Fitness with Kiddos

Refining Goals, Saving Money

/ Bethany / 2 Comments

This weekend I decided to skip barbell club and go on a trail walk instead with my local chapter of Hike it Baby.  Now that the weather is cooling off, I’m enjoying being outside again, and finally gathering some steam for my walking habit. I love going to barbell club, but I know my hiking options will be more limited all winter.  Kiddo and I enjoyed the walk! And thanks to the porch gym equipment, I was still able to get my weightlifting in later. I’m very grateful to have that flexibility. Between the hike and weightlifting, kiddo and I spent a lot of hours outside on Saturday and we both loved it! One hazard of training with a kiddo: he dropped a .5kg change plate between two of the porch floor boards. Barbell math just got a lot harder! Oh well.

Earlier this week I wrote about stumbles while developing habits. I’ve been thinking about another habit that was on my list. Or rather, it wasn’t a habit, it was a goal. The goal was to save $12,000 this year, thereby finishing our family’s emergency fund (we started the year with around $2200 in this fund). This is baby step 3 in the Dave Ramsey baby steps.

Well, we were making some progress towards this goal…..and then we needed to replace our car. That setback really took the wind out of my sails on this one, and the fund has been stagnating ever since, nowhere near the goal for the end of the year.

So, I’m tweaking this goal. As I talked about in the stumbles post, there have been other goals (walking, bedtime) that needed to be changed a bit in order for me to really take off and develop the habits. I’ve decided to make it a habit-based goal like all the others, instead of an outcome-based goal. Instead of saying “get to $12,000 in the account by the end of the year,” I’m now saying “deposit $10 or more in the emergency fund, at least 15 times by the end of the year.” This will help with developing the habit of saving. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is more than I am currently saving, and once I develop that habit, I can look into saving more aggressively.

Shana Tova, all!

 

Habit Cultivation: Adults Have Developmental Stumbles, Too!

/ Bethany / 12 Comments

Today I want to offer a new perspective I am learning in my habit cultivation practice.

Whenever we learn a new skill, we expect to stop and start. We see this all around us. Babies take a few steps, then fall down. Kids ride their bikes a short distance; they don’t ride all the way around the block on the first try. When I learned to play the clarinet, I first learned Mary Had a Little Lamb, not the Stravinsky 3 pieces.

This is all normal and expected. We don’t beat ourselves up every step of the way. We celebrate every step.

With children, we also expect that each child will develop different skills at different times. Most children start to walk around the time they turn one year old. But there are some who walk at 10 months old, and fall down every few steps while they are learning. Other children crawl until they are 14 or 15 months old, and then start walking and almost never fall down.  The same is true for every milestone. Some kids meet a certain milestone early. Some late. Some kids meet one milestone very early and another milestone very late. Some kids meet most of their milestones right around the average expected time, without fail. This is all considered normal and we expect these variations. We also expect that most children will stumble many times while learning new skills.

When adults try and form new habits, it’s often the opposite. Instead of starting small and expecting to stumble a little, we start with big goals, then declare our attempts a failure and give up when we stumble. Then we beat ourselves up (either internally or to our friends). In the case of health-related habits, we talk about the fact that we started and stopped multiple times as though each attempt is isolated and separate.

What if it wasn’t? What if each attempt wasn’t an isolated and separate, but a normal part of the process of learning something new?

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Active Listening and Active Rest

/ Bethany / 5 Comments

This has been an active rest/recovery week for me. Last week I was pretty tired a lot, and on Saturday I went to barbell club and was missing pretty much every lift. The training program I was using was on a competition mesocycle with lots of heavy singles. That wasn’t really what I needed at all – I still have so much technique development to do.

My coach looked at my program last weekend and agreed that it was way too much volume. He put together a new one for me to follow. I went to start it on Tuesday and my body basically laughed at me.  I knew then that I needed a few days off to recover. Even though I haven’t done any squats this week, my legs still felt like I had. I’ve been feeling a little run down in general too. Kiddo and I both have a slight cough – I think we might be having some allergy symptoms. Appetite-wise, nothing sounds good. I’m  having zero desire to cook anything. My CSA veggies are looking sad in the fridge.

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Balancing Priorities (Weightlifting, parenting, and enjoying the process)

/ Bethany / 4 Comments

Earlier this week I visited a new gym where I am considering training this winter when it gets too cold for the porch gym.  Even though it’s a bit of a drive from my home, I was tempted to try it out, because of the weightlifting expertise of the coaches. After trying it out though, I decided to hold off on joining,  for a couple reasons: parenting, and enjoyment of training. Both of these are high priorities for me, so it is important for me to balance these priorities with my weightlifting training.

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Overthinking: Kid-Friendly Alternatives to the Porch Gym

/ Bethany / 2 Comments

Now that my health is getting back on track, and my hormone cycles are regulating, I’m starting to notice some patterns. I’ve been feeling down the past couple days, and noticing that I felt down almost exactly one month ago as well.  Right around this particular time in my cycle, my body image is low, and the weights feel heavy.  A friend shared this article with me a few months ago, and I’ve been noticing this trend in myself too (hello luteal phase!). Things in my life also seem to weigh heavier on my mind. It’s good that I am noticing these patterns, so I can recognize when things are weighing heavier than they normally would.

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De-load Week Deep Thoughts

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Today I noticed that “I don’t feel like it” feelings were kicking in. I didn’t sleep well last night and I didn’t really feel like training when I got up. I did it anyway, because I’m following a training program and if I missed a day, I’d miss the particular work that was scheduled for today too. It was a light, short workout (still on a deload week), and I was glad I did it. Take away lesson: training programs are good. Habits are good, too.  Speaking of habits, I am over three quarters of the way to finishing the goal I set this year to do 150 strength workouts! Yay me! It’s August and I’m still going strong on the New Years goal I set. That is huge, right?

Later this week I will begin the final mesocycle of the 12 week training cycle I am doing. This one is different – it’s a competition prep mesocycle. I don’t actually have a competition in four weeks, but it will be good to get a feel for what the training would be like. I’m actually nervous about the volume and time that may be involved. I’m not sure if I will be able to put in the time required, as the workouts are long and I have a kiddo whining at me. I’m also not sure how my body will respond and recover from the increased volume. I’m planning to try the first couple weeks and see how it goes. Feel the fear and do it anyway! I’m trying to remember what it was like 10 years ago when I trained for my first marathon, and we were getting close to the race and the runs were long. I think I took a lot of naps. That’s all I remember.

I actually am interested in competing now. When I first started training at the Barbell Club at my local CrossFit affiliate, and they told me that competing once a year was somewhat expected of most members, I got super intimidated and wrote back that I was not sure if I wanted to compete. Now, I’m getting into the culture and starting to understand the sport more and I think I might! A friend of mine competed in the Bay State games this year and I watched the video footage after the fact, so I could see her performance. And I was surprised to see that I would not be lifting the lightest weight in my weight class! Maybe I could do this. I don’t know that I’ll win any medals, but feeling like I would come in “not last” is a good feeling. Of course, those who come in last are still putting in a great effort too! I don’t mean to put them down in any way. Hopefully you get my intention when you read this. I was just surprised because I assumed that all the lifters would be lifting more than me, because I am so new to the sport is all.

In other news, I was actually successful at packing a lunch for work today!

 

 

Today I Finished!

/ Bethany / 3 Comments

Some days, just finishing what you set out to do feels like a victory.  Today was one of those days when, early in my training session, I wasn’t sure whether my body would cooperate. On Thursday, my body flat out didn’t seem to want to do cleans. Technique wasn’t happening. My left elbow was screaming at me and I was getting easily distracted and frustrated. I couldn’t seem to focus with my kid whining and screaming and I just got angry and then didn’t seem to recover from that, mentally. I skipped to front squats and then called it a day.

Since I was nervous following Thursday’s bad day and feeling unsure of my clean technique, I watched some technique videos as a refresher before I left for Barbell Club. Olympic weightlifting is so complex. You can work your technique for years. Every time you watch a video, you find a different aspect of your technique to focus on. This morning I went back to basics. I watched this video and determined I needed to really focus today on catching the bar in the rack position. This would protect my elbows and wrists. I also knew I needed to focus on my speed in dropping under the bar. So, I decided to work on all my lifts from the hang position. One of the reasons I have some trouble with dropping under the bar (aside from just being new to weightlifting) is that my pulling strength off the floor is very good relative to my speed under the bar and catching the bar in the correct positions…..which are not (yet) so good. So, when I pull the bar off the floor, I pull it so high that I have to catch it in the power position or even standing, because I don’t get under it fast enough before it flies over my head. Starting from the hang position would eliminate some of that momentum and give me time to practice dropping under the bar and catching it lower. (By the way, I’m not a coach, obviously. So before you take me too seriously, read the fine print.).

Yesterday I had undereaten during the day, overeaten at night, gone to bed late, didn’t sleep well, and was woken up early this morning by my Rooster Toddler. There was no fruit left in my house so my breakfast was heavier than I would have liked it to be before training. My left arm felt tight and sore all the way through – shoulder, elbow and forearm. So, earlier in my training today my body felt like garbage. I sat down to recover after every set. At one point I felt a bit nauseous (breakfast too heavy) and I was just hoping I’d get through it without vomiting. I remembered what my coach had said on Thursday though, that it wasn’t always going to feel great. And I remembered when back in my marathon days (10 years ago!) that there were some training runs when you just wanted it to be over as soon as possible. I told myself that was okay. Even if I love what I’m doing, not every day has to feel great.

I am glad I was able to stick it out today. Working out at Barbell Club without a screaming toddler underfoot made a big difference in my focus. I worked all my lifts from the hang position and focused on shrugging under the bar and catching it in a good front rack position and I was mostly successful. The practice was really helpful, even though my body didn’t feel great. I was able to do all the lifts at the weights prescribed in my program. And once I got towards the end of my clean and jerks, I knew I wasn’t going to throw up and I started to feel better. I did all my back squats and presses. I got through it and was happy to have finished because it was productive training for me. I felt better at the end than I did at the beginning. So, I felt victorious, even though it wasn’t my best day or a PR. I finished what I started, I didn’t get discouraged, and I used the opportunity to pattern good technique.

I was definitely ready for an afternoon nap, and even though Rooster Toddler didn’t take one, I enjoyed mine!

 

Just What I Needed

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Yesterday was a much better day than Thursday. I woke up feeling emotionally drained from the week and I decided to spend the day in a way that would renew and refresh me. It was my day off from work, and I wanted to have a relaxed day with my kiddo.

Last year, after an emotionally draining week, I’m sure all I would have had the energy to do was sit and watch movies with my kid. We both would have been bored and cranky by the end of the day.

However, yesterday I decided to get us out of the house first thing in the morning, before it got too hot. We would go for a walk on a trail in the woods. Then possibly hit the library on the way home for some books and movies. Then have lunch and a nap, and then I would put on movies in the afternoon while I sorted through and discarded paperwork in my house.

The day went even better than I had planned. I never even put on the movies for my kiddo. He played happily for hours while I sorted through the paperwork in the afternoon. And, for the first week since I set the goal of adding more walking to my week, I actually got three walks in.

When my husband got home, I went food shopping by myself.  Kiddo didn’t fall asleep until 10:30, but it was worth it.

Just what I needed.

 

Deload week: not every week is a PR week

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I was really proud of the PRs I set last weekend. Now it’s time for a deload week.

Perfect timing too. I was sick. I had some muscle cramps, including the diaphragm muscles, which made me feel short of breath for a bit. Like I felt when I was extremely pregnant. Luckily, I had a great doctor do some manipulation and she didn’t even tell me to stop lifting!

This morning I got a late start to lifting. I didn’t sleep well and had a hard time getting out of bed. Then kiddo wanted to nurse.

I finally got some chalk. I had been putting it off because I don’t like the feel of touching chalk. But I have to admit it was way easier to lift the bar with chalked up hands!

Reasons my toddler is crying: I won’t let him use all my chalk to draw on the sidewalk. Today is the day my husband is home from work and so I sent them out on a walk to buy some sidewalk chalk.

Life on the porch gym is pretty uneventful this week. Not every week is going to be awesome. Just par for the course when doing anything with consistency! Some weeks you make a lot of progress. Other weeks are just about maintaining the habits. Those weeks are less exciting, but just as important.

Taking the Stress Out of Training

/ Bethany / 1 Comment

This post will probably be a short one. It’s really simple.

Since I have been going strong with a training program and some healthy habits for more than 6 months now, some of my friends have started to notice and ask me questions. Most of the questions are variations of “how do you do it? How do you fit it in? How do you find time to work out with a toddler and a job?”

I’ve already posted a bunch of thoughts on this here. However, this topic is one that I thought merited special attention as it’s own post, because I don’t see it discussed a lot.

If your program is stressing you out, look for a simple change that will take the stress away.

I will give two examples of how I have done this.

  1. Change the day/time: I was following an online training program that had training days on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Monday and Wednesday, the mornings felt really full, since I also had to get my kiddo ready to go to the babysitter and get myself ready to go to work in between sets. Things felt kinda hectic….until I realized that nobody was making me start on Monday! If I started the program on a Thursday instead, I could train Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday….and never have to fit training in on the same day my kiddo goes to the sitter and I go to work. Same training program, but one simple switch made it fit into my life with more ease. More ease = more sustainable = more likely to stick.
  2. Move the equipment: I was skimping on my abdominal work, which I knew I should do, because (get this) – my yoga mat was upstairs in my bedroom and not where I keep the rest of my equipment. Really. All I had to do was bring the yoga mat downstairs, but it took me two weeks to actually do it. Now that it is actually there with the rest of my equipment, it’s easy to fit in my abdominal work at the end of my training. Now, I’m sure most people are not as lazy as I am and would just grab the damn yoga mat. However, there may be a way you can use this tip to your advantage. For example, do you own some weights, but rarely use them because they are down in the basement? Try moving them to your porch or garage where you keep your children’s outdoor toys. Then you can use them while you are supervising your kids playing outside, because they are actually accessible to you at a time when you are relatively free. Whereas, with leaving them in a separate room….well, some of us never seem to escape our kids!

Taking the stress out of your program will make it sustainable and enjoyable, and therefore you will be more likely to fit it into your life. We shouldn’t be stressing ourselves for the sake of fitness…..stress can take a big toll on our health, too!

Have you found a simple change helped take the stress out of your program? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!