Time is flying by and I’m now two thirds of the way through my fitness journey and only 2 months away from the big day. Wedding and, more importantly, hen do plans are shaping up nicely and it’s all becoming a reality – eek!
All this excitement has made me reflect on my own wedding, just over 4 years ago, and how I got WedFit for my own special day.
We had about 18 months between getting engaged and getting married primarily to give us enough time to save up and pay for it. We were living in central London at the time and my lifestyle and social life was very much centred around eating and drinking out. As the pre-wedding austerity drive began, I found myself desperately trying to cut back on eating and drinking in restaurants (even a few drinks after work would end up costing £30) and with more time on my hands. This was when I decided to kill two birds with one stone – save money and get fit – so I started training to do a half marathon. I’d always dipped in and out of running but never really enjoyed it and I’d certainly never run this far. But ,with a training partner to spur me on, we pounded the streets of London three times a week, culminating in our first (and to date, last) half marathon.
I’ve said it before but running does seems to change your body shape like nothing else because it works everything. At the same time, I was a member of the gym so I did a couple of classes each week – sometimes a double at the weekend. Ah those were they days when I had time to spend all morning running or at the gym! I know it sounds like I must have been a bit of an exercise buff, but I can assure you I wasn’t. There were times when my friend and I would walk to the gym and end up drinking a bottle of wine (or two…or three) and putting the world to rights instead. However, there does seems to be a crazy amount of motivation that comes out of nowhere when your wedding day is looming. I was definitely at my fittest during this time!
From about 4 months before our wedding day, my husband and I also cut back on all the carbs we were eating and made a pact not to eat bags of twirl bites every single night. I was probably around the same weight – maybe a few pounds less – when I got married as I am today. My tummy was much tighter though! Apparently the saggy skin may never go so I guess I need to embrace my post baby mummy tummy, whether there is a toned pair of abs under the saggy skin or not. And while I’m on holiday I just need to stand upright and not lean over too much – I’m sure that will be easy with two small children running/crawling around while I try and apply sun cream!
I have reached the point where I am happy with the number on the scales and have reached my goal. Now I am trying to maintain it and tone up. This has meant that I have managed to sneak in some chocolate and ice cream from time to time without it having detrimental results (perhaps it has on the toning and it does go against the official advice from my PT!) but I mustn’t get complacent, especially with the indulgence of the hen do coming up!
So I guess the point of this story is that I had a different and more time-intensive exercise regime then, but actually it’s achieved similar results. Exercising has changed too and there is much more focus on HITT (short bursts of high intensity exercises) style workouts. This is great as a time saver but they’re not particularly enjoyable – I’m learning to love them! And finally, it would be ridiculous to be more WedFit for my sister’s wedding than I was for my own so perhaps it is time I calmed down!
Random insert: The vagina story
My friend desperately wants me to mention the experience I had in a soft play this week. It doesn’t fit naturally in with this blog because I’m not strictly a ‘mummy blogger’ but here you go (just for L!)…
Here is how my Thursday went:
- Got up at 5.30am thanks to a wide awake baby
- Everyone was fed, dressed etc in plenty of time to go and vote before our play date – the polling station was in a pub. As it was 9.30am, I resisted the urge to ponder my choice over a wine (apparently they don’t serve wine in this pub anyway – that’s an indication of the standard of public house we were in
- Got to soft play – no parking
- Drive around and find over flow parking, which requires me to either leave my children in the car or carry them both for 5 minutes and up some stairs to pay car parking fee (would have been free if I’d got a spot in the actual soft play grrr)
- Carry children back to car (exercise, exercise), get buggy and go to soft play
- Take umbridge at being asked to pay for the baby so endeavour to put her on all of the toys to get our money’s worth (I don’t really begrudge her £3 fee but I was in an irreversible bad mood by this point…or so I thought
- Banged my head and hurt my neck on the not-so-soft play
- Enter ‘Vagina Mum’… A lady and her semi naked child arrive at the soft play and she is dressed in a mini skirt (and I mean MINI) and white cropped top. I could see the full exit route that baby had taken just 10 months ago. Seriously, why would you wear that to a soft play?! I know it’s very tiring wearing the Mum uniform of jeans, T shirt and converse trainers (I might also need to add helmet to mine) but it’s there for a reason, one of these being to avoid showing your vagina, boobs or butt crack to the other mums. Anyway at least the exchange of wide eyes between my friends and I, silently acknowledging the outright inappropriateness of Vagina Mum’s outfit, cheered me up a treat!
The End
WedFit Mum 