Want Your Body Back?

Do you want your body back? Show me a woman with kids who doesn’t. I too long for that body of the 20-something I once was. But it’s not what you think.

I can live with the now malformed belly button and the numb-to-the-pinch “twin skin” that lies below it. These post-baby remnants are why I roll my eyes at media that lure women into the myth of “getting your pre-baby body back.” No matter how fit you become I guarantee your belly button will never be the same.

I can live with the skin that now wrinkles above my knees when I flex my quads. Such a bummer to have such strong leg muscles covered by the flesh of an elephant. (Note, standing on your head will give your legs a “face-lift” and make them appear 20-years younger. I do this sometimes, just to remember.)

I can live with deflated boobies. Oh sure, they were always small. But I couldn’t appreciate the perk back then. Now I look at animal books with my son and when we come across the photo of the female gorilla I am certain of evolution. After all her boobies look like they nursed a few (or four) kids, too.

No, what I miss from that 20-something body has less to do with aesthetics. I miss not thinking about how my body might respond. As in, “At what point during my run will my hip start to hurt?” I miss the silence of a young body; of not hearing the crepitus in my knees when I take the stairs. I miss the body that was free of consequences: A back than never gave out no matter how poorly I picked something up or being able to turn my head to the right without feeling a shooting pain down my shoulder blade.

I could give a shit about botox. Unless, it could fix any of the problems listed above.

My chiropractor did not have any treatments for me that doubled as wrinkle reducers. Instead she suggested last week that I take a week off of running and any other intense workout to see if I could shake the chronic hip soreness that’s been part of my routine since... well since I started my quest to compete in three triathlons and a duathlon this summer. More running. More biking. More swimming.

Now, I know a lot of women who would reel at the suggestion of taking a week off of running. I am not one of them since my aha! moment that exercise can be more than hard, sweaty workouts. There are lots of ways to exercise, each with varying benefits, and yes, this is all put to paper in “Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom,” if you happen to be someone who needs help broadening your definition of exercise.

I decided my week off of any soreness-inducing workouts would be my ticket back in time. I would get my pre-baby body back--with new, bigger belly button!--so I could start working out harder again (with more care to the reality of the older body I’m in).

Now it’s time to confess. The no-running prescription was realistic because my mom had just arrived in town to take care of the kids while my husband and I spent four of the seven days in the wine country. 

Knowing I would be less likely to depend on a stress-reducing run since I also wouldn’t be faced with the demands of a 2-year-old who has suddenly given up naps or an 8-year-old who insists I know nothing about 2nd grade homework, made the condition of the terms much more realistic.

I could get my pre-baby body--with new, bigger belly button!--back without losing my mind. 

In fact, I had ideal non-running conditions. I took long walks with my mom and The Boy before leaving town. While I did get on a bike while in California, the 12-mile ride to visit three vineyards took 5 hours. That’s a 2.4 mph pace. I think I burned more calories lifting wine glasses to my mouth. The hotel offered free yoga, too, so I took three wonderful, restorative yoga classes in three days, opening my hips, shoulders, and finding movement again in my neck.

When you stop including workouts that would normally make you sore, you are left with this: just those places that hurt.

It’s a bummer. 

So I got a massage.

Anyone thrown a tomato at me via their computer screen yet?

While my hip (and shoulder and neck) indeed hurts less, I can sense some “danger that lurks beneath.” What I’m sure I need is another week off running, that includes another 2.4 mph bike ride while hydrating with pinot noir, long walks and restorative yoga classes. But that’s not what I’m going to get. I’m going to get real life. This is OK because I miss my kids and rather enjoy my chaotic life at home. I mean you can only float in a mineral pool heated to body temperature with underwater music so long. (Ouch. OK, I felt that one.)

As hard as it may be without living at a spa, I will try to keep up the progress toward that consequence-free body I had 20 years ago. I will do my best to engage in the therapeutic and strength building exercises and hope that I can get my new, old, pre-baby body--with new, bigger belly button!--to get me through another marathon, ride my bike more than 12 miles or carry on with my quest to dead lift one and half times my body weight. 

I might feel it. I might feel it like a woman in her 40s versus one in her 20s. But that’s what heated mineral pools and pinot noir are for.