Phew, how has another month already passed us by? It’s a great reminder when it comes to physical health and fitness that time will pass us by whether we are making healthy decisions or not, and we might as well keep inching our way towards our goals instead of away from them.

May 1, 2013: 161# – 4w pregnant
January 12: 181.2# – 40w4d pregnant
January 15: 166.5# – 3d postpartum
February 12: 163.9# – 1m postpartum
March 12: 162.3# – 2m postpartum
March 15: Jaime died, shit hit the fan. I commence eating & drinking my way through sorrow.
April 12: 167.0# – 3m postpartum
May 12: 168.3#​ – 4m postpartum
June 12: 163.0# – 5m postpartum

My Goals for months 4-5 postpartum were:

• Track my food in MFP every day and stay within the allowed limits (I have it set at a 0.5# loss per week & it syncs with my FitBit) I did okay with this, actually. On average I tracked 5-6 days out of the week. I do need to get better about not allowing myself to totally binge & blow my allowed calories out of the water on weekends though.
• Do some sort of workouts on both Saturday & Sunday when I have Charlie around to help with the kids. I was pretty great at this overall, and we’ve even started doing family walks together again, which has been really nice. <3

I am pleased to report that I have been working my butt off to increase my activity level these past few weeks, and it’s really paying off. My average step count has gone from averaging about 4,000-5,000 steps per day one month ago to averaging 8,000-10,000 steps per day now. That means I’m literally moving twice as much in a day as I used to. Wahoo!! My goal has been to stay in the top 10 of my Fitbit friends, and I’m usually in 6th-8th place and breaking the 70k weekly steps by the end of the day every day. It feels great!

I’m accomplishing this average increase by:

• Texting with my best friend on Monday morning and laying out our workout plans for the week.
• Walking to work and back when timing/schedule allows (2,500 steps)
• Walking in circles around my bedroom at night after the kids are in bed. I walk until the next 1,000 mark, so if I’m at 8,200 I walk until I break 9,000
• Doing BIG time workout days on Saturdays. The weather has been beautiful on weekends lately, so I’ve been able to do 30-45 min on the elliptical during Harvey’s morning nap at 8am (about 4k steps), and then we’ve been doing 2 hr family walks that usually get me another 8-9k. Twice I’ve broken 20k steps in a day now, which is incredible to me!
• Doing a C210k workout on my day off (Wednesdays) with the kids in tow. It’s not exactly fun, relaxing “me” time, but it does get us fresh air and me some exercise.

I swear they had fun — except for this particular moment when Harvey decided he was hungry & Stella decided she wanted to walk. LOL. We took a break after I snapped this photo.

All of this to say it is WAY EASIER to get in more steps when the weather is nice. Thank God summer is here.

Next month I’ll be 6 months postpartum which just seems like a big month to me, so I really want to step up my goals in the food arena to help me finally cross back into those elusive 150s and feel good in my clothes again.

My goals for months 5-6 postpartum:

• Track my calories in MFP at least 6 days/week. NO GOING OVER. If I want to drink/eat more, I must move my body more.
  • My sister and I were talking last night, and we’re going to try to get back in the habit of entering our daily food the night before and then just sticking to what we put in. It helps with meal planning AND keeps me from randomly grazing because I’m bored.
• Average 10k steps/day on Fitbit 
• Be back in the 150s by July 12, 2014!
  • Those of you who have been following me for awhile know that I usually don’t advocate shooting for 1#/wk when you only have 10-20# to go (1/2# per week is more of a sustainable lifestyle change IMO). That being said, I feel like I need to hit it hard for a month to really revamp my habits, and then I’ll switch back to the 1/2# per week goal.

It feels so great to be on a roll again! How about you – are you moving toward your health & fitness goals or away from them?