Next year, an improvement on 2012, and other resolutions

When I look back at 2012 it will probably be the year that held the greatest, most positive change in my life.

I know, all of you know I am a mother by now. I have been talking about my baby (I am so in love with her) on here and everywhere. I also became a wife to a man who inspired me to become a better version of myself and who continues to inspire me everyday to discover more about who I am and who I can be. Showing me that life has limitless possibilities, the limits being only those that we impose upon ourselves. 

How can I then surpass all this next year? Now that it is a time of reflection on what happened in the past year and set new goals for the next? 

I believe that setting a goal not to backtrack on progress already made is a good goal in itself. A mistake a lot of us make is to relax once we achieve our target weight, look, fitness...after all, we don't have to work so hard anymore. Finding balance to maintain it is difficult. I intend to work everyday at finding balance.

Speaking balance, I will continue working on finding balance between family, my business, and my personal life. Being mothers and wives we tend to lose our personal identity. We become, Mrs So & So, Mama so & so. We shrink into that quiet accompaniment to our husbands and children. I am fighting to keep my identity, personal growth will make me a better wife and mother. I am proud to be Mama Njoki, and be known as the wife of so & so, but before I became all these, I was known as me. The juggling act gets tiring, but I enjoy most of it.

I promise myself not to let life affect me I have noticed that I have become more distrusting, giving my personality up to influence by the lying, thieving, hypocritical, ruthless and unforgiving society we have become. I have become more cynical,  I have become afraid of everything and nothing in particular. I have hardened my heart and found reason not to care about what injustice I see right outside my doorstep. I promise to keep my heart open and not become what society is shaping us to be everyday.

That's it for now! I hope you have an active 2013!

The fear of bulking up, why women keep away from weights...

The inspiration for this post lies in a comment I received recently when I stated I was looking for heavier weights to use at home.

There is a common but misguided belief that women will bulk up and begin looking like men if they decide to do some serious weight training. This is why a lot of women will only turn up at the gym for the zumba, or aerobics class and for the more adventurous ones, yoga. Rarely will you see women lifting weights.

The reality is, women cannot (naturally) bulk up like men. It is physiologically impossible. We do not have enough testosterone to do so. Men have more than twice the amount of this hormone, it is responsible for their masculine features (facial hair, physical strength/muscles...). What about female body builders? They use steroids and exogenous testosterone for them to bulk up like they do. As a woman, you would have to use these in order to look like that.

So why do resistance/weight training? To gain muscle...not like a man, but to become toned and shapely...who doesn't want that? And not those sissy weights the media has made us believe are made for women...they are even manufactured in pink for goodness sake (I'm guilty for starting on those as well! ) Lift the heavy stuff! Another plus is that at rest, you burn more calories than another woman who weighs the same but with more fat than muscle. You also burn more while performing an activity.

While cardio does burn fat, losing weight through cardio alone means that you will have to work harder to keep it off (that is, always performing cardio) than a person who chose to build muscle as well as do cardio.

I have also tried to encourage my mother to start doing resistance as well. It is good at any age but especially for older women as it helps maintain or build bone mass which we lose naturally with age.

One of my new years resolutions is to protect the muscle I've built, knowing how beneficial it is to my overall health. This means, yes, I will have to get those heavier weights I'm looking for.

Have happy, active holidays!

Staying motivated, what keeps me going?

It may sound like bad news to you, but you already knew it didn't you? The total lifestyle change is here to stay. There is no crash diet, it has to become a habit. It is more than just fitting into that bikini in summer, it is about being able to change your own clothes when you are a great grandma, it's about playing hide and go seek with your grandchildren, it's about keeping up...ok that might be difficult but I'll write it anyway, keeping up with your teenagers.

So what keeps me going?

1. I never had any "in between clothes". I had my maternity wear, and then I had my other clothes. About four sizes in between...I did not get comfortable, I couldn't, I looked really bad in my maternity clothes for a while, everyone complained, but I chose not to get comfortable. It was either get back to my old wardrobe or look pregnant.
And now it is to maintain this wardrobe. I want to fit into my skinny jeans, have a choice of swim suits, and slinky little black dresses. I want that, and I know it takes work. It sounds vain, but it isn't. You live in a house in which you pay for the view, you pay for the security, for the gardens surrounding it, for the suburbia lifestyle, you have to work for it. It's the same thing.

2. Force of habit
If you do something long enough, it becomes a habit. Your body gets used to it. You get a high off exercise that you miss when you don't exercise. I actually get a pinch of catholic guilt when I eat a high calorie meal or snack, then I repent this sin by working my tooshie off. I get sluggish if I don't exercise for more than two days. Do it long enough...you won't have a second thought, it'll just be you.

3. I want to inspire others
You oxymoron you!
Yes, I can hear you think it....I'm an oxymoron. You know what? I don't mind it at all. There have been people in my life that have inspired positive change starting with my little one. Without them, I would be a very different person. Without inspiration, artists would never create the master pieces that they do. I want to show you that it is possible. We have a litany of excuses here....it's my genes, I have children, I can't exercise, africans have curves....I know them, I have used them, and I decided not to use them anymore. If I slack, I expect you to tell me so, because I have made this journey public.

4. I love a healthier me

Knowing that I can possibly prevent a lot of sickness just by living healthier, and having such knowledge, why not practice it? No one likes to be sick, or suffer the physical, mental, not to mention economic effects of being sick. Being healthy should actually be number one on this list but it is not in order of importance.

Ok, that's it for now. What are your reasons?