Last night we made homemade pizza for dinner with homemade dough and sauce, alongside store-bought (We’re not that good) sausage and cheese. I have a horrible track record with baking anything with yeast, so you can imagine my hesitancy about making our own dough. Husband wanted to use a recipe that was in the newspaper and it turned out just fine with a nice bready crust that our daughter ate up like there was no tomorrow. But note to self: store-bought, fresh pizza dough… only 99 cents!
While I was eating my little slice of ‘za, I said, “Huh, this is good. Doughy and Soft”. Husband, not sure what I was referring to, said, “What exactly are you talking about?” And I replied, “My stomach.” You may grimace and wince now. Also you can be thankful I did not post a picture of my stomach.
I will admit, I am not athletic, never have been… and working out regularly has only been a recent activity, only the last two years. Even then it’s only once a week. Here, let me put it this way, and my husband will attest to this. I am soft. This is not an overstatement, and this was before I had two kids by c-section. The c-sections just make it more difficult to get back any strength in my “core”. And, I emphasize the words “ANY strength”.
It’s not that I’m upset about it or freaking out about being overweight… I’m not. I’m just a little less than fit, and there’s a little extra softness around my mid-section. Not my favorite part. So here’s the thing – I’ve been doing sit-ups every day since New Year’s. It innocently started out as a joke with someone asking if I could even do a sit-up, ONE sit-up. Yeah, very funny, but I got down on the floor, Jaunary 1, and did one sit-up. So, to continue the “joke”, I did two sit-ups on January 2. For every day that has gone by this month, I’ve done exactly that number of sit-ups.
Sit-ups may not be a very big deal for a lot of people, but it’s movement in the right direction for me and as much as I despise sit-ups, it’s probably a good example for my daughter to see me do something somewhat active at home. She’s even joined me with my little exercise experiment, so my husband and I told her that once she gets to ten sit-ups a day, she could stay at number of repetitions if she wanted to. (She wants her reps to start over at February 1 with one sit-up.)
I’m planning on continuing this for the rest of the year, so by the end of the year, I’ll hit 365. Crazy? Probably. Possible? Yes. Who’s on a journey with me?
The pizza looks great! I make homemade dough using the same recipe that my dad and grandma used, and homemade sauce. But ours never gets as nicely done as yours, b/c we’re all to impatient to eat it! Good luck on your sit-ups!
There was another pizza, plain cheese, for the kids. That one was a little less done. We had the oven on lower than we should have! Turned it up for the second one, ha! Thanks for visiting!
Hi Julie…Just checking in, it’s been awhile, and had to comment on this post. I, too, have terrible luck with baking with yeast. But oddly I have made homemade pizza successfully for years, using a crust recipe from The New Basics cookbook. And I love your sit-up idea, baby steps with gradual increases are always a smart strategy! But I have to share something I learned when I started Pilates 6 years ago — push-ups do more for my gut and core than sit-ups ever have. And you get the bonus of toning your arms, back and even your legs, too. Maybe next year? 🙂
Thanks for the exercising tip! I’m open for anything. Been stumbling a bit with the sit-ups, but I’ve added modified push-ups. We’ll see how that goes. Have you tried no-knead bread (pane integrale)? Just made some the other day… successfully!