Kermuffins

I think my free ride may be coming to an end.

I'm one of those happy people for whom breastfeeding performs as advertised: I mean, as well as nourishing my babies, it had the lovely side effect of helping me lose the pregnancy weight. And then some. (I always remembered a friend of Anne Shirley (of Green Gables fame) telling her that she - the friend - had got fearfully thin since the babies arrived, and I hoped against hope that I'd be that sort of person.) I'm not saying you'd mistake me for someone with a tapeworm or anything, but I've been cheerfully wearing a size I like without having to think about it for several years now.

Anyway, I'm starting to get my kermuffins, as a friend of mine would say. Yesterday I tried on and discarded two dresses and several pairs of trousers in my search for the perfect thing to wear to a three-year-old's birthday party; the sort of thing that says, "I'm not going to any great effort, but I can look a little nicer than my usual playground self on occassion." But my difficulty was not just in finding the right level of casual/festive/able-to-withstand-barf, but also due to the mystifying way my middle section kept rolling itself over the top of my tights. Sigh.

It's about time, really. I've coasted by on a lone weekly pilates class, when the mood strikes me and the bedtime gods are favourable, for far too long. But I'm hampered by a distaste for exercise - and sweating, and getting out of breath, and having to wash my hair more often, and so on - and a fondness for muffins. (Ker- or otherwise.) Lately I've been having stern talks with myself about the need to prioritise exercise in my life instead of finding more important all the other things that have to get in the way. Perfectly reasonable things, like procuring food for my family, and laundry, and Christmas shopping, and sitting down with a good book, and blogging.

So I leveraged my synergies, and swallowed my pride, and mentioned to my husband the marathon runner that he might like to buy me a pair of running shoes for Christmas. Because even though I have always said that I'm not a runner, when you come down to it, it's the simplest thing to do. And I thought that if I had a decent pair of shoes and maybe some nice new gear to run in, the guilt of needing to get my (his) money's worth might prod me into actually doing it.

It's funny, the first blogs I read were weight-loss and fitness blogs. Not because I was mad to lose weight and exercise - more because they were there, and there was a satisfying progression built in as I read about people getting thinner and fitter. It was almost like getting thin and fit myself. Quite the armchair gratification. Then I gave into temptation and moved on to the the pregnancy/baby blogs, which was what I really wanted to read but hadn't wanted to admit to just yet. And now here I am, going in the other direction.

Which is not at all to say that this is about to turn into a fitness blog. I will not be counting down my pounds, if any are misplaced, but I suppose I might brag about running some distance, if I ever do such a thing. Based on past experience, I'm more likely to come back here with my tail between my legs and admit that I've moved on to something else and decided to embrace the zaftig. But I'll try to give it a decent shot first. If only for the sake of the fancy sneakers and the aerodynamic new top I happened to buy myself in Kohl's this morning.