Tonight at our fitness class, we did 70 push-ups.

Let me be clear that by saying, “we did 70 push-ups,” what I mean is that the instructor counted off 7 sets of 10 push-ups throughout the class and that I successfully completed 12 solid push-ups that are worthy of being called such, finished 20 shitty half-ass ones, and during the other 38 I held a plank position while tears silently rolled down my cheeks.

I am woefully out of shape, but it isn’t my fault… Really! No, no it isn’t the kids’ fault either! Let me tell you a little story about STRESS!

You see, this week I weighed myself for the first time in quite a while. And although the scale hasn’t moved much since the last time, I did remind myself of what my weight was a year and a half ago and allowed myself a tiny celebration in my head. You see, the scale has been gradually trending downward since I quit being a stressed out, over-worked, enraged crazy person working for corporate America. It has taken me 18 months to lose 8 pounds, and I still have 6 pounds to go before I am back to my pre-corporate America weight. It took me half the time to lose TWICE this amount of weight after my last pregnancy.

Yep! You heard me right! Stress is worse for your body than carrying another human being around inside of you. It’s true! I mean, I’m no doctor or biologist or anything… So maybe I should instead say that it is my personal opinion and experience that stress is worse for you than pregnancy (barring some kind of medical condition or something you may have that makes pregnancy extra-dangerous for you).

So, I will endure the push-ups and crying until I get back down to my pre-corporate America weight. And I will wake up at 5am tomorrow morning because that bitch (Yesterday Me) has me down for another early morning work-out tomorrow.