I’ve been shredding again. The last time I only managed to last 22 days before a lethal combination of fried chicken + fatigue resulted in a swift and decisive end to my exercise plans. To be fair, it was deliciously crispy chicken with golden brown skin that was fried to perfection – the kind worth getting fat for.
For several days after that, I dreamt of Jillian Michaels yelling at me to “fight for it” as she pinned me down in a stranglehold and confiscated my bucket of Popeyes. It was brutal.
The great thing was that in those 22 days, I converted at least 10kg of fats (more or less) into pure unadulterated muscle mass. And I know this because when I sucked in my stomach really hard, I could see the faint outline of pectoral muscle definition. Oh, sweet definition, how I’ve missed you. Once upon a time before I had kids, I once had stomach muscles. Now, I have one rather large mass of soft-ish tissue.
Yes laugh away, but pop 2 kids and then we’ll trade pictures of our jiggly bits.
That was probably the only reason why I even lasted 22 days in the first place – visible results. I could feel myself getting fitter just after one week of jumping jacks and bicycle crunches. By day 10, I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out from sheer exhaustion.
But discipline is a funny thing. The moment you stop, it takes you 10 times the effort to get back on track. You either progress or you start regressing. I was down with a bout of food poisoning and after 3 days of non-exercise, all my resolve had turned into cravings for ice-cream and mee pok with extra lard. And the longer I didn’t exercise, the more difficult it got to put in that DVD again because I knew I’d be back to square one with all that huffing and puffing. Vicious cycle, really.
I just realized that it’s now the middle of August and I’ve still not achieved my resolution of completing a full 30-day shred. That leaves me 5 months to get to it.
I was doing my shred the other day and Kirsten was standing by eyeing me with interest. So I casually asked her “want to join mommy, sweetheart?” She pondered a moment and back came her reply. “I don’t need to do exercise, only mommy needs. You do your exercise very well ok.”
“Well, thanks a lot, princess. One of these days, you’ll have jiggly bits of your own.”
Guess I’m just going to start by putting on my running shoes every morning and see how far I get.
What’s your exercise regime? Need a little help here.






