I'm Too Fat To Exercise!

I think my blogging brain is having a creative burst, after a long, dragging winter hiatus, because this is the fourth post in the past few days.

Okay, the exercise thing has not been entirely abandoned, but it's definitely suffering through a lack-of-enthusiasm phase. I was pretty good a few months ago. September, October, November, December were solid: exercise everyday except Sunday, with rare exception. But January became four to five days, and February became three to four days, and one week was only twice. This Tuesday night, I went to the rec center to work out on the elliptical for the first time in a month (my daycare schedule usually only permits early-morning exercise at home, which is what I do), and I discovered that I can't use the elliptical anymore! My legs bent up just far enough, that I kept whacking my pregnant belly. Poor baby got jiggled a lot that night! I quit after fifteen minutes, and thought, "Well, that's the end of that until the baby is born!" At the rec center, that pretty much just leaves me with using the walking track, and swimming if I have the time. But thank goodness for my Gazelle striding machine at home. I get a little bend in my knees, but not much, so at least I can still do that.

So many mornings now, I just don't want to get out of bed at 5:20am, and I say, "Well, I'll just go to the walking track at the rec center later tonight." And that only works out half the time. Hence, the backsliding in the excercising department. But I still really want to exercise, even though I'm not particularly prepping myself for a long labor anymore. I'm trying to keep it up for health reasons, and I figure if I can keep the discipline up, I'm hoping I can get back into the weight-loss thing not too long after the baby is born. I really, really want to break 200 pounds, and even more, I don't want to shop in the fat girls plus-size department any more. All the cute (and cheap) clothes are in the 14/16-size-and-under section. Oh, no, was that me being girly?! Is Dani rubbing off on me? I'm cheap when it comes to clothes (I'd only spend $30 an outfit if I could, why spend $150 for one or two, when you can get double or triple that with a little less pickiness?), so while there are certainly some attractive plus-size clothes, they cost way too much in my opinion ($80 to $120 an outfit at Lane Bryant, are you serious?!), and even then, most plus-size clothes, regardless of where you shop, are made for women with BIG chests. I have more of a pear, perpetually-five-months-pregnant shape. If I'm going to avoid the whole cheap mu-mu thing when I'm older, I'd better get on this whole healthy lifestyle kick.

Besides, I want to be around a lot longer, so I can enjoy my grandchildren (not too soon, Dani & Gil!! Give it at least ten years!) I was watching this Discovery program last weekend, and they were looking at MRIs of an obese woman, and it wasn't the fat under the skin that was the problem, it was all the fat surrounding her internal organs that was the big health risk. After losing only fifteen pounds by excercising regularly, there was a really noticable reduction in this internal fat, it looked like about 25% to me. Pretty good food for thought... there's a pun somewhere in that, I'm sure.