B^3

If you read my post about the day Bristol was born, you read about how my friend, Christin, and I love word play. In fact, our love of words asserts itself in pretty much every aspect of our friendship and lives. One might even say that we get a bit carried away at times. Our personal trainer, Liz, would certainly say that anyway. (Okay. She wasn't actually our personal trainer. She was our athletic friend who didn't want her name associated in any way with our fitness plans.) If Liz really had been our personal trainer, she might have advised us that we would be wise to spend a little more time implementing our plans and a little less time imagining our plans. But wow. We had some good ones!

Our junior year of college, the plan was called, "BBJ." I'm not really sure what the actual plan was, but the letters stood for, "Bikini By July." Well, if you know either of us, you know that bikinis were not really a priority at any time of year. And now, seven kids into our adventures in motherhood, we look back at the bodies we had then and think, "Why the heck didn't we wear bikinis?!"

The most memorable, and definitely the most detailed, plan was called F^5. That would be, "Fit by the Fifth Month." We were working on looking cute in our dresses for my wedding. Our final fittings would be in May, the fifth month, hence the name. (Again, my wedding dress was a size 6, so I'm not really sure what I thought I needed to get all worried about, but hindsight is 20/20, right?) There were five "f" words, but for the life of me, I can only think of, "fit" and "faithful." This plan did not just focus on our outward appearance. Along with our physical fitness, we were studying the Bible with a small group of women. Maybe Christin will comment and remind me of the other words. Oh! Sitting here trying to think of what to say next, I kind of think one of the words might have been "firm." We both also owned the infomercial workout videos called, "The Firm." We referred to the women on those videos like they were our close friends. Ah, good ol' Allie Del Rio and our fanny lifters. I have a pretty clear picture of the two of us collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles, promising Allie that we could not do another single push up if our lives depended on it. Our inability to complete the workouts was not a problem, however. We were frequently on the lookout for substitutes for actual workouts. For example, one of us read that laughter was a great ab workout. That was good enough for us! We also wanted to focus on what we put into our mouths, so we had fancy Nalgene bottles to remind us to drink plenty of water. We put masking tape across our kitchen doors after supper to remind ourselves that we didn't need to eat after 7pm. And honestly, who even knows what else we came up with and told ourselves it was all in the name of fitness? Truly, it was all in the name of fun.

There's no room for fun anymore, though. With seven kids between us, it's time to get serious. That's where B^3 comes in- "Banishing the Baby Bellies." I should probably give a little more background information here. Along with enjoying word games, we also really love a good "To Do" list. In fact, we both really love our lists so much that we've both been known to add items to our lists that we've already done, just so we can check them off. So, it should come as no surprise that this is our "before" picture:

and we've both already checked the first "b" off the list- "Birth". No matter what happens with the second and third "b"'s, if the goal is to lose those bellies, giving birth at least got us going in the right direction! If we'd really been thinking ahead, though, we would have removed all of our make-up, frowned, and hunched our shoulders for this "before" picture.

 "B" #2 is "Breastfeeding." No need to defend this one. Science is on our side this time. Breastfeeding is, in fact, a major calorie burner.

And finally, "B" #3 is "Bust a Move".  I don't think either of us owns our fanny lifters or our VHS copies of, "The Firm" anymore, but we both agree that it's time to add a little more focused physical activity to our days if we're going to be wearing our bikinis by next July (or our nursing tanks with a pair of athletic shorts). Whatev. We don't want to get too bogged down in the details. Plus, with "bust a move," we like the reference to music and dancing because of our incredible success as the dance team coaches at the Todd County High School. (We probably got that gig because the high school principal lived in the apartment below Christin and with all the racket coming from us doing "The Firm," he probably thought we'd know what we were doing.)

And if B^3 doesn't prove to be anymore effective than our other plans, I guess I'll just default back to this: