Week 8 Update: Fit or Fabulous? by Liimu

Week 8 update: I am down a total of 10.5 pounds since I started and definitely can start to see a difference. I’m still on track to reach my goal of being fabulous by Max’s first birthday on March 14, 2012.

Speaking of fabulous, I did a google search today and looked up “how to be fabulous.” How sad is that? With four kids (one of them a not-quite-eight-month old), a thriving consulting business, a budding singing/songwriting career and a very public quest to regain my pre-pregnancy figure, I am feeling quite a loss for where I would find the extra time to get that put-together look I see in women all around me and on TV. How does J Lo end up the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, when she’s the same age as me and has toddler TWINS? Ok, right, right, right. I know what you’re all thinking. She’s in the business to look good – it’s her job. AND she has an entire staff helping her. But still. I’m not trying to look all Gucci’d out every minute of the day. But I would like to find a way to get a workout in and a full day’s work and still have time for a shower, make up and a quick hair styling that doesn’t involve a scrunchie.

All that being said, it hasn’t escaped me how ironic it is that Kim Kardashian – known for her drop-dead gorgeous looks and sex appeal – was dying to get married for years and then wasn’t even able to make it through one entire season of the year before she filed for divorce. J Lo is on divorce number 3. Halle Berry is still gorgeous and always looks perfectly put together, whether on the red carpet or at the playground with her equally gorgeous baby and yet she is allegedly getting ready for marriage number three? Four?

I’m not trying to be catty. I completely feel for this women and how frustrating and lonely it must be to not be able to forge and maintain a partnership that’s satisfying and fulfilling. It must be hard to do that when you’re constantly in the public eye, constantly on the go for a demanding career, and feeling the pressure to get as much done as you can while you still have the beauty and youth that seem to be at the top of the list of requirements for women in Hollywood. I made a choice when I was younger to put my dreams of becoming a famous actress and pop star to the side because I was headed down a very dark and destructive path, a tragic fate that would be all but sealed if I pursued a career in entertainment. Instead, I took a safer, corporate track, but could never completely let me dreams go. I became a wedding singer and met my husband. We began having kids immediately, and I kept singing and performing all the while, even getting the chance at one point to perform a solo with Patti Labelle on NBC television in front of 10 million viewers. I still pursue music to this day, as I said, writing and performing original music at local venues all year round and I hope one day to have the success I longed for so long ago. I do it now as much to show my kids how important it is to pursue your dreams as for myself.

I’m not glamorous and fabulous right now. It will probably take me 12 months to get back to a size I’m comfortable with, where it takes most actresses and pop stars less than 12 weeks. I’m overwhelmed most days and with a staff of just me, my husband and our mother’s helper, I’m happy just to get to 9 pm having clothed, bathed, and fed all my kids, helped them with homework, worked a full day, worked out, showered, and eaten healthy myself. If I’m able to also say that I rehearsed for a gig, volunteered for the junior choir, coached a friend, or gotten my nails done, that’s a bonus. If I’ve put on makeup and done my hair, that’s a freakin’ miracle.

Any advice you guys can give for how to look fabulous every day in ten minutes or less, please let me know! And if you know of a cheap personal stylist who can help me get my closet full of clothes that fit, flatter and help me in my quest for fabulousness, even better.

BodyFIT update: I finally downloaded the BodyFIT iPhone app and am now consistently tracking my nutrition data too, so I can clearly see the daily deficit calories burned vs. calories eaten. That is game-changing and definitely the reason I lost another 3 pounds this week.

The Back-Up Plan - by Jamie

Lately, the subject of single mothers by choice has been all over the media because of a movie that recently came out, starring Jennifer Lopez, in which her character becomes pregnant with the help of an anonymous sperm donor, only to fall in love with Mr. Right immediately afterwards. I haven’t seen the movie, and, as a “real” single mother by choice, I’ll never have the time to see it, but I have viewed some of the recent TV news stories and discussions about it. And while it’s nice to have a celebrity like J-Lo showing single women that they do have options, I can’t say this movie is anything like my life—nor is “back-up plan” an appropriate term for the process by which I came to have Jayda.

I never pictured myself as a single mom; but then again, I didn’t always picture myself as a mom, period. Unlike some of my friends who were always talking about having babies during their 20s and 30s, I said things like, “I’ll have kids if I marry a guy who I know will be a great dad, and who really wants to have kids,” but I wasn’t obsessed with being a mother at all. I wasn’t even comfortable around children, and didn’t think they liked me very much. In fact, before I had Jayda, I’d never changed a diaper, and could count on the fingers of one hand how many babies I’d actually held. And yet, as soon as the nurses put my newborn child on my chest, I knew I was put in this world to be Jayda’s mom and care for her.

There was a point in my mid-30s when I had an epiphany and realized that I’d be incomplete if I never had a child, and that I’d just been suppressing my desires for fear of never meeting Mr. Right. I was flooded with maternal feelings and became baby-obsessed almost overnight. It took a lot of thought and planning to have Jayda (as well as plenty of drugs and monitoring and money, since I didn’t get pregnant on the first try like J-Lo’s character did in her movie), and I can hardly allude to the process as a back-up plan. “Back-up” to me implies second-best, and having Jayda was an ideal plan for me, because I can’t imagine my life without my amazing daughter in it. Unlike J-Lo’s character, I didn’t find Mr. Right while I was pregnant (though I did date during the first two trimesters), and I still haven’t found him now that Jayda is about to turn three. But that doesn’t trouble me at all, and I hate the implication that a woman “needs” a man to be a good mother. Or that having a husband is always the ideal “plan.”

Most of my friends did find their Mr. Rights before they had children—or at least they found someone whom they thought was the man they’d be with forever—and I can’t say their lives are all better than mine. A few of my friends are going through nasty divorces now—and are battling over custody issues. Several others actually married someone as their “back-up plan”—fully knowing the man wasn’t exactly what they wanted or needed in their lives—but rushed to settle down because they felt their clocks were ticking. Those friends (and their spouses) are all pretty miserable. And then there are my friends who are happily married (or at least appear to be), but just about all of them admit that having a husband is a lot of work, and they’re forced to divide their attention between their children and their man. There’s nothing wrong with that—and I know having a good husband is a worthwhile investment—but I can’t say that these women’s children are thriving more than mine is…or that the moms are so much happier than I am. We’re all just experiencing life the way it happened to us…and most of us are realizing that you can’t plan everything, especially when it comes to being a mom. Plan A…Plan B. What’s the difference? Life is what we make of it—and just because our lives aren’t as we always pictured them, doesn’t mean they’re second-best. Mine certainly isn’t. It isn’t movie-perfect, either, but I don’t really know anyone whose life is.