2 Fast Ways to Get in Shape in 2013

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If my neighbor is reading this post right now I'm pretty sure she's thinking, Well, this ought to be rich. I'd love to hear what Lauren has to say about getting in shape this year, given the fact she has delivered both homemade ginger snaps and molten lava cakes to my front door in the past two weeks.

Look folks, my sister-in-law and I are doing a respectable job of staying with our 100 days of whole foods goal. We allow ourselves two cheats a week, and sometimes one or the other of us falls off the wagon once or twice more in a given week, but the main point is that we are trying. And the great thing about trying is that trying begets more kinds of trying. The more you try, the more you want to try.

It isn't easy to return from a year of pregnancy, bed rest, and the inertia of having a new baby. Not to mention that I have four young children and I'm still waking up in the night every few hours. I still believe in the get fit tips that I wrote about last year when I posted 8 Get Fit Tips for Sendentary Ice Cream Lovers, but my post pregnancy and bed rest situation calls for more dramatic measures. This time I'm actually attempting to get red faced and sweaty, and here's how I'm doing it:

From Couch to 5k - I love the whole concept of this work out plan. I love that it acknowledges that there are "couch" seasons of our lives, but also recognizes that that season doesn't have to be a permanent condition. From Couch to 5k  allows you to resume an active life gradually, so that it feel realistic for those of us starting from scratch. The best part of all is that it isn't time consuming. Twenty to thirty minutes, three times a week.

30 Day Shred-  I'm not a huge Jillian Michaels fan, but there is something to say for a twenty minute work out that WORKS! There is a point in the work out video where Jillian says, Some of you might be hating me right now and that's fine, go ahead and hate me. Just keep going. I pretty much hate her every time, but the promise of getting in shape for only twenty minutes a day keeps me coming back. I'm not doing both the 30 Day Shred and Couch to 5k faithfully, some days I'm so tired I fall back on my trusty old yoga video. But between these two work out plans I'm doing something for at least twenty minutes, six days a week.

I hesitated to write about my 100 Days of Whole Foods project and to suggest these workout plans because I dread being lumped together with the body-obsessed kind of people who can't talk about anything else. It's one of those self-centered and boring preoccupations that drives me up the wall. My role models are the people who get up in the morning, put in their twenty minutes or however long they choose to exercise, and then get on with the other parts of life. But my body has been through a war this past year, with all the heavy medications and the bed rest, and I am trying to feel better. I'm also trying to set an example to my daughters that health matters, not to mention how nice it will be to fit back into my clothes again. So, I'm writing about getting in shape with the thought that there must be others who feel like they've been through their own kind of war and afterward it's hard to know where to begin. If that sounds about right, then this one's for you! Just remember it doesn't have to be perfect. For most of us it probably never will be, but oh man, I feel so much better just for trying!