Days 303 - 316: 14 Interesting Days!

31 October - 13 November

Today is November 13th. Which means I have not written any post for 2 whole weeks! What a bummer.

But in my defense, it has been a rather tough two weeks. As soon as we got back from Kashmir, I caught the flu and the husband caught the stomach flu. Just when we recovered, the little one caught the stomach flu. And just when she recovered, I caught the stomach flu! Yeah, it was messy. And I was completely spent after about 12 days of this sickness extravaganza.

But then beautiful things still do happen. Let me list out 14 good things over the past 14 days, just as a means of compensation.

1) Diwali - I was pretty sick during Diwali, so we weren't planning to do anything special at our place. But thanks to some encouragement and help from our helper, we ended up celebrating Diwali in style! All of us got dressed up, lit the lamps placed around the house, did some puja, ate sweets, took pictures and felt pretty good. Especially now that we have the little one, I really want to celebrate every festival, and am glad that we had our own small, beautiful celebration! We also attended Diwali parties at my brother in law's and a friends's places - complete with cards and other games, great food, lights and sparklers. Nett, it became a pretty good Diwali!

2) Winnings - Diwali became even more awesome because, for a change, I actually won a few rounds of Bingo (also called Tambola/Housie) and Teen Patti (a card game). My winnings are of the range of $6 - $15 only but as we all know,  it is about the experience of winning than the amount. I usually have terrible luck when it comes to these games and it felt great to be on the other side!

3) Hubby's office - The hubby, who is working in a startup that he has co-founded, had recently expanded his office. I had not been to the new office and just got an opportunity to take a look when we went there to perform a small Diwali puja. I fell in love with the walls in the brand colours, the bean bags scattered around, the ergonomic chairs and the excellent chococino from their espresso machine! It was all pretty awesome! His partner and family were also present and we had a short but nice time together, while the kids...they have a boy and we had taken our little one along as well.... had a pretty merry time themselves. It was fun!

4) Aravindum Aarumughamum team comes together - We were supposed to shoot the film end of this month but one of the lead actor's dad fell ill and he had to rush back to India. I decided to postpone the shoot but in a heartening turn of events, was asked not to do so, by the team including this particular actor. They encouraged me stick to the plan and committed to make the most of the time that we have, instead of postponing indefinitely. His  dad is better now and  we are sticking to the original schedule. We are no longer as prepared as we should have been by now, had things gone according to plan, but just the fact that the team believes in the project and wants to see it through, makes me super happy!

5) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - She is my most recent literary discovery. I am always on the lookout for interesting books by Indian authors and came across a collection of her short stories and man, she is awesome! Turned out that she is not an Indian but only married to one, yet her stories set in India give incredible perspective on the way of life there and she has managed to capture so many of the nuances typical of the country! I am definitely going to look out for more of her works, but for now, thoroughly enjoying myself reading her "East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York & New Delhi"!

6) Little one's final birthday celebration for the year! - Yes, her birthday celebrations are still continuing! We didn't really get to celebrate the event with our friends here in Singapore and hence, now that we are back from Kashmir, we decided to give them a "treat", Indian style. Even though the original plan was to treat them for brunch somewhere outside, our helper insisted that she wants to cook for the event and got me to invite everyone over! It was a rather nice gesture by her and I was pretty touched. She made Pulav rice, Gobi Kheema, Kerala style chicken curry, Aloo 65 and Baked yogurt! Everyone came over, showered the little one with gifts - including a gigantic soft duck that is now occupying half my living room, had lunch, sang "happy birthday" as we cut a really cute cake that I ordered last minute, played games and made it all very merry and happy. Thus, her birthday celebrations for the year came to an end with this last round of small, beautiful gathering! Wishing her many, many, many more!

7) Kitchen & Cooking - Cooking is a rather rare activity for me. But for the little one's birthday celebration, when the helper said that she would like to cook for everyone, I decided that I need to help out as well. So after a long hiatus, I was back in the kitchen and was given the task of making baked yogurt dessert. And I enjoyed that - figuring out the mix, decorating with different types of jams, packing it all up in tiny serving cups for refrigeration and finally serving them all with relish, all under her able supervision, of course. Post baked yogurt, I even grated a ton of cauliflower for the gobi kheema, which made me feel like a pro! Totally awesome!

8) A good cause - I managed to raise some funds for a family back in my hometown. The husband is suffering from kidney failure and requires transplant and the wife is the donor. This puts them in a pretty tough situation with both being out of job, with three kids and hefty bills to pay and debts to clear off. When my mom told me about this, I did my best to spread the word and collect some funds to help them. I guess one is supposed to do these things selflessly but I would be lying if I say that it didn't make me feel good. Because, it did.

9) Kashmir blogs - Even though I was sick, I did manage to write the blogs on the Kashmir travel in detail. Initially I was planning to put a couple of pictures and get done with it, but then decided against it. That gorgeous place deserves every bit of writing about it and am glad I took that trouble. Now all the details could be forever remembered. Also, after reading the blog, quite a number of people said they will be planning trips to Kashmir and that makes me happy, because the locals thrive on tourism and due to the tensions in the region, are in quite a bad situation. So the more tourists, the better for them!

10) Yoga record - Including what I managed over the last couple of days, I have now done 60 days of yoga this year, which is kind of a personal record for me! The previous highest was 59 in 2011. I know 60 doesn't sound like a lot but each yoga class takes 3 hours including commute, so am glad I managed so much.

11) Exercise record - This also brings the total number of days I exercised this year to a grand total of 150 - 50% more than my target and 20% more than my highest annual number ever! I will do another check at the end of Dec, but I already feel pretty good about this.

12) Lost a kilo - am not sure whether it is the effect of the exercise or just the sickness, but looks like I have dropped a kilo. Even though am no longer too hung about the extra weight am retaining post pregnancy, it felt good when the scale showed an unexpected drop. Let's see how long this will be maintained!

13) Little one's tricks - The little one is becoming quite an entertaining person to watch every day. She goes into these melodramatic acting sequences - it is like watching a Tamil movie from the 70s. She screams, stretches, quivers, pops her eyes, rolls over, sticks her tongue out and end it all with her toothless grin. She has also now figured out how to use the iPhone and iPad - switching the main button, swiping it on, glancing through the pictures, playing games and so on. I never thought that it would be this fascinating to watch kids on their discovery journey. She also imitates every single thing - if I "shush" her, she does the same to me. If I talk on the phone, she pretends to talk on the phone. If I pretend to go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, she will go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. What fun! Plus her first words are out - "amma", "ta ta", "nah".

14) Transcendental Meditation - And last but not the least I have discovered transcendental meditation. This simple but rather fulfilling method has really got me hooked! Hoping that it would turn into a regular practice now.

And with that - I conclude on the last 14 days. I was sick through most of it, but it definitely wasn't bad at all. Thank God for that!

Day 255 - 263: Ideas, Messages, Films and Personal Records!

13 - 21 September, 2013

When I had started to write this blog, my aim was to complete at least 1 blog per week. Clearly, that's not happening. Not because I am not getting enough good stuff to talk about every single day, but because I am up until my nose with things to do. Work's super hectic, am trying to squeeze in as many days of exercise and as much time with the little one as possible and she, even in her tenth month of existence, refuses to sleep through a night without getting up at least four times, which is tiring me out! So when I get back home after work, all I want to do is catch up as much on sleep as possible.

But there's been progress in my life over the past few days and am going to do a quick summary of highlights:

1) I have broken my own personal record for the number of days I exercise. In my very obsessive, compulsive manner, I have been counting the number of days I exercise in a year, right from 2010. The highest so far was 126 days in 2011. This includes yoga, walking, dancing, cycling, swimming, jogging, DVD workouts, anything of the sort. Now am super proud to announce that as of today, I have exercised 132 days in total for this year and we are still only in September! I must also note that this is way higher than the 100 days I had as part of my 2013 resolutions. SO awesome!

2) It is probably all that exercise but it looks like I am no longer at my heaviest nor my largest. It is still a long way to go until pre-pregnancy levels but am very happy with the progress.

3) I have struck upon an idea for a sitcom in Malayalam, and am pretty excited about that. I have a name, a theme, character outlines and even the storyline for a couple of episodes. I shared the thought with a friend, who is also one of my regular actors, and he was pretty excited about the whole thing too! This could be my next project, maybe, but what's exciting is this stage of being struck by a brand new idea and developing it in my head!

4) Interestingly enough, I have also struck upon an idea for another short film. Maybe I will write this one out soon and it can be added on to my pile of will-make-it-some-time-in-the-future scripts.

5) A few lovely people, unrelated to each other and unknown to me until now, wrote me rather nice messages. Few, after watching Mausams, and the others after reading these blogs. I always feel pretty thankful when people take the trouble to do that and of course, getting any kind of encouragement for these things is one of the key reasons why I can keep up the drive to continue making films or continue writing this blog. So thank you folks, it is very much appreciated!

6) Work is getting more and more hectic by the day and surprisingly enough, am still enjoying it! That's always a good thing!

7) I have also managed to meditate more number of days than I thought I would. It is still not everyday...for some reason I get rather sleepy by the time the little one hits the bed at night (which is already well past ten or in many cases, even 11) and end up not meditating. But I do hope to make it even more frequent and turn it into a habit, even. But so far, so good.

8) We have also resumed rehearsals of Aravindum Aarumughamum after a gap of a month. We have had a couple of rehearsals so far and I am happy to see that it is coming together very nicely. Slowly but steadily!

9) Last but not the least, Inganeyum Oru Katha has managed to cross 150,000 views on Youtube! Who would've thought!

Day 200: The Story Before 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag'!

It all started with me feeling completely torn within, on a Friday. 

On one hand, I badly wanted to go for hot yoga because I had not done any yoga the entire week. Note that  this doesn't mean that I didn't exercise. In fact, I had exercised every single day of the week with kickboxing, cycling and circuit training but was not satisfied only because I had not hit yoga. In fact, I felt rather overly miserable about it. 

On the other hand, I felt exhausted - probably from working out too much, lack of sleep and increasing workload on my new assignment at work - and all I wanted was to go watch a movie  with my parents, and then go home and sleep. 

The only movie worth watching was the Hindi film 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' - which had pretty good reviews but was slammed for being more than 3 hours long. If I were to watch the film, then yoga is definitely out of the window. 

So I kept thinking and thinking about it through the day. Yoga or movie? Yoga or movie? 

And then it struck me. Why am I being so hard on myself?! 

When I started this year, I had set some expectations for myself. One of them was to exercise 100 days in the year out of which 50 days should be hot yoga, because that is my golden standard for exercise. I had thought then that this is a good target to hit, given that I have a baby, a job and I have other goals like travelling, writing scripts, spending time with family etc. Even when I didn't have a baby, the max I have exercised in a year was for 124 days in 2011 (yes, I keep track of everything). So 100 days this year was a reasonable goal. 

Now, the fact is that I already completed these 100 days by Jul 18th of this year - i.e. with 4.5 months to spare - our of which I had done 48 days of yoga! That, I believe, should be something I should feel insanely good about. Instead, here I was, turning into a complete mental wreck simply because I couldn't decide between yoga and film with my parents, on this one day! 

Once the above realization hit me, it was easy. I skipped yoga, and I went for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, the supper that followed, and the evening of relaxation. I felt it was well deserved, and I felt happy. 

Sometimes it is good to cut oneself some slack!

Days 194 - 199: Kickboxing, Cycling, Poster, Friends & Family!

I just realized that I have not written a post for an entire week almost! Just about missed my promise of writing a weekly post! Blah!

But then, that's how busy I've been.

Quick list of one highlight per day:

1) On 13th July - I had the most wonderful evening with our usual gang of close friends coming over to our place. First the hubby and a friend went for tennis, then all of us went to the pool together with the little one and everyone one had a ball swimming or watching her trying to swim. Then a few took a steambath and that was followed by drinks, dinner and a LOT of mindless conversation. We hadn't done something like this in ages, and it was great fun!

2) On 14th July - After introducing the parents to Din Tai Fung where authentic Chinese food was served, it was time for enjoying Ichiban Boshi, where authentic Japanese is served. Just like how they loved the former, they loved the latter too! The excitement over wasabi, edamame, miso soup, sushi and katsu don was infectious!

3) On 15th July - Another partner workout - this time with kickboxing! Super fun!

4) On 16th July - As of today, I have completed 100 days of exercise for this year! That was the target I had set for myself at the beginning of the year, taking into consideration my new found role of a mother and the demands of having to juggle exercise with work, family and leisure. But I had never expected to complete this within just 6.5 months of the year! So proud and happy!  

5) On 17th July - I made the teaser poster for "Aravindum Aarumughamum", by accident. Yup. It all started when I was doodling on my iPad, using an app called 'Sketchpad' for those of you who want the details, to make a reference sketch for the poster. I wanted a illustrated, minimalist poster for the film and I was planning to sketch out my idea for it and send it to a friend who had promised to help me with the actual illustration. After completing the doodle, I asked the hubby what he thought of it. He said the doodle, with its crooked lines and uneven blotches here and there, serves the purpose of a teaser poster just as it is. First, I was surprised by that reaction and didn't think much of it. But with his encouragement, soon I was convinced that instead of being just a reference, this could actually be the teaser poster for the film. And thus the first publicity material, a teaser poster, for my new short film "Aravindum Aarumughamum" was released! (And by "release", I mean, it was put up on Facebook). Yay!

6) On 18th July - I took on cycling again. For those of you who had followed my 1000-day blog, you would know that cycling is an activity I had picked up only last year. It was one of the things to do on my before-30 list and I got to it with just 9 months to spare. But as soon as I pretty much got the hang of it, I discovered that I am pregnant. Since then my bike had been lying discarded in the storeroom. I didn't get back on it for this long because I wasn't sure how it would work with the pelvic pain I had sustained post pregnancy. But now that the pain's almost all gone, I got back on the bike today. After a lot of nervousness and some initial fumbling, I could ride it! Sure, I still need to get more controlled but it was great to be able to ride a few hundred metres without breaking any bones! Special thanks to my dad who was my teacher for the day!

Few happy days! 

Day 186: Four Weeks of the Regime!

A few months ago, with great pomp and show, I had talked about starting on a Diet & Exercise Regime. I even wrote a happy update 10 days later where I had apparently lost 3 inches.

The reason why there were no updates post that was because, well.... I didn't follow the so called regime afterwards. Maternity leave ended, sleep became harder to find, exercise became irregular, and things went downhill. At one point in time I had even put on the 3 inches I had so happily seemed to have lost, and also half a kilo in weight to add on to the celebration. 

But let's not fret. 

 I started on the regime again after a break and as of today, I have completed exactly four weeks of watching what I eat and exercised on an average of four times per week.

The weight hasn't gone down at all, but a couple of inches have. It's not great but what I feel really good about is the fact that I stuck to something for four weeks straight. That hasn't happened before, so it's definitely something to feel proud about!

So yes, I am proud of myself! 

Day 122: Weekday Morning Swim!

Today, instead of yoga or the DVD workout, which is what I have been doing often, I decided to hit the pool in the morning, before work. It's probably the first time I am hitting the pool in the morning on a weekday, and it was a great decision!

I completed 12 laps (50% more than the previous postpartum swim) and finished off the workout for the day in the morning itself, leaving the entire evening free to spend with the little one.

So happy! 

Day 120: An April That's Been Worked Out!

I have been keeping a log of my exercise plan since October 2009 and I realized that this April has been my fittest month since then!

I exercised a total of 19 days out of which 12 were spent in hot yoga - which is like my gold standard for exercise. My previous best record was 19 days out of which only 9 were yoga, which was a few years ago.

So this is a clear win!

Feeling oh-so-cool about it! 

Day 115: DVD Workout!

As much as I love my yoga classes, it is terribly hard to make my way to one. The whole process - i.e. the commute, the 1.5 hour class itself and the post class shower, takes about three hours in total. These days with my work as well as desire to spend time with the little one, squeezing in three hours is getting increasingly difficult. So I was looking for alternative ways to get some exercise. Sure, there are always options like swimming and walking etc. but with Singapore's weather conditions, these are not really guaranteed. And no, the gym isn't an option either. For some reason, I absolutely hate going to the gym.

So I decided to check out some workout DVDs. I wanted something that was high impact but that doesn't take much time either. It is hard to make three hours to go for yoga classes, but it is even harder to take more than 30-40 minutes if I am working out at home, because the little one makes her displeasure loud and clear, if I do not pay her enough attention.

And I found what I think is a perfect fit! I came across this DVD by Jillian Michaels called 30-day Shred which is three levels at 27 minutes each of pretty intensive workout, as per its numerous reviews on the internet. I don't have much weight to "shred" but its combination of strength training, cardio and abs workout looked promising. So I got myself a DVD from Amazon.

Today, I did my first level 1 workout, following the DVD!

It was hard, sure... but not as hard as what the reviews were making it out to be, which is good. It basically means I am not that unfit. But it definitely got my heart rate up and my muscles sore, which is awesome!

The recommendation is to do the routine for 30 days at a stretch (and hence the name) with 10 days for each level. I will not be following that schedule surely, because Bikram yoga is still my first priority but this is a great replacement for days I can't make it for yoga! Plus it is short, so there is really no excuse for not doing it.

So yes, am indeed very happy with my latest discovery of a workout routine and actually working it out! 

Day 114: Cobra Pose - Check!

Whew! This is really something! The last time I got any kinda appreciation for my cobra pose - one of my least favourite poses at Bikram Yoga, was sometime in 2010, as per my 1000-day blog! So getting a "Good One!" on this today made me feel on top of the world! There's still a long way to get to my previous form, but am definitely making very, very slow but steady progress in my postpartum yoga practice! 

Day 92: The Diet & Exercise Regime - 10 Day Progress!

I had written about the new diet &  exercise regime that I had embarked on and after 10 days on it, it was time to take a look at the results!

But before I share the results, let me be forthright with a few important points:

1) I wasn't very true to the diet. I had decided to "take a break" on weekends and public holidays... you know, in true holiday spirit and all that. And in the first 10 days, there were 5 such "break" days. Sigh.

2) My exercise was also not too awesome. Even though I did exercise 8 out of the 10 days, I only walked (about 3.2km each day) for 5 of those days, with the remaining 3 being Bikram Yoga. And I honestly believe that while walking is indeed better than doing nothing, it isn't gonna help me tonnes in my mission. I gotta add in more hot yoga days to my regime!

To put it in a nutshell, I think I would give myself about 5 points out 10 in terms of how well I stuck to the regime.

And here are the results.

While I had not dropped kilos any further vs. the previous update, I have now lost a total of 3 inches! Yippee!! This is my lowest postpartum statistics, even better than my pre-India-trip numbers!

Awesomeness! I am indeed thrilled!

Now the real challenge is to keep this progress up. With my maternity leaving coming to an end and a new, more hectic schedule beginning, I will need to figure how things go.

But for today, this small success is more than enough! 

Days 81 - 83: Melting Kilos & Celebrations!

22 - 24 March, 2013

I have a huge smile plastered on my face as I write this!

That is because, with 2 days of following my fantastic exercise and diet plan, I have dropped 2.5 of that 3.5 extra holiday weight! Awesomeness!

Of course, this clearly means that much of that weight was simply water retention, but let's not get too detailed. The fact remains that my heart which was trampled, broken and crushed by the 3.5 kilos gain, is now hopping , skipping and somersaulting at the 2.5 kilos loss!

Interestingly also, of all the posts I have written so far, the exercise and diet plan post seems to have gathered the most attention and curiosity. I have had a few readers (to whom am incredibly thankful for reading this blog) ask me how exactly does my meal plan look like because the "plan" I had written in the post was well... "vague".

OK then.

Good news is that the obsessive, compulsive me has maintained a food log and I shall quickly recap it here.

So here's what my diet and exercise looked like exactly for the first two days, which has resulted in these awesome melting of kilos.

Diet:
Breakfast - 1 boiled egg, 2 slices of white bread toast with butter, 1 glass of milk, 1 orange
Lunch - Rice, curry (pumpkin/brinjal), curd, 2/3 pcs fried fish
Tea time - According to the plan, I was supposed to stay away from tea and coffee but well, I did stay away for one day but on the next day, I succumbed. So 1 cup of coffee with milk and sugar and 2 arrowroot biscuits, 2 pieces M&Ms
Dinner - 2/3 rotis, sabji (brinjal/cauliflower), 1 glass of milk

Exercise:
3.2 kms walk with the little one on the stroller on both days.

To celebrate such awesomeness, I went and got a short haircut which I actually like very much! Usually when I get a short haircut, there are a couple of days when I feel the hair's too short and feel awful about it, but not this time! I love it!

Also to celebrate, I took a break from the diet and exercise plan on Sunday when I did no exercise but gorged on a lot of the atrociously yummy and mostly unhealthy food at Antoinette.

I shall be getting back to the diet and the exercise during the week, but so far, it's been awesome!

Day 80: The Diet & The Exercise Regime begins!

So yes, the India trip is over. I am back with a lot of beautiful memories as well as 3.5 kilos of extra weight and more inches than I want to count. Jeez! This has never happened before - i.e. I have never put on weight due to excess holiday eating before but pregnancy does change your body in more ways that you can imagine!

But it's OK. Nothing to panic about. With a decently healthy diet and regular exercise, I hope to get back to my pre-holiday self and in the longer run, pre-pregnancy self.

Today, on top of relaxing to get over the extreme holiday fatigue and unpacking the ridiculous amount of stuff I seemed to have hoarded in India, I also charted up a diet and exercise plan for myself. It's pretty simple actually and follows a few key pointers which I will share. In case this becomes successful, I can always refer back to it in the future!

So here we go.

My Diet Plan
a) Have eggs, meat/fish, green vegetables and fruits every day.
b) Avoid desserts and sweets of all sorts. (I had one rasagulla or gulab jamun or peda or payasam or chocolate cake or brownie or other similar super yummy but ridiculously calorific items pretty much every single meal in India)
c) Have only 1 cup of tea or coffee a day (I used to have about 8 a day in India!)
d) Have 2 glasses of milk every day (This is for my slightly failing calcium levels and resulting joint pains post pregnancy)
e) Drink at least 2 litres of water everyday (This was a good practice of mine here in Singapore but was thrown out of the window when in India)
f) Reduce amount of rice and stick to 2-3 rotis only per meal

My Exercise Plan
Exercise at least 4 times a week - this can be anything from walking to bikram yoga.

That's it. I am gonna follow this for a a few days and see what comes off it.

Every time I take on a "project" like this, it makes me excited! Looking forward to seeing how this works! 

Days 53 - 57: Too Many Things!

22 - 26 February, 2013

It's been crazy busy thanks to the upcoming India trip! I am gonna travel alone with the little one which is going to be quite an event in itself and even the pre-trip logistics has proven to be rather overwhelming. It's been packing, shopping, packing, shopping, packing! But there were quite a few rather lovely events squeezed into the breakneck schedule!

1) Inganeyum Oru Katha on Malayalatam TV channel in the US - So yes, for the first ever time, a film of mine has been aired on a TV channel! Pretty awesome feeling, that!

2) Sitting in for a friend's short film rehearsal - It's the short film I had helped with the screenplay for, and my friend wanted me to watch one of their rehearsals. And that was super fun! It's the closest thing to movie making, other than scripting, that I have done in more than a year and it was a fabulous experience!

3) Meet ups - I also managed to meet up with a few friends after several postponements and cancellations. It didn't look like I will be getting any social life before I leave but somehow that happened after all. Pretty happy about that!

4) Dinner at La Nonna - Actually the main course was strictly average but their Bruschetta and their Pannacotta were super yum!

5) Dinner at Haxenhaus Restaurant at Robertson Quay - I absolutely LOVED their wine cocktail Kir which is red wine with Creme De Casis. It's the first time I was having a wine cocktail and I wasn't disappointed at all! The main course too - the Bier Bratwurst was pretty good. Quite a satisfying dinner indeed!

6) Inch loss - Looks like I have managed to lose another inch of that pregnancy gifted flab! Small but very welcome progress!

7) Little One's first birthday plans - I already decided how to celebrate the little one's first birthday and am pretty close to locking all the plans. We are gonna make it a short trip to a holiday destination together with both sets of her grandparents. I figured that there is no better way for her to spend the birthday than a close family affair with her grans and have made the plans accordingly. This is gonna be fun!

8) Reading together! - The little one and I have started to read together, starting with the inevitable fairy tales. She manages to hold her attention for almost an entire book in one sitting and I find it a lot of fun to read out to her, complete with the expressions and animations! Probably the closest thing to theatre that I will be doing for a while.

8) Packing - done! I am all done with the shopping and packing. In other words, all set to go. Finally.

Overall, all good days.

Tomorrow, it's the little one's first trip ever. It's time for Kerala! 

Day 31: A Good End to a Great January!

I have been tracking my workout schedule and progress since the beginning of January, when I was 13 weeks postpartum. Till then, I was not too disciplined about it. Except for some walking, and in-home floor exercises to strengthen an injured pelvis, I was not doing much. But at 13 weeks postpartum, I felt that it was high time I started putting some thought to fitness and I started working out with my focus on Bikram Yoga.

So today, on the last date of the month, I tracked my progress and realized that I have done 12 Bikram Yoga classes and 4 long walks! I.e. an average of 3/week of yoga and 4/week of exercise!

Which is awesome!

 I haven't been able to keep up such a schedule ever, even pre-pregnancy, so I was super happy about this. Of course, the maternity leave and the time on hand does contribute to the progress but I am glad I spent the time well.

After I made this discovery about how much exercise I managed to get in January, I decided to take a break today. No yoga, no walking, nothing. Just sit at home and spend time with the little one. Pretty much of an anti-climax I admit. Still, the chilling out was very welcome.

But then night fell and I felt incredibly guilty. How can I spend a whole day doing absolutely nothing?! I felt that wouldn't be the best way to end the month, so I decided to work on the editing for my friend's novel. With the little one asleep by my side, I spent a couple of hours working on it, and managed to complete an entire chapter in a single sitting.

I hit the bed peacefully and happily after that.  It was a good end to a great January! 

Day 20: When the Inches Fall!

One thing that pregnancy has definitely contributed to is my...well, vanity.

Even though I saw a pretty sharp decline in the weight in the first two weeks (I even could fit into a lot of my pre-pregnancy clothes, including a couple of my looser fitting jeans!), the progress has been pretty slow since then.

While my logical side keeps assuring me that I can take my own time to lose all the baby weight and get back to my pre-pregnancy shape and fitness, my not so logical vain side can't wait for it to happen!

I keep watching my weight and measurements on a pretty regular basis and needless to say, every drop makes me happy. It also makes me happy when I can get into one more of my pre-pregnancy clothes. As much as I enjoy shopping for new clothes, it breaks my heart to see some of my favourite items in the wardrobe, ridiculously out of my reach!

So coming to today, I had double success!

First, I noticed a drop of another 3.5 inches! So happy!

Then, to test that it is not a trickery of the measuring tape because the inch loss didn't seem to have come with any weight loss, I tried on one of my favourite pre-pregnancy dresses which I couldn't get into a couple of weeks ago.

And I could fit into it! Like, comfortably enough! Woah! So happy happy!

To celebrate, I stuffed myself with chicken biriyani from a nearby hawker centre. Not an healthy option of course, but these things need to be celebrated you see.

It's a beautiful day indeed!