35lb kettlebell swings for the first time since Jackson came, and tested myself on some pushups and dead hangs. I think my core integrity is coming back (slowly). Today I will be walking for an hour while my oldest is in basketball practice, which I always look forward to since the surrounding property is so pretty and wooded. It's funny to have a bunch of boys playing basketball in one direction and see a big flock of wild turkeys hanging out in the other direction! Y'all have a good day!

I agree with y'all about 75 Hard. I can see why it is appealing at first glance, but the emphasis on perfection I think can be pretty harmful. Like yesterday, I didn't do my morning workout in favor of letting a fretful baby get sleep he needed. A wise decision as a mom, a failure if I was doing 75 Hard. For certain demographics, I'm sure it's motivating, but I don't need any arbitrary stress in my life, that's for sure! I had a really great weightlifting workout yesterday. We'll head to the park in a couple hours for walking/running (and biking for the big boys). I may swim this afternoon if weather permits and I get done with a work zoom call in time. UGH. ZOOM CALL. I hate those!

I did end up swimming yesterday--45 mins of laps. Felt wonderful. Apparently we are skipping the park this morning...the baby had a rough night and is currently sleeping and there's no way I'm waking him up until hes ready, ha. Weightlifting this afternoon, yay! Yesterday I batch cooked some chicken for my weekly salads. I do salad and meat for only about 3 days at a time and that seems to work well. Have any of y'all seen videos or blog posts about folks doing the 75 Hard challenge? I think it's great that it seems to get some people really invested in fitness, but the parameters of the challenge are designed primarily to be inconvenient and therefore force you to grow in the face of discomfort, rather than being designed around being truly fit and healthy. What do y'all think, if you've seen it around the internet?

Had a great weight lifting session yesterday and also a nice walk/run sesh this morning at the park. Not sure if a swim is in the cards for this afternoon--weather may be iffy but I hope so! I

@Laura Corin thank you! Thankfully I am mostly not symptomatic anymore but I know that can change so I will let you know. What a beautiful picture--it should be made into a 1000 piece puzzle!

Thank you, Soror!!! That means a lot to me, you don't even know. I don't have DR but (TMI) do have some pelvic floor issues, blah. Seems like time to heal and general, functional movements are the only things that help get all those connective tissues back into balance. It's all gotten a lot better, so I do have hope that I will one day be able to do pull ups again. I had NO IDEA what a core-intensive movement it was, or how incredibly inter-connected all the pelvic/low back/low abs/hip musculature is. Crazy! I'm really conflicted about my weight, to be honest. I am much happier with my body shape than I used to be, so yay! Still have too much "extra" in my thighs but my face looks too skinny, boo. Being at a deficit is stressful, mentally and physically, which is bad. The self-discipline and reward of meeting a certain weight goal is really great. I have trouble increasing intake a little without feeling like all the guardrails are off, but I don't want to always be like, "5 more pounds and then I'll be satisfied." So I guess I'm just trying to be as consistent as possible with my healthy routine and I'll see what happens? I am absolutely open to advice though, so advise away, y'all! I have also upped my protein a lot and it seems to really help all around. And days when I have more bread-type carbs (as opposed to fiber-y ones from veggies) I definitely have more energy. Are you wanting to stay around 120? Matching intake to exercise is so hard. Appetite is so complex. It's like--am I hungry or is it just "the eats?" Or the time of day/month? Or because all the menfolk in my house are eating? Ugh.

Walk/run intervals at the park yesterday, which was WAAAY more crowded than usual. I got buzzed by frisbees like 5 times, whee. Also swam some laps in the afternoon for about 20 mins before Jackson woke up and joined us in the pool. Today's plan: weight lifting this afternoon. Looking forward to it!

Yup...I had nausea all 9 months. If I heard to try peppermint one more time I was going to strangle somebody!!!

@Condessa Welcome and congratulations on your pregnancy and getting over the sickness! I'm also a member of the surprise pregnancy club--my son was born in November. I lost probably 90% of my pregnancy weight gain through just walking and a proper diet, so those are definitely effective tools! I hope you continue to feel better and have more energy!

Gooood morning! I did indeed have a very active day yesterday, which was great. Not a huge amount of running at the park in the morning because I kept having to stop to console a fussy, teething baby, but at least I kept moving for 45 minutes and enjoyed being in the sun. Lifted weights after lunch (reduced weight by a third and did fewer reps to ease back in) and that went really well. When I lift again on Sunday, I'll try to get back on my progressive overloading track with weight and reps. Since I have limited time these days, I'm just doing the 5 most important compound exercises: squat, overhead press, deadlift, bench press (all with barbell), and row (on a bench with a dumbbell). One day I will start working toward doing pull ups again, but for now my core is a little too wrecked still to attempt it. After supper, I took my oldest to basketball practice and then did more run/walk intervals around the wooded property for 45 mins. Unfortunately it will still close to 90 degrees out, and sunny, and I definitely felt a little queasy toward the end. Today we will go to the park again, but I may do mostly walking since I doubt I'm recovered from yesterday. Possibly a swim this afternoon, but whether or not it counts as exercise depends on whether I take Jackson in with me or not, ha! Food was a little heavier than normal yesterday (oldest son wanted chicken alfredo and we were running late after a doctor's appointment and had to pick up Publix subs for lunch), so I was pretty surprised when I got on the scale this morning and saw that I was 132, which is my lowest adult weight...ever. September will mark the 4 year anniversary of the start of my fitness "journey," and it's crazy to think how far I've come and what a different person I am now, mentally and physically! @wintermom enjoy your days off!!!

Yesterday I did walk/run intervals at the park for 45 mins, then went shopping with my mom and walked all over creation, haha. Will be heading for the park again this morning in a few minutes, hopefully will do weight lifting after lunch if my back cooperates, and then will walk for an hour tonight while my oldest son is in basketball practice. Should be a nice, active day and I'm looking forward to it! All this paddling and hiking y'all are doing is making me jealous!

Visiting family left this morning, so starting tomorrow things should be back to normal now in terms of my exercise routine. Not much else to report!

I'm glad I'm not the only one with square hobbit feet! Walk/run intervals yesterday, then on my feet rushing around all day doing food for visiting family and corraling a crawling, teething baby. We are getting a slow start on things this morning and probably won't make it to the park. I may not get in any formal exercise today as a result (no weightlifting until my back is ready for it) since family will be coming and going. That's ok--I'm doing this exercise thing like I do homeschool: it's what we do every day, year round, and when things come up, hey, it's a rest day/day off! Seems to work, ha. Food has been kind of different with entertaining family and cooking big meals for them, but I have been just eating small portions and I guess I'm doing ok because the scale is holding firm at 134 (a pretty decent weight for me). Recently I made a Budget Bytes recipe for Lemon Garlic Shrimp and Rice and it was very good! I served it with the Sesame Kale from the same site. I am always trying to get myself to eat more shrimp since it's such a lean protein and my husband likes it...it's one of the few foods I'm kind of moderately repulsed by. 🙂 Too much fishing in the gulf using shrimp as bait, I reckon. Anyways, thought I'd recommend a tasty, healthy 30 minute meal since I am always on the hunt for those! @Soror Enjoy leg day! My fav.

Morning, y'all. Pretty low key weekend as I've been forcing myself to rest my back, but I've been getting tons of steps in getting things ready for a family visit. We're headed to the park this morning, and I may try to jog a little. We'll see how it feels! My sister-in-law, who arrived yesterday, works for a podiatrist and always supplies me with running shoes. I was so happy when she handed me a new pair of Brooks! I'm still using the ones she gave me while I was pregnant, but I wanted 2 pairs so I can rotate them. It's so wet here in the summer that I need to let them dry out between uses. @Soror I hope you are liking your new shoes! Jackson started crawling this weekend, and boy is it wearing me out trying to keep him away from electrical cords and everything else he isn't supposed to touch! He is very proud of himself, though. 🙂

@Laura Corin I'm sorry you didn't get your run in yesterday! But your experience rehabbing your knee is very inspirational to me--you played the long game and took the time to work on fixing a problem. I need to think/act in those terms more with fitness. @barnwife I don't even remember having teething trouble with my other two, but this one--whew. I was so looking forward to lifting weights yesterday...tweaked my lower back on my very first set. I could tell back trouble was coming (picking the baby up out of the bottom of a pack n' play is not the best for that) but I had been ignoring it instead of handling it. Bah. Now I'm reduced to just walking to keep it loosened up. What a disappointment. I walked a ton yesterday, though. 45 mins in the morning, half hour in the afternoon, another 45 mins while my son was at basketball practice. One day I will learn to treat those little pain niggles before they get bad enough to derail my routine! Today's food: PB Fit toast, big salad with a homemade turkey burger, steak bites with roasted veg and potato in some form.

Repeated night waking is definitely a whole different beast at 41 than it was when I had my first at 30!

@Laura Corin Is running a newish activity for you? I can't remember you doing that much before, but mom-brain is real around here. ANOTHER night of decent sleep--gosh, I might get used to getting more than 5 hours at this rate, ha. Jackson is a delight, but sleeping is not his thing! We're going to sneak in a trip to the park before the rains start today, but I most likely will walk those 45 mins instead of including any running because of foot pain I don't want to aggravate. This afternoon I have weight lifting scheduled, which I am excited about. These last 6 weeks are the first time I've done a "standard" lifting program with predetermined rest times, periodization, and progressions, and I'm seeing really great results. Before, I utilized a lot of circuit training, HIIT, and kettlebell swings to include a heavier cardio element. Which is fine, but kind of muddied the waters in terms of optimizing strength gain. Plus, I have a barbell now and my husband built me a squat/bench rack, so I don't have to make exercise substitutions in my programming. Feels good! Food for today: PB Fit toast, huge salad with chicken, pork tenderloin w/ baked sweet potato and multigrain bread roll.

"long story involving dogs and cows" --I'm trying not to wake up the house laughing! Got decent sleep last night, and after a couple days of doing basically nothing (tropical storm, doctor appointments, middle son's birthday) I am more than ready to get active today. Plan is to head to the park at about 7 to try and beat the day's thunderstorms/heat for walk-run intervals. Just had some toast with PB Fit and will have a huge salad with chicken and a multigrain roll for lunch and a mango chicken curry for supper. Hopefully the park hasn't turned into a huge swamp after a full day of torrential rain. We never lost power, though! Y'all have a good day!

I don't know about Cher, but when I was doing martial arts big time, the ultimate goal was to plank for a minute. 70 seconds is a great plank!

@Soror Yep, I feel like there are too many things outside of my scope of control to have detailed goals. If I sign up for a 10k and then get injured, I'll feel frustrated and disappointed. Things like that. But with a good, established routine, I know I'm doing the best I can with the circumstances I've been given for that day. It's good to see you too! I will most likely have to have some more medical procedures done later in the summer, but I'm doing so, so much better.

Just skimmed through the thread--I have been missing you guys! After numerous health setbacks, I'm finally back in the groove after having Jackson. I've had a good couple months being consistent and making progress with my exercise routine and am maintaining at slightly below my pre-pregnancy weight. In all, feeling much better about health/fitness/eating, thankfully! No exercise going on here today (we have hurricane/tropical storm Elsa parked overhead as we speak), but this is what I have been doing: run/walk intervals in the park with the jogging stroller 6 mornings a week and weightlifting following the Stronglifts program 3x a week. Really enjoying and seeing progress with both! Getting about 14k steps a day. Eating plan hasn't changed much...emphasis on lean protein and veggies/fruit with enough complex carbs to keep my energy level up. I don't really have any specific goals now that I'm not doing martial arts anymore. I don't think I am necessarily goal-oriented so much as routine-oriented, if that makes sense? Maybe it's a function of being in my 40s, haha! Anyways, you ladies are amazing and I love all the pictures and updates.

@Laura Corin Thank you!! Walked yesterday afternoon with Jackson and my mom. I did not end up doing my PT because we had an episode of family drama with my 6 year old that derailed the rest of the day. Today I'm feeling pretty decent, so I'm determined to get 'er done today.

I did my physical therapy exercises... did not love but hey, they're done. When afternoon lessons are done, I'll do my walk. Much less sore and achy today, so that's positive!

@Soror So glad you are feeling better!