Fit Mommy Friday: Some Changes

• 
• Tweet
• Sumo

• 
• Tweet

encouraging each other to care well for the bodies God has given us

My personal goal is to regain strength after a debilitating illness so that I can live a healthy, active life with my family.

Your goal may be to lose weight, look better, feel better, or run a marathon. Whatever it is, please join Fit Mommy any time, no matter what your current level of fitness is. You can check in using the comments at the bottom of this post.

I’m walking, gardening, and being usefully active for an hour or two a day.  That keeps me so busy!  So for now I’m taking the formal exercise off my Fit Mommy goals list and adding a focus on posture and core stabilization during walking.  Also, since this is the time when weed seeds germinate my hands get enough exercise picking the tiny things, so I’m dropping organ for a while. 

This was another week of over 7000 steps a day, a real accomplishment for me.  After a few more weeks, I should be able to increase that without stressing my joints!  So, all in all, the exercising is going well.

The food side of things is a different matter, though.  On Tuesday we ate an entire 9×13 iced carrot cake for lunch (!!) to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee (more about that on Monday). It was so yummy, and I felt so good…for about an hour.  After that I remembered why I don’t normally do sugar.  LOL   

So I focussed on super-healthy foods and it made a huge difference in just a few days.  Then I read a post from Wardeh of GNOWFLGINS about why she’s focussing on a radical eating program, the GAPS program.  I’d just read the book (review coming up), but it wasn’t until I linked my frequent sneezing fits with allergies that I decided to make some food changes. I’m planning to try fermented food again, beginning with ginger carrots, a recipe that looks delicious.

And Wardeh pointed out how her sneezing and seasonal allergies began again when she got stressed.  I’m feeling very stressed these days, probably because I’m trying to go back to some of my pre-illness activities without dropping anything I’m currently doing.  So this was a wake-up call to eliminate a few activities.

Here are my new fitness goals (changes marked with an asterix) and how I did this week.

Record my fitness accomplishments each day… Yes.

*Do 10 repetitions of my eye exercises 5 days a week and relax my eyes …  There’s a lot of tension around my eyes and it can change my prescription hugely within a few hours.  While I need new glasses, I obviously cannot get them until my eyes settle down.  I will continue the eye exercises but also concentrate on relaxing them.

Go for a daily walk and average 7000 steps a day … Yes:  6300, 8200, 7700, 7200, 8200, >8000? (pedometer issues), for an average of 7600. 

*Have good posture and do core strengthening exercises while walking… I only just started this.

*Be usefully active for 1 to 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, without overdoing it … Yes. Gardening now easily takes two hours a day, and I hang out laundry regularly.

Avoid sugar five days a week … Yes.

Eat lots of vegetables, including fresh ones, and yoghurt … Lots of vegetables, especially asparagus, fresh greens, and radishes, but no yoghurt.

*Prepare and eat one fermented food a week…  This week I will try ginger carrots from the recipe in Nourishing Traditions.

Relax daily…Yes. My husband bought me a zero gravity lawn chair. How absolutely relaxing it is!

*Cut something out of my schedule… This is a new goal; I haven’t yet thought of what to cut out, other than some exercise goals.

Have fun with the kids, including active fun…We gardened, read aloud, went to a concert, and enjoyed the lovely weather.

How about you? Did you exercise, eat well, and relax happily this week?

Let’s encourage each other to care well for the bodies God has given us. Please link up your health and fitness post in the comments below, and don`t forget to link back here from your post. Then enjoy visiting and encouraging other Fit Mommies just like you.

Note: Fit Mommy Friday is the Health and Fitness Check-In column of The Christian Home Carnival.