I have procrastinated about doing a blog for some time now. I always felt like I wasn’t ready… the idea that maybe I wouldn’t have enough information to inspire, maybe I would lack interest and bore you to close it at the very first sentence or maybe my brain would shut off when I try to type.
So many excuses… so much time wasted for nothing. But here I am! raw and real and ready to share mine and my partners journey!
I felt like if I documented this journey I would modivate myself to keep pushing on and hopefully inspire others… so I will start by telling you about myself, my family and where I am at now.
So Hi! My name is Jess, I’m 29 years old …from New Zealand and work full time as an Administrator for my partner Nick’s Roofing company and am also a full time mama to our beautiful, cheeky and oh so snuggly one year old daughter Marley.
I didn’t always live a healthy lifestyle… I was your typical teenager who lived for the weekends…parties and drinking. I never really put on much weight as a teen so I didn’t put much thought into what I ate and because I was partying til the early hours of the morning I was fuelling myself on…well shit. Mcdonalds, kfc, kebabs, heat n eat toppers, pizzas you name it.
In my early 20s I then decided to join a gym and that is where I turned things around slowly..I was still partying but my mindset for what I put in my body (from Monday to Friday at least) changed. The more I trained the more my body craved it if I missed a session and the harder I trained the more my body rejected the smell and taste of unhealthy meals which then started to make this whole journey alot easier. I moved to Canada for a year during this time and that was when I was at my strongest.
I found it really easy to eat well and train frequently as being surounded by like minded people made it a walk in the park.
After my year was up I came back to New Zealand and thats where it started to go downhill for me. I trained still but not nearly as much as I use to and I wasn’t eating as well.
When I met my partner Nick… I was fairly fit still but being around him and his eating habits I started to take them on myself and this spiraled out of control when I got pregnant.
I thought I could keep training and eat as healthy as possible but boy was I wrong! From the early stages of my pregnancy I was sick every. single. day. I was unable to keep down anything except fizzy drink and crisps or chips which was weird for me as I never really drunk it often nor was I a big chippy fan. This killed me. The smell of meat made me naughtous, having a hot shower made me naughtous.. I felt like I was fighting a loosing battle… Then I got to five months and it slowly but surely got better and for a while there I was able to eat well again.. this is when I tried to incorporate a few training sessions in.
My body noped me again. I got Symphysis pubis dysfunction. I could hardly walk anywhere, get up without help let alone even train! I had dreamt of the first time I would fall pregnant and it all seemed to come crashing down around me.
Once Marley was born I figured I would try again… My body still hated me but I was able to still do a few things training wise.. the only problem was we had a Roofing Company and a newborn and this caused ALOT of stress on us… trying to please so many people and look after our little girl as well… I remember doing work in the hospital prior to giving birth and my partner calling clients to ease the tention… it wasn’t until well this very moment that I have realised how crazy that was….how silly that sounds.
When our daughter was 6 months old we finally moved out of our little apartment above my parents and upgraded to a townhouse of our own which at the time seemed alot better. It was a step down.. it was great having our own space our own little home but it was still small and very damp and I found us constantly getting sick.. I was stuck in a rut… not wanting to leave the house.. hardly eating and definately not training. Close to the end of living there I decided to do something about it!
A mama I follow on instagram brought out a home training programme when Marls was 11 months from memory and I started off with that. For the first two weeks I did really well then hurt my neck and fell so far off the wagon I didn’t know how to start again.
Fast track to now… our little family have upgraded to a bigger home… there is a great little garage out the front and so far we are up to week 3 of training together and eating well.
I knew this would be hard on my partner as being a tradie its hard to get yourself out of the mindset of eating on the go… and eating whatever you could find that was quick and filling for the time being. I realised to make this work I had to find ideas for his lunches and make them and plan our shopping lists for the week ahead every Sunday. The change would have been a lot simpler had the veggies not have been crazy through the roof prices but so far we have done well.
The first thing we decided was to cut out fizzy drinks and heavily processed foods Monday- Friday. The second was to train at least 4 days a week for 20-30 minutes. We have aced both. I try to think logically about doing this for example the weekends I feel its okay to have a treat here and there and at family birthdays and functions how could I not eat the delicious food thats in front of me…. did someone say chop suey *drooling*haha.
Our training consists of small circuits. We don’t have a lot of equipment which makes it a bit tricky and we don’t have a complete plan involved so we start out every week by writing down some exercises we want to do and making a circuit out of them and listening to our bodies e.g what muscles hurt and which don’t and adapt our workouts to that.
We are not perfect… but I think so far we can be proud of ourself just by the small changes we have made to make this work for us.