A Beginner Again

After a workout hiatus, it’s always a little hard to get back into the swing of things. At least for me, even if I’m more than ready to get moving again. Taking that first step is sometimes the hardest. Progress takes time, so those first few workouts seem a bit anti-climactic. Where are my results, darnit!

But you have to start somewhere, right? So today, my husband took my daughter out to run errands, leaving me with the little guy. I thought about popping in a workout DVD and trying to fit in my First Workout In Forever. The baby was sleeping, so surely I’d have a moment to work out, right?

So wrong. The moment the kiddo senses the absence of a warm body, he freaketh out. Putting him down for more than two minutes was out of the question. So I did what I had to do. I strapped him to me and proceeded to do a few workout moves I could do with a sleeping newborn strapped to me: lunges, squats and leg lifts. The squats were fine. Challenging, and I definitely felt the burn after my three sets of 20. The leg lifts? Seemed abnormally challenging. Like my legs weighed about twice as much as usual. And the lunges? Let’s talk about the lunges. Or let’s not because I’d rather forget how foreign they felt to my legs. How my legs felt like lead. How it took everything I had to push back up to standing. I wish I could blame my added resistance-baby, but he’s only like 8 or 9 pounds and that shouldn’t make lunges that difficult!

So, weirdly, I’m trying to embrace my status as a “fitness newbie.” A beginner, for now. It’s weird because in my head I can still do all those crazy hard workouts my old trainer put me through, and I can still do crow pose. But in reality, lunges are freaking hard for me, and my lungs burn five minutes into a brisk walk. I’ll get back to my fit status, I’m sure, but for now I’m going to have to remind my brain to take it slow while my body catches up.

Have you ever had to “start over” with your fitness journey? —Erin