Mommy Fitness: Beyond the Plateau!

June 25, 2012

Last week my husband said out of nowhere, “You look good! You look like you’ve gotten leaner.” Later that day, I received the same compliment from a couple moms from my mom-me fitness group. The next day I decided to weigh myself (I avoid the scale since I hit a plateau) and I finally dropped 2 pounds. After nearly a month at the same darn number, the scale finally moved.

It was interesting since I had veered away from ‘diet’ for the last couple weeks. I knew I was training hard and eating pretty well – so in my head I decided, “if I eat 8/10 I weigh the same and if I eat 5/10 I still weigh the same…so why not give myself a mental break because I’m driving myself crazy focusing on progress.” I also knew that in order to get out of plateau you needed to do something different. Sometimes, eating a little more IS something different. And for me, it worked!

Now that I feel like my body is starting to streamline (meaning I’m feeling less pudgy, bloated and more defined) I am REALLY focusing on being a 9/10 on my diet. That means more vegetables, five small meals throughout the day and no snacking. I checked my body fat and I’m at a good 19% body fat. That is at an athletic percentage for women. An average percentage for women is around 25-27% but I would say since our country is more overweight/obese, the average woman is around 32-38%. (when I was a trainer, most women were at 33% and most men were at 19%)

My goal is to be around 15%. I don’t want to be too lean as it will affect my menstrual cycle – which I detest. I also like to be feminine and not too lean. Right now I still carry weight around my upper thighs and small areas around my abs and arms. I am definitely being very critical here – but it always depends who you are comparing yourself to. I compare myself to my BEST self and my best self likes to be 120 pounds and 15% body fat!

My sons have finally recovered from their sickness’ but my baby is teething and is going through the trials of pain, fevering and diarrhea. FUN. I told my sister (who is a nurse) that I am constantly tired, my eyes feel like I can go into a deep sleep at any moment and I don’t know if I’m coming down with something. She said, “You’ve been saying this for over a month. You’re tired, go to sleep.”  (I love her. She’s so blunt and straight forward.) She’s right though. I don’t remember the last time I slept for at least 5 hours straight.

This goes back to the difficulties of being a mom and keeping fitness as a priority.

I took the picture of my arms below this past weekend. I don’t train my arms a lot….maybe once every two weeks. When I train them I usually perform a couple exercises, usually biceps barbell curl and triceps cable extensions.  You have to remember that whenever you do any exercise that involves pushing or pulling, you’re always working your arms anyways, so it’s not always necessary to focus on arm training.

Same thing with abdominal training. I don’t train my abs a lot either. I plan on increasing it now that I’ve lost a lot of fat in that area, but it’s always important to remember that you are always training your abs when you are doing anything: running, push ups, kickboxing. Your core should always be engaged.

My goals this week is to drop a pound. I also want to have a 9/10 diet. I want to increase my cardio to 40 minutes and start sleeping earlier.

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1 Comment

  • Reply Aubrey November 15, 2013 at 3:14 am

    Hi Maria!! I’ve tried looking around your website but haven’t been able to find a sample daily food journal of yours. My interest is, how many calories you eat (apprx) a day, and how many calories you burn (aprx). I know every body is different, but I am just interested in knowing. Thanks!! 🙂

    Aubrey

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