When you think about people who do yoga 3 to 7 times a week some of the characteristics probably lineup with me: I own Uggs. I recycle. I talk about stuff like “self-care.” What you probably don’t imagine are people who weigh over 170 pounds (raises hand). I run, bike, or swim almost every day and I always fit in a little bit of yoga, but my body is still big, curved, soft, and all mine.

I became a runner about three years ago and lost about 80 pounds (which also coincided with a year and a half of breast-feeding my youngest child). Since then I’ve gained about 30 pounds back, but I’ve been maintaining this weight for about eight months now. I don’t love it and I miss my old pants, but I struggle with self discipline when it comes to food and, well, I probably need to do a lot more weight lifting. Here nor there, my life is busy as hell. The amount of exercise I already get in takes and an exhausting amount of self motivation. This might just be what my butt is going to look like for a while, guys.

So what does that have to do with my yoga practice? I stopped thinking about yoga as a workout and started thinking about it as “this fun thing I do.” I started – without meaning to – focusing on how good the stretches felt and how open my big ol’ body feels when I pour myself into my practice.

I often like to record my yoga so I can check my foundation on certain poses. I want to share some screen grabs of that for all of the other big, curvy, beautiful, Yogi mamas out there. Your body is perfect for yoga, right now, as it is.

Also, you may notice Saturn in the bottom left picture on that first collage. My kid was totally using the toilet in that picture. That is mom life y’all. You do yoga while your kid poops with the door open. Just lean into this life and remind yourself: you wanted this. Ha!

Lately, my time on the mat has nothing to do with getting the best ass, it is completely about laughing at myself and loving my myself for simply being there.

 

I do all my yoga at home with Yoga with Adriene or Comic Kids Yoga (both via YouTube) when the kids want in on the action.

Namaste y’all.

 

 

My New Years Eve post goes out to fellow millennials.

First, may we continue to take selfies because you know it drives them nuts (hashtag not sorry).

May we continue to work our asses off and enjoy the occasional avocado toast.

May we, as parents, professionals, students, and individuals build bridges, support our communities, look past failed political divisions, innovate our businesses, and put passion and people before profits. May we scorn debtors and push our future ourselves, paying our own way.

And to everyone, snarky generational commentary aside, remember that no year, be it this one or the one you were born in, may define you – only you can do that.

Cheers.

In 2018, do you. Authentically you. 

There is no denying it. New Year’s Resolutions are cliché, but for some inexplicable reason they resonate with me. The cycle of the year holds power in my life. In particular, the past three years my resolutions have been very important to me. I have changed my life by becoming more active. I have applied myself intellectually and professionally in new, brave ways. I’ve always focused on pushing myself toward some new and great achievement. This year I’m competing in my first women’s sprint triathlon and will train for my fourth half marathon.

I’m proud of those things and they’re great goals (I’m a bit goal orientated if that wasn’t coming through) but in 2018 I want to focus on presence.

I spend a lot of time taking pictures of my kids. They’re adorable and hilarious and I’m ridiculously proud by every little thing they do. Then, after I get the perfect photo, I spend more time posting those pictures to Facebook and/or Instagram with my witty asides or commentary.

Any parents familiar with the following?

Parent: “Oh that’s so funny! Let me grab my phone!”

Kid: “Cheese!”

Parent: “Why are you smiling weird? Smile normal.”

Kid: “Cheese!”

Parent: “Got it! Oh look at that so cute!”

Kids: “Mom, let’s play! “

Parent: “Hold on I’m picking a filter.”

Kid: “Mom, can I play on your phone too?”

Parent: “No, hold on I’m almost done.”

Kid continues cute activity but disengages from parent.

I really hate this. I’m really, really not proud of this. But that? I do that more often than I’d like to admit.

Sometimes I’ll wait until later in the evening to post the pictures, but I’ll say it: I take a lot of photos with social media in mind. Not for the memory books and picture frames, but so I can find a good picture for posting. Ew.

My 2018 resolution is to stop posting pictures of my kids on social media.

I will not stop taking pictures all together. I want photos for our family to print, share, send to each other, and enjoy, but no more posting. I’ll still mention family moments and activities because my family is my world, but no photos of the kids. No more drafting the post – sometimes even spending time thinking about possible posts ahead of time – and putting off engaging in the moment.

I don’t want their family memories to be of mommy staring at her phone… and I am worried I have veered off in that direction.

It is my hope that removing the “showing them off” element of capturing moments in my children’s lives will make me more present the moment.

My resolution is NOT a commentary on other people’s posting habits or choices. You can post many adorable photos of your kids and still be a present, wonderful parent (to be clear, I also do not think I’m a bad parent). This is just something I want to try for myself. This is about me focusing on the present rather than the post.

My reason is not about privacy so much as presence. I’m not combing through and removing old pictures and my parents, my husband, and other friends and family will, I assume, still share some pictures. I’m all-good with that.

Truth be told when I think about not sharing their adorable Halloween costumes or their first day of school pictures it sends sad little pangs across my heart – but here is the deal – they won’t know the difference. For them Halloween will be exactly the same whether my friends from high school know what they wore or not. We do Halloween events for them, not for me and certainly not for LSE Class of 2003, so I need to suck it up.

So, sprint triathlon and half marathon aside, my 2018 goals? Look up and pay attention.

We all have hard days. Days we feel bad about ourselves; feel like we’re not enough. At least I do.

Not every day. Most days I fly my fabulous flag high and authentically. Less often I have days I feel like a miserable failure of a human. This is, of course, not true but that doesn’t fix that overwhelming “I’m a human garbage disposal” feeling entirely.

I thought that when I lost “the weight,” or passed the bar exam, or finished this, that, or the other, THEN. THEN I would finally stop having days this occasionally. For example, I truly believed I only had self-doubt regarding my intelligence mostly because I hadn’t passed the bar. I thought that a piece of paper would suddenly make me realize my intellectual worth – and truth be told, it does help. It’s a concrete marker of skill. However, here I am today having a “I’m a human trash fire” kind of day. Same goes for my weight loss, running, or anything else.

Our external markers of success don’t always speak to our internal ones.

Oh. Did you think I was going to present a solution to conquering self-doubt even when you’re in a period of external/public success? Nope. I ain’t got one. I just thought someone else might like to hear they aren’t alone. Some days I feel like a human septic tank too.

… although, I think it’s OK to feel sad some days. Maybe we don’t fix it. I think, just maybe, we should hold hands with the anxiety, and the worry, and the doubt. I think we let our brains be scared, hurt, and vulnerable little kids for a day – for tomorrow we raise our flags again.

PS – you are never a human trash fire to me ❤

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us…”

…and about there the metaphor would get too depressing and thankfully inaccurate. This isn’t a post about London and Paris in the French Revolution – it’s about my boobs. More specifically it’s about breastfeeding.

An act that is fulfilling yet sacrificing and ripe with optimism teetering on potential heartbreak. So many feelings are wrapped up in caring for our children and the very vulnerable act of nursing seems to carry a special emotional impact for many mothers, or at least it always has for me.

I’m standing at the beginning of the end of my time as a breastfeeding mother and bittersweet doesn’t begin to describe it.

Let’s get the political part of this out of the way right quick, shall we? My stance is clear: Your boobs, your body, your business. I know tons of fabulous mothers who formula fed their babies. You go ladies. Love your babies and do what works for you. I breastfeed because it works for me and that choice isn’t a judgement on anyone’s decisions. We have enough to worry about without making each other feel like crap. OK, now that’s done.

My son got his last drop of breast milk around 7 months. He was born early and never really got the hang of nursing. We would occasionally nurse for comfort but he was never good enough at it to take his meals that way. I pumped. I pumped A LOT. For the first two months I triple fed (first you nurse, second you bottle feed breast milk or formula, third you pump, then after a a short break you start all over) – which is to say I did nothing but worry about milk. After two months I gave up the nursing piece of puzzle and just let myself become an exclusive pumper. It was fine I suppose, but it’s a logistical night mare. I was proud of my dedication to pumping and given the fear wrapped up in Max’s premature birth I think it gave me something to feel in control of. It was fulfilling, but it was exhausting. When I stopped pumping I felt free. Perhaps a bit of sentimentality came with that, but mostly I felt as though a burden had been lifted. I knew that if I had to do that again with our second child I may not make it very long.

Eleanor came along and turned everything I knew about birth and babies on it’s head. Her birth felt nothing like Maxwell’s and her demeanor was similar. Within 20 minutes of being born she found her own way to my breast and nursed for almost a half hour. Since then she has (lovingly) picked up the name Eleanor “I could eat” Magilton. I was unfamiliar with those early weeks of marathon nursing session. Max had been in the NICU his first two weeks, then after that he mostly bottle fed. Eleanor and I spent hours camped out on the couch nursing. This drove 2.5 year old Max nuts, but was generally heaven for her and I. Eleanor is an excellent nurser and I am excellent at nursing her.

She will be a year old in about a month and half. She does not seem remotely interested in weaning. I’m beginning to feel a bit differently. After her birthday I plan to begin a very slow decline to weaned. I’ll hold on to the nighttime nursing for a long while I’m sure, but even that is just part of the inevitable end. Eleanor is our last baby, biologically anyway, and the gravity of that is not lost on me. This is the last time I will nurse.

I sincerely hope I don’t end up knowing when our last moment of breastfeeding happens. I don’t think I could handle it. I’m ready to move past the world of babies and into the world of children and I’m more than ready to have my autonomy back – but that closeness, that sense you’re endlessly needed, the bond.

I’m really going to miss that.

 

I have lost 80 pounds. Eighty. Damn, that sounds like a lot. It doesn’t feel like I had 80 pounds to lose.  Granted, I’m sort of cheating. I’m counting from the day I gave birth, so about 15 pounds was lost in just two hours. Regardless, it’s a nice round number.

I’m going to use real numbers here, so everyone applaud my bravery.

On the day I gave birth to my second child I weighed 248 pounds. The baby did not weigh 48 pounds. I did not gain a huge amount during the pregnancy. In fact, I gained only 20-ish pounds. The baby also did not weigh 20 pounds. For everyone who isn’t a math whiz, that means I was overweight (228 pounds) when I got pregnant. I narrowly crossed that all feared 200 pound mark during my final year of law school, which coincided with my first pregnancy.

Law school is stressful, pregnancy makes it more so, and nachos make me feel better. No regrets. Truly, really, I’m not kidding: no regrets.

I’ve been a variety of weights in my adult life. Some of this was the result of crash diets, “fat blocking” supplements, 1,000 calorie a day regiments, meal replacement bars; the whole gamut. When I look back on all those days and pictures there is one actually uplifting thing that sticks out to me: despite those terrible plans, I always generally liked my look. I never felt as totally comfortable as I’m beginning to now, but I always thought I had at least a little something going for me.  I wish I could go back and tell myself to focus on that. Tell myself to build on that spark of self-esteem rather than obsessively calorie count.

Hind sight, amiright?

I understand that women who aren’t being featured in an inspirational Glamour exclusive aren’t generally supposed to call themselves attractive – it’s an open invitation for every person on the internet to loudly determine whether or not they’d sleep with you (I’d probably just “friend-zone” you anyway, brah) or explain that you can’t possibly be healthy if you’re over 130 pounds. I don’t really care these days. Not because I’ve come to some fully self-assured perfect place, but because I’m too tired to genuinely care if other people think I’m too jiggly to be hot.

I’ve got my two young kids, an old home we’re remodeling, my marriage and my career to manage: take your harmful social constructs elsewhere.

Of course, confidence (or tiredness) isn’t an “end all be all.” I have insecurities. I don’t like every little piece of myself every day, all the time. I simply like the majority of myself, the majority of the time. That spark of self-confidence was a brilliant place to start a new outlook.

Breastfeeding did a lot of the calorie-burn heavy lifting that led to the weight loss, but I exercised every single day and have learned to be mindful of everything I eat. I’m proud of those changes. I won’t discount the extra push I get from nursing, but I certainly didn’t lose weight like this nursing my first baby. Most of this was me.

In my recent efforts to get healthy my focus has been on a few key goals:

• What does 1,800 to 2,000ish calories a day look like and feel like? Eat about that. Sometimes you need to say no to food you like. Sometimes you should say yes. DO NOT OBSESS. Just be in the ball park, don’t fret over the seat number.
• Walk (which later transformed into a wonderful running habit) a minimum of one mile per day. I love tracking data (nerd alert!) Tracking my routes and weekly and monthly mile counts truly delights me. Check out my #mileaday feed on Instagram, @peltoinspace, for my daily walking and running pictures, often exploring UNL East Campus.
• Try new exercise and fitness challenges that sound pleasurable. If I would rather do laundry than a particular activity, let it go guilt free. It’s not for me.
• Be outside often. Make sunshine a priority.

Surprise! That worked. It still works. Really well, in fact. My brain and body are in a really good place. I’m celebrating that. Sure, the weight loss is cool, but the person I was 80 pounds ago was amazing, bad ass, tough, hot, all of it. I refuse to discredit her.

What I want to celebrate isn’t what I’ve lost, but what I’ve gained from these 80 pounds.

Let’s do 8 things, because 80. It’s on theme.

1. My babies. I made both of my babies carrying that weight. That body nourished them and held them. I’ll always be grateful for my pre-pregnancy and pregnant body.
2. Surprisingly, I gained confidence when I hit my heaviest weight. At my highest (non-pregnant) weight I didn’t really feel conventionally attractive, so I explored less conventional styles that didn’t “require” the body I didn’t think I had. I had purple, blue, and pink hair. I started making my red lipstick a habit. I established my personal style (I call it “Hipster Stevie Nicks”). I was so confidently myself. I started to value my vessel, and at this point I really starting putting my body related self-esteem struggle to rest. From there it was so much easier to be mindful and work on small consistent goals. I learned to START with the self-esteem, not wait for it to come once I reached some arbitrary numeric goal.
3. Playing on the floor sucks less. Far and away, the best part of losing 80 pounds is the impact it’s had on my relationship to my kids. Life is so much easier when you’re not carrying the equivalent of two of your preschooler before you even pick him up. I’m all about making life easier. This helps!
4. My relationship with food is changing and growing. I had a notable “starving college student” attitude for years; when it’s there take it, eat it all, and never ever say no to food. Now I’m able to look at the left over pizza in the break room and say, “This isn’t the last time I’ll ever be offered pizza. I’ll say no this time and enjoy it during a time when it’s more fun to indulge.” On the flip side, sometimes I still eat the break room pizza and make a mental note that I should skip the nightly wine and popcorn. Balance, people, who knew? I use a food-dairy app to help me with this. I hope someday to drop the app, but for now it helps me keep track of what I put in my pie hole. My memory tends to get patchy when melted cheese is involved. Recording my food helps keep me honest with myself.
5. I have good parents. A woman raised in this culture doesn’t get to proclaim that she’s valuable, attractive, likable, or deserving without adults in her formative years who told her that confidence isn’t just OK, it’s mandatory. Because they had gentle but high expectations of me I was forced to acknowledge my inherent worth. I hope I can give this to both my children – I hope they know they have value for simply existing. When one feels worthy of moving mountains, one tends to try.
6. Jeans, my old foe. It’s a love/hate relationship. We’re back to solidly loving each other. Someone who loves unique style as much as I do would be remiss not to mention how much easier shopping in non-plus sizes is. Note, it should NOT be this way and I hate it, but I won’t pretend it hasn’t made shopping easier.
7. Podcasts or simply silence. Choosing to be active every single day is a wonderful self-care driven act. Between kids, students, work, emails, bills, you know, life, it’s sometimes a challenge to truly enjoy something that’s just mine. My podcasts, listened to while I huff it around lunch, are my time. I did this before too, but I make more of a point of it now. Once I got into running I started to forgo the ear buds all together. Running for over an hour, just paying attention to city around you, is some good therapy.
8. I realized I’ve always felt pretty damn hot, and wow, that clarity has been empowering.

I may continue to lose weight as I continue to challenge myself with running. That’s cool.

I’m happy with my vessel wherever it takes me.

What a god damn gift that is.

The past 5 or 6 years have included a lot of growing pains. This is, obviously, normal. Law school, marriage, and entering parenthood are all significant transitions. As my three year old can tell you, transitions are hard. In the haze of these growing pains facades are not manageable. I ran out of time to be anything but authentically myself. What a stroke of luck that was.

I think the first time I realized I wanted to be cool, but that I wasn’t, was when I was around 11. I was overweight (the horror!), I dressed too brightly, I talked too loudly, I unpretentiously memorized Shakespearean sonnets, I built erector set vehicles, and I was weird. In reflection, I was fucking awesome. Unfortunately, other 11 year olds didn’t uniformly agree. To be clear, I was not bullied. Of course the re were unpleasant moments – the quintessential junior high and high school stuff – but I was never the repeat target of unkind behavior. I had friends, who also thought I was weird, but seemed to like me anyway. So, it’s disappointing that at the age of about 11, I started to try to cage my songbird.

I was desperate to be cool. It was a slow build through my teens and twenties. This effort to be cool ranged from being a total poser about certain bands or activities, to trying so hard to be a girl who could dance, to mostly harmless recreational drug use, to smoking (which I still hate and miss dearly), to lying about having certain experiences, to sometimes being unkind to people didn’t deserve it. These behaviors are not entirely unique, but in sum, I was the “trying too hard” girl.

This started to taper off in my early twenties – largely because I met my husband who loved me so deeply (and didn’t buy my bull shit) that my confidence grew. Of course though, these habits still pop up. Everyone wants to be liked, but by-and-large I lead with my true self these days.

As the intense desire to impress others diminished the need to figure out my “new normal” grew – and there she was. Me at 10, before the media and the pressure got to me. Before I knew there was a difference between cool and uncool. She is still here, that young girl: fearless, confident, full of wonder and desperate to share her enthusiasm with anyone who will listen.

She does not worry if she’s smart enough. She knows she’s smart enough and that if she doesn’t get something right away it’s OK. She’ll learn. She loves to learn.

She sees her body as tool to accomplish her goals, not as an indicator of her worth.

She knows how to be kind.

She helps other people, even when she doesn’t feel like it.

She listens to her mother because age and experience do count for something.

She gets crazy haircuts.

She wears mismatched head scarves.

She has fun.

I lost her for 20 years, but she was there the whole time.