Motherhood

Core Consciousness

April 27, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

More than six weeks ago, I promised an update on my journey with recovery from diastasis recti with Fit2B. I haven’t updated yet. I can’t even say that my progress is visible yet. But I do think I’m moving in a positive direction.

Challenges

I did have some difficulty staying active with the program the 4-5 days per week that are recommended. For two weeks in a row, I fought a cold or virus that seemed to lodge in my shoulders and neck and make even moving painful, let alone exercising. The first week, I decided to rest, since I knew I’d been cheating on sleep. The symptoms subsided, but returned again the week after. That time, I chose to exercise through them, and was amazed how much the gentle movements in the workout eased the tension for me.

In addition to these challenges, I had problems streaming the videos, a problem that is unique to life in China that I’ve mentioned elsewhere. This was really my greatest challenge, and I’m still finding ways to work around it. I may eventually decide to purchase a DVD instead of trying to use the online videos.

Progress

Having said all of that, I have seen some definite changes, both in my body, and how I think about my core. I didn’t realize just how out-of-shape I was in this area. Having done Pilates on and off for years, I assumed I was fairly core-conscious, but Fit2B has raised my awareness to a whole new level. When I first began to exercise, I was surprised how much my lower back was involved with my core, and how easily fatigued it became when I performed exercises that focused on the core. I became more aware of how I was moving in everyday movements that were compromising my core, from how I got up out of bed to how I sit and stand.

Here are some positive changes I have made:

am more careful when bending over
I have been able to move my concentration on and awareness of my core into other exercises, like walking or using the mini-trampoline
my back is less fatigued, generally, and I “feel” more fit
I am paying more attention to my posture at all times
I am more motivated to exercise

I realize this last item may be partly due to the fact that spring finally seems to have decided to come and stay here, but I have made some positive changes to my daily routine to ensure I’m exercising much more regularly.

I’m confident that with these changes, and finally figuring out how to stream the videos successfully(!), I’ll see the physical changes I’m hoping for really soon.

Rest

March 15, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

I’m ready for spring. Or maybe I’m just ready for a rest.

Winter came back this week, just when spring was flirting with us. I took Sprout to her ballet class on Saturday morning thinking possibly I had worn one too many layers. JavaMan told me later it had actually reached 20 degrees Celsius.

But when we emerged from ballet class, a sandstorm had blown up, the temperature had dropped and the wind was almost enough to take my feet out from under me—ah the joys of living near the sea!

I put on my reading glasses and pulled my hood on and told Sprout to close her eyes so we could keep the dust out, and I held her hand and pulled her. The rest of the week stayed cold and an even more bitter wind moved in.

But while winter has been especially long and cold here this year, it’s also been busy. Sometimes it’s hard to step back and tell ourselves it’s okay not to be committed every moment of every day. It can be even harder to communicate that to others. I recently made the decision to cut out our Friday night neighborhood ESL class. In our old, smaller neighborhood, where things were more intimate, it felt like we were doing a real service to our neighbors and making friends with them.

In this neighborhood, it doesn’t feel like holding the class has meant getting to know the parents or the children well at all, and we feel a little like a babysitting service at times. In a country where everyone is clambering for English instruction—especially from foreign teachers, the decision to rest can be a difficult one to explain.

But I am certain this is the right move. We have only two more classes before our final presentation to the parents, and then, I will rest.

What do you do to stop and rest? Is there anything you’ve had to let go of to make time for a time out?

A Journey Begins

February 22, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

This is a difficult post for me to write. On one hand, I’m excited about the journey ahead. On the other hand, this is more transparent than I enjoy being about this particular subject matter.

Before I had children, I had been underweight most of my life and had struggled with digestive health. I had been called “skinny” from the time I was born.

Fast-forward to not quite 11 years ago when I had my first child. About two weeks after he was born, I had shed almost every pound I had gained and was back in my normal clothes. The same thing happened after my second child.

Not so after my third child.

At the time, I blamed the fact that I hadn’t exercised as much during the third pregnancy as I had with the other two. But as time went on, it seemed I would never get my body back.

By the time I got pregnant again, I looked pregnant before anyone else should have been able to detect a pregnancy. When I lost that baby to miscarriage, I no longer had an excuse for how I looked. That miscarriage happened in 2010. It was followed by two more. In the meantime, my exercise routine went in fits and starts. I would exercise, get fit, continue to exercise into the pregnancy, but when the miscarriages occurred, I was exhausted. I didn’t realize at the time I was chronically anemic–just one of the reasons I wasn’t able to carry a baby to full term. In the process of digging to the bottom of the causes of these miscarriages, I received some excellent nutritional counselling, and at that time, I eliminated gluten from my diet.

Things around my middle got better, and again when I went on a candida diet in the fall of 2012, but it seemed no matter what I did, and despite renewing a routine of cardio, weights and pilates, a persistent “muffin top” remained.

Revelations

Recently, I experienced two revelations. First, I encountered Bethany Learn and her exercise program targeting diastasis recti. I had recalled reading about this condition on another blogger’s site, but it never occurred to me that this could be my problem. Her situation seemed extreme, and by this time, I was convinced that age had taken hold and I was giving up on every having the same level of fitness I had enjoyed before Sprout was born. But when I learned about Bethany’s program, and read the symptoms of diastasis recti and the information about how to check yourself for the condition, I realized this was me!

The second revelation is one of the reasons this post is so hard to write. In preparation for my launch on this journey, I knew I needed to take measurements and a “before” picture. Let me get more real than I’m comfortable with here: I am the queen of holding in. People still tell me all the time how skinny I am, although I know better (and so does my daughter, who refers to my middle as my “pillow”). For this picture, however, I literally had to let it all hang out.

But when I did, something surprising happened. While my middle is not what I want it to be, the camera doesn’t lie. The picture is not as bad as my mental image of myself. So it was obvious that I have more than just physical work to do on this issue.

I’ve committed to Beth to journal my journey to better fitness here. As part of the process, I’ll be doing the exercises she offers in her online program, Fit2B, for three months. During that three months, she suggests 10-minute workouts, four to five times per week.

I plan to check in here from time to time, with milestone updates at the six week and three month marks.

Want to join me? Click here for membership information to Beth’s online studio.

{This is a Mom Learns Too post. Sure, your kids have been learning this week,
but what have YOU learned. Link up below!}

Mom Learns Too

February 15, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

This week, I learned a lot:

the Chinese word for “intersection.” (You can’t imagine how inconvenient it was not to know the Chinese word for intersection)
how to make my own blog header in Picmonkey (amazing how inventive we can become when dollars are on the line!)
and thanks to my son, who messed around on Picmonkey after I was done, I learned a whole set of functions I wasn’t aware of

But the biggest thing I learned this week came from scripture. Last year, one of my goals was to become more consistent with daily Bible reading. I used the One Year Bible, New Living Translation. This year, my goal is to make that daily reading time into more of a listening time–to read with pen in hand, an open notebook, and an open heart. And this year, I switched to the ESV. Something about switching versions from time to time seems to let me see things in a new light.

And this week, while reading in Matthew, I saw something I’d never seen before:

Matthew 27:17 “So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?’ For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.”

Somehow this scripture leaped out at me.

I’m not sure if it’s a female trait or whether it’s universal to the human race in general, but it’s so easy to play the comparison game. A hundred times a day I see someone who has more, does more, or is better at something than I am, and while I may not wish I actually were that person, I have these niggling little feelings of resentment or of inferiority.

Maybe I’m the only one.

But when I read this scripture, I suddenly saw envy–in whatever form it comes in–as a pretty ugly thing. We aren’t told much about the wisdom of Pilate. It seems like he may have been a somewhat cowardly man, unwilling to make a bold decision about letting Jesus go, when he was obviously an innocent man.

But here we’re told that he “knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.” He saw their ugly covetous hearts for what they were. And it was that envy that led to Jesus being delivered up for crucifixion. I need to remind myself of this. The next time I’m tempted to compare–to look over at someone else’s greener pastures–I need to see that envy for what it is, and the kind of serious destruction it causes.

How about you? What did you learn this week?