Developing a Love for the Habit of Exercise

I want my body back. I want my body back without having to do all the work. I want to be able to exert myself and not feel winded. I want to be able to move around and not feel so tired. I want to be able to wear all of the gorgeous clothes I have.

I want my body back. I want my body back without having to do all the work. I am lazy. I have never had to exercise. I have never had to lose weight. I have never looked at myself in the mirror and felt such dislike for what I see. I hate seeing pictures of people who had babies around the same time as me, who didn't have all of the complications I did, with their flat bellies and their thin bodies.

The truth is, I have to do the work. I have to find the discipline. I was never really fit. I was able to slide by because I was naturally so thin that I never developed a love for the habit of regular exercise. Part of this is also wanting to do things right. I don't want to re-injure the abdominal separation, which I think I already may have done, and I want to make sure that the shortness of breath I have been experiencing isn't my lungs developing fluid on them again. I have checked on the lungs and I am not having plural effusions so I am just out of shape. (Thank God!!!)

So my plan. My plan is to start back on my pH balanced diet by eating 5 small meals a day. I did this in Abu Dhabi and it helped me a lot with losing my belly fat. So, actually, I have done this before. I also want to try going gluten free again. I have been doing a sitting aerobic exercise that is really effective. I will do this every other day and on the off days I will walk. (Hopefully I will start walking again after this week's PT appointment for my strained ankle...yes, I fell over a month ago so I haven't really been able to exercise. I could have been doing the seated ones but I was being lazy.) I also am looking into joining a fitness program at the PT office I go to. They will help me to strengthen my core without re-injuring the abdominal muscles.

I don't want to be skinny like I was when I was younger. I want to be shapely like I was 2 months before I became pregnant. My tummy was flat but I had a shape...my thighs were smaller...I want to get into my pants that I really like. I don't want to buy a new wardrobe and just give into where I am right now. I want my energy back. I want to be able to teach dance classes again. I want to be able to bend over and not have trouble reaching things because of my belly. It is important for me to remember that I did have complications that made exercise inadvisable. I did have complications that made breastfeeding not possible so there went that avenue for losing weight. I did have complications that had I insisted on exercising, could have been exacerbated. Keeping all of this in mind, I need to move forward and make the changes necessary. And develop a love for the habit of exercise.