I've set a record.
Pilates socks make me happy.
Ok, not to brag, but I may have set two records. The first one is that I am pretty sure I have joined and quit more gyms (per capita) than anyone. The second one is more of a personal record in that my latest pursuit of fitness has lasted over three months!
For most of my adult life, I thought I had to destroy my body in order for my workouts to be effective. If I didn’t feel like I was hit by a bus afterward, it wasn’t a good workout. At some point, I started hating that feeling of overkill making it harder to bring myself to the gym. And once I had my son, I never wanted to do extreme workouts again — I had had enough.
However, once Brett and I started planning our wedding celebration (the original plan was canceled due to covid), I had a problem. I had a wedding dress that I bought in 2019 (pre-baby), and while I fit into it, I felt disgusting and hated the way I looked in it. Ultimately, I ended up hiring a personal trainer and started in June to prepare for my September 29th wedding. This was a very expensive endeavor, but once I did the math, replacing my wedding dress would have cost the same.
My personal training experience was phenomenal. My trainer was a woman around my age who also had a son. She understood the unique challenges women face coming out of having a baby — the imbalances, lack of awareness of your new postpartum body, and the emotional toll it can take. Having an empathetic trainer was so beneficial to me.
Fom a workout perspective, we strictly focused on weightlifting. With the exception of the month leading up to my wedding, I typically would see her 2 times per week for 30 minutes a piece. I was scared it wouldn’t be enough. However, the results were ASTOUNDING. The scale didn’t move much, but my composition completely transformed. The biggest thing I learned was that I didn’t have to workout 2 hours per day 6 days per week to have a body that I felt good in. I didn’t have to make my BPM climb into the 180-190s for it to be effective.
