Purposefully Peripatetic

 

I have spent the last month deleting unpublished drafts of posts which did not pass. I even accepted for a short time that all of this is over. Writing, blogging, reading blogs and being a part of all the writers' platforms available online. 

But writing was getting difficult due to my self imposed filters. I had decided that I am not going to go down the "mommy" road. It is very tempting to write about what's constantly on your mind. And for a while, after the commencement of motherhood, your baby is the only person you want to talk about. It suddenly becomes obvious why there's an imaginary line between parents and non-parents. No matter how "cool" you try to be, you can never go back to your pre-parent days. 

I could've blogged about a million baby related things. But now that I look back, some of them were just momentarily overwhelming. 

Something that hasn't become easier with time however is, getting back in shape! I don't really subscribe to the "getting your body back" school of thought. Because I don't believe motherhood has in anyway taken away my body! It's still very much here and is perhaps more obvious now than before!

But during my experiments with different work outs, I made a really good choice. I bought an activity band. And it has changed my life. An activity band something you wear on your wrist, which syncs with your phone and diet apps such as myfitnesspal. You can put in your diet diary and your workouts and know how much over or under you are for your goal. The ideal activity goal is taking 10000 steps every single day. To put it in perspective, if I don't exercise, even after running behind my crawling son four hours a day, I manage to take only 4000 steps. So 60 % of my target activity has to come out of purpose and intention. 100 % of my food intake has to come with purpose and intention! 

I use the Jawbone UP (move) tracker. It has a computer generated Smartcoach, which keeps egging you on, without nagging you. The effectiveness of this way of losing weight or staying fit is the statistical analysis that goes on everyday about your habits. It has three sections, sleep, food and activity. It monitors all three parameters and draws charts to show you where you need improvement and where you're doing great. 

If you're meeting all your goals, there's a software generated "pat on the back". If you're slowing down, there's a friendly concern, or just an observation posted on your home screen. It's far better than actual humans trying to give you advice on how to lose weight. 

So now, if I have to walk across the street to get something, I don't just rejoice in the thought of upping my step score, I also take the stairs! I look forward to beating myself at my own game and I take weekends as an opportunity to eat extra healthy and build a bigger step score. It has given my exhaustingly busy life an amazing new purpose (yes! Even beyond all the greatness and satisfaction of motherhood). 

And on that note, let me also confess that motherhood is anything but that delicate Johnson & Johnson advertisement you see on TV. This Friday, after spending a entire day agonising over whether to take along my son to a party, I got stuck with him in traffic on my way home just before the party. And by the time I had gone through the usual drill of changing and feeding him dinner, he just decided to fall fast asleep with no care in the world for any party. So I decided to go by myself leaving him in the care of my mother. I called a taxi after a really long time. And the feeling of being in a quiet transit, with old Hindi songs playing in the taxi, wind in my freshly washed hair -- best 30 minutes of my recent life! :) 

And I still managed to miss my son all the while I was at the party!