I’ve stepped up my exercise plan lately to include activities with my kids. Since it’s so hot that Satan is begging God for rain, I decided to move my activities indoors. Finding a time to exercise with young kids in the house is tough. I would love to take a long walk at 5:00 am, except that it’s dark at 5:00 am and I run the risk of my children waking up and thinking Mommy has gone missing. I don’t need CPS showing up at my house, so I have been improvising.

One of the ways I have improvised is to change our traditional Friday night dance parties to daily dance parties. Our cute, short little dance parties have turned into 30 minutes or more of my sweating buckets as I try to match the energy level of my children and teach them 80s and 90s dance moves in the process. (insert kid eye-roll here)

When you turn 40, you start to realize that body parts hurt that you weren’t aware of having. Also, old injuries start causing pain again, just to remind you that they are still there. That is the case with me. I am achy everywhere today. My hips hurt like they did when I was 9 months pregnant. My right knee injury from 2009 is reminding me that I injured my right knee in 2009. My left foot, that I oh-so-gracefully broke while falling down the garage steps last year, is calling me names that cannot be mentioned in polite company. In short, my body hates me, in the “What the heck do you think you are doing, woman?” way. Did I mention that after all of this sweating, energy-depleting, painful workout, that I have only burned 416 calories? FOUR HUNDRED SIXTEEN CALORIES! Oh, I hate you, fitness tracker!

I never worried about my weight or health in my 20s or 30s. I didn’t have to, but now I do. Excuse me while I grumble and hobble my way to my bed. Four hundred sixteen calories. Smh.