Taking Care of Momma

You hear it everywhere: you have to take care of yourself to be a better mom and wife, not to mention you owe it to yourself, plain and simple. But hearing it repeatedly doesn't make it any easier to implement. For me, parenthood was such an adjustment - with so many new requirements on my time and energy - the first thing to go was me. Between school, pregnancy, and our eventual move to Three Forks for Justin's flight program, I have been unable to dance (my first love) with any consistency for almost three years now. Without it, I have quickly put on weight, lost strength, flexibility, and plenty of self esteem. After losing a pregnancy and being forced to quit nursing last month, my body image has deteriorated further. But it has also worked as a kick in the pants. I want to be a mom - I want to get pregnant again. But I want to be excited about it when it happens. A huge part of that for me is feeling physically ready - strong and healthy. So I am determined to use last month's tragedy as a motivation to do better from here on out.
I'm starting from nothing - truly. Without dance, my physical activity has been strictly limited to chasing my son around the house. I'm in the worst shape of my life. So I'm going to do this slowly. I know myself, and if I overwhelm myself with daunting tasks, I just won't do them.
So here's the plan:
On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays I'm trying (I say trying because I've only been successful at this about half of the time so far) to get up at 6 am to head out for a walk/run. I've never been a runner, nor have I ever enjoyed running (I seriously think it was a case of PTSD from my asthmatic run-the-mile days in grade school) but I'm convincing myself that this is something to look forward to. It's actually kind of working. Those are the mornings that Justin doesn't have to get up at 4 am to leave for work, which means I can leave Drake with him and head out on my own. Looking at it as some alone time for myself actually makes it quite tempting. Mental health: addressed.
On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I am doing some at-home calisthenic exercises. A few very basic things just to try to rebuild some tone in my muscles before I attempt anything more intense.
Sundays I'm taking off.
I'm overhauling my family's diet and getting back to counting calories. It's such an important awareness step. We use My Fitness Pal, which makes it so easy. They have an app for smart phones or tablets that syncs with the website so you can update your food and exercise diary from anywhere. Justin and I are also doing a gentle cleanse this week - just veggie and liquid heavy. Avoiding most dairy.
Beyond that, I'm setting aside Drake's first nap of the day as time to do something I want to do, but it can't be tv. Blogging, painting, sewing, reading. Something that reminds me of the parts of myself I like and enjoy.
I plan to write about the whole process here. I'm looking to you all to keep me accountable but I also may need some encouragement along the way. And if any of you would like to join me, I would so love to go on this journey with someone. Even if your plan is different from mine, I'd love to hear from you. Let's build each other up!

Taking Care of Momma, Week 2 (I didn't write about Week 1, so we'll just start here):
Running plan: walk 7 minutes, run 2 minutes - repeat 4 times. Walk 9 minutes to cool down. Total: 45 minutes. Stretch!
Calisthenics plan: 10 squat/knee ups (squat down and then as you stand you pull one knee up above waist level, contracting your stomach, switch knees on the next squat),10 calf raises, 5 push ups on toes, 5 push ups on knees, 10 chair tricep dips - repeat 3 times. Neutral spine exercises on the foam roller - 5 minutes. (these exercises were prescribed by my chiropractor to help with alignment and core strength. This site has some good images and explanations of the kinds of things I'm doing.)  Plank - 45 seconds. Stretch!
Weight: 139 lbs
Self Esteem: poor. Let's just be honest. I'm struggling.

Goals:
Running: Run more than I walk.
Calisthenics: Get through a more intense workout without feeling like I'm going to pass out or fall over. I'm hoping to be able to follow the workouts at Body Rock by Week 5. They have a huge variety of workouts and they can all be done in 12 minutes, which seems extremely doable.
Weight: 130
Self Esteem: healthy. I just don't want to feel this hate inside. Ugh - you're not supposed to say that - but  it's true. And I know it shouldn't be.

Here we go!