6 consecutive days of working out – done and done! I can’t remember the last time I went to the gym 6 times in one month, let alone in one week. Hubby and I each worked out for 3 hours this week, which is like the entirety of The Irishman. There were so many opportunities to say no or give-up and return to our lazy ways, but we didn’t. We stayed the course and we couldn’t be prouder of ourselves.
Yes, there’s still 3 more weeks to go of this challenge. Yes, we plan on continuing to work out more consistently well after the 30 days are over. And yes, one week in the scheme of things isn’t that long. But we’re patting ourselves on the back because this is the furthest we’ve gotten to committing to a routine! Furthest I’ve ever gotten anyway (hubby likes to point out that when he took up running last summer, he ran 6 x week).
Hubby and I may not be the fastest or have the best posture or stamina, but we sure do feel a sense of accomplishment.
Our little man, Yoshi, got neutered today. He was such a trooper throughout, but became mopey once the cone came on and he realized he couldn’t play with any of his pup friends (little does he know that’ll be the case for a week). Anyway, who could resist that sad face?! All I wanted to do was hang with the nugget while he recovered. Also, it’s Friday. The combination of the two would have easily made December-me sit it out.
Hubby, however, started delivering a sermon about commitment and how we had already intended on going. He was right – we made a commitment to ourselves. Neither of us wanted to leave Yoshi alone, though, so we decided to work out in shifts. He went first and then I went, surprisingly not caving into snuggling on the couch with our fur baby. Also not surprisingly, the gym was all but empty on a Friday evening.
Still, it’s a good feeling to commit to something positive.
Ladies, when that time of the month hits, all you want to do is stay in bed. Scratch that – take 2 Advil, grab a heat pack, and then return back to bed. Moving is the last thing on your mind. If you have to go to work, it might take all your strength and effort not to call out. I exaggerate…a bit. Still, 30 minutes of exercise doesn’t sound fun when your insides are shedding.
I knew myself well enough not to take the nap I so desperately wanted after I returned home from work. That nap would have turned into 3 hours of lying down and an excuse to not go to the gym. Instead, I came home and quickly changed, leaving no time to wimp out. Also true – hubby helped usher me out the door.
I’m actually glad I went. I’m sure there’s science behind it because there definitely seemed to be causation between working out and my cramps easing up. Fun it was not, but I certainly felt better after working out.
The endorphins haven’t kicked in just yet, but I can now say that working out has helped me blow off some steam. It’s not the club I was gunning for (endorphins, come @ me), but I’m glad to have experienced this side-effect. What led me to experience this, you ask?
Here’s my story and I’m sticking to it: I came home after having a mediocre, dare I say above-average day, and got ready to get this workout over with. All of a sudden, out of left-field, hubby said something stupid and unintentionally hurtful. This leads to a 15 minute spat with raised voices and tears. We could have probably kept going for another 20 minutes, but then, because I needed to get out of our apartment and I already had my workout clothes on, I decided to go workout. Hubby guiltily followed in tow, in silence.
We quietly worked out next to each other on the ellipticals. Quiet as a mouse, I was aggressively stepping down on the pedals for the whole 30 minutes, each time either breathing in deeply or letting out a sigh. I had a Netflix show on my phone, but was preoccupied by angry thoughts. Boy, did those 30 minutes go by fast! A couple hours later, after hubby made dinner, all was well.
Most people easily persist during the first couple of days of starting a new habit, but not I. Each day is an uphill battle and new opportunity to say nope. This is particularly true when it comes to working out because I don’t look forward to it (yea, I said it). It feels like another chore to check off a to-do list. And mayyybe it’s because I never stuck to working out for a long period of time, but I’ve yet to experience the endorphins my fit-friends rave about. The happy feelings I have usually relate to the exercise part being over.
On top of that, enter the issue of schedules. I’m never one to have a consistent schedule. I have events, appointments, or gathering to go to after work anywhere from 2-3x a week. My hubby works from home sometimes, and other times has to commute for over an hour one way.
We’re all over the place, so finding a time to work out together can be difficult. Today was a prime example of that. As we were going to bed last night and reviewing our schedules today, we realized we can either work out at dawn or late at night. For some reason, we went to bed and agreed that dawn would be the best option. I hate mornings. I’m not sure why I thought that was going to happen…it didn’t. Still, with a resolve to not fail on the 2nd day of the challenge, we persevered. We ended up working out a little before 8 p.m. and just ended up eating dinner at 9 p.m. It may not be ideal, but we made it work. See below!
While it’s hard for most people to commit to a goal, I seem to be an extreme example for those who absolutely can’t commit. I know people say if you really want something, you’ll do it, but that has never really been the case for me. The most successful I’ve been completing a goal was going keto for two months before my wedding. Believe me though, even those 2 months were sprinkled with cheat days.
All the more reason to get a 30-Day Challenge started! I’m not a planner, but if I don’t prioritize doing something, the likelihood of it happening is nil. I also have a tendency of wanting to change everything at once, going strong for a couple of days, and then burning out. Focusing on one challenge at a time should help me stick to it better.
For January, I (along with probably 50%+ of the population) have decided to choose working out as my goal. I’ve eaten a bunch, mostly junk, over the holidays, so post-holiday season I’ve decided to implement a work-out regimen to help shed off that weight and then lots more. I could have chosen food/diet regimen for 30 days, but that just seemed a lot harder to start off with, especially while the sugar cravings are still strong. Also, I’ve read that working out (or any healthy decision really) promotes healthier decisions, so I’m hoping that the food situation will be dealt with as a result.
I’ve enlisted the help of my hubby because making terrible decisions is harder when two people are involved. We collectively decided to start today, January 6th, because we were still in holiday mode up until this weekend (read: stuffing our faces).
The Challenge: 30-Day Period of Working Out
What: We’ll be working out vigorously for 30-minutes a day, 6 days a week. This is a big commitment for current couch-people.
How: We have a gym in our building. This really gives us no excuse to not workout (yet, somehow we’ve managed to do that for the past 7 months). We’ll be sticking to cardio, most likely the elliptical. If we didn’t have access to a gym, we’d probably use Youtube, which has a ton of workout videos that are free and can be done at home. And of course, there’s always the great outdoors! (We experience a cold winter though, so that’s not as much of an option for us.)
To begin, we took starting pictures of us – they’re not flattering, but they’re certainly honest (and a wake-up call if any). Every day, we’ve also decided to take a snap shot of our finished summary if we’re using a machine as proof of the work out.
Every week we’ll also be weighing and measuring ourselves to see what, if any, changes occur. We took our measurements in centimeters. My husband believes that centimeters give a more accurate reading, so we went with that, though inches work just as fine. As an idea, 2.54 centimeters = 1 inch.
Pictures of My Side and Back
Pictures of Hubby’s Side and Back
Proof from Our Time on the Elliptical
Our Measurements – let’s hope those numbers go down!
Ok so here we go: 1st 30-Day Challenge = Getting Fit!
In an ideal world, is there ever a better goal? It’s one I never have gotten the hang of: I was never involved in any sports throughout high school or college, I’ve never been able to get on a workout schedule (the longest I’ve consistently worked out for was two weeks and there’d be periods of weeks or months in between), and I’ve never been able to run a mile without stopping. I could go on and explain how much I’ve avoided working out and how I’ve put on the pounds and how I feel lethargic ALL the time, but it would be a novel. Point is, I may be a complete beginner, but working out is a step closer to solving all of my problems and is gives you endorphins (so they say)!
Yes, it is the 3rd of the month, but luckily with this 30 Day Challenge I don’t need to use all 30 Days. The parameters of the challenge are quite simple – work out at least 4 x a week so that at the end of the month I’ve worked out at least 16x. 16 days out of the 30 days in April is more than half-the month, which means I’d be more active than not. Couch potato no-more! [Tbh tho, I still plan on sitting on the couch every night to watch some telly…]
I’m also be instituting the following “rules”:
1. Start at least 30 minutes per workout and increase each week by 5 minutes so that by the end of the month I’m working out for a total of 45 minutes.
2. No more than 2 days of not working out! [Obviously, this is going to be the hardest rule to follow…I’m lazy.]
3. Weights at least 2 of the 4 days.
4. Stretch goal: Yoga once a week to stretch out those muscles.
My first day anddddd (drumroll, please) I worked out for 35 minutes on the elliptical! I was driven by guilt because if I didn’t work out today, I would have had to work out the rest of the week to reach the 4 x week goal. I have a long long long way to go before I’ll enjoy working out and being able to run, but baby steps. Here’s proof:
I truly believe that a good night’s sleep is where it all begins. A restful night gives you energy to power through the day, make smart decisions, and be more efficient. The few times I’m able to get the golden 8 hours of sleep, which is usually on the weekends, my mood and mindset is much better. Sadly, my fitbit says I average between 5.5 to 6.5 hours of sleep on weekdays.
I have tried to get a bed-time routine down, but to no avail. I don’t really have a set time to go to bed (unless 2 AM can be considered one?), but I do have an 8 to 5 job. The problem is I’m a tried and true night owl. Always have been. Despite being tired throughout the day and requiring 2 to 3 cups of coffee to function, I’m wide awake at 10 PM. I know what some may say, that the caffeine kicks in later on. And I would have agreed, but for the fact that this 10 PM wind can happen even when I don’t drink caffeine.
Of course though, everything is cyclical right? I get bad sleep, so I take a nap on my hour-long commute, and chug coffee to wake-up, and sluggishly make it through the day, only to get home and dilly dally. In between, I make bad decisions (i.e., food-related – snacking all the time, task-related – getting distracted easily because I don’t have the mental wherewithal, fitness-related – blowing off the gym, etc.) and procrastinate. In lieu of all this, I’ve decided to get a solid night-time routine down before I start my first 30 day challenge in April.
Here are the things I plan on doing:
I shower at night around 11:30 PM right before I go to bed. In other words, the time I shower usually determines my bed time. I tend to put showering off though because it’s one of those things I dread time/effort-wise, but know I need to do to feel clean. I use public transportation and work in an open-office environment, so I can only imagine how many germs I carry home with me. My goal is to shower by 10 PM.
Drinking tea helps me go to bed, but I usually don’t have time to make a cup after my late night shower. With the 10 PM goal in mind, I should be able to make a cup. One of my personal favorites is Sleepytime Tea.
I have to take a sleep aid at night because my fiancee snores like a horse and I’m a light sleeper. We’ve tried breathing strips on him, but they just don’t work. And without the sleep aid, I’m left resentfully staring at him as he gets some rest. It’s not fun. What’s worse though is that you usually need a good 7 to 8 hours to not wake up sleepy, and I don’t usually get that. I wake up at 6:30, so my goal is to take one Advil PM by 11 PM.
Diligently wear a sleep mask at night. I’m a fan of Dream Essentials. Thing is, I suffer from nocturnal lagophthalmos, which means that I sleep with my eyelids partially open. This adds to being a light sleeper because I’m sensitive to light. A sleep mask allows for complete darkness and protects my eyes from dryness. I wear my sleep mask on occasion, but the times I don’t are usually due to wet hair. Straps and wet hairs don’t make a good combination. With an earlier shower time though, I should have somewhat dry hair by the time I go to bed.
Track my bedtime and go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until I fall asleep by 11:30 PM. I love my Fitbit Charge 2 for tracking my sleep times because it’s extremely accurate. The Charge 2 has a heart rate tracker, so it can tell you when you at a resting/sleeping state. It also tells me how often I wake up in the middle of the night. All very helpful information. In my next post, I’ll go more into detail with what the Fitbit Charge 2 can do. 🙂
I love the idea of planning, but due to my procrastinating ways, I don’t really plan that far out and rarely do I get everything accomplished that I need to do in a given day/week/month. I have bought countless planners in the past, with the goal of writing t0-d0s down or keeping them at the forefront of my mind, but typically I stop writing in them. Then a year passes and sadly, I end up chucking it. This is very similar to my journal writing habits. Start. Stop. Start. Stop.
Anyway, in lieu of staying on top of my goals, I’ve done some research of the best planners out there. Mainly, I checked out this site. Lots of planners to choose from, lots of different styles, colors, and uses. Ultimately, the choice came down to price, size, and format. I loved the idea of a personalized planner, but I knew I didn’t want spend more than $50.00 to get one. I also loved the idea of a desk planner, but I knew that it would be impractical since I commute to work and currently, my work environment is an open space concept. Definitely don’t want to be leaving behind my whereabouts and inner-most thoughts lying around. Basically I needed a planner that’s inexpensive (in comparison), compact/portable, and fun.
After visiting each of the sites, I chose a Passion Planner. I actually bought mine on Amazon because it was cheaper and it was identical to the product on the site. I read the reviews on Amazon to make sure that was the case. Here’s a picture of what a week looks like on the inside (…it’s blank):
Here’s what it can look like after 5 minutes of planning and the magic of colorful felt tip markers:
And here’s what it can look like with more than 5 minutes,great penmanship, and some creativity. Those are only a few examples. Really, the possibilities are endless. I could hem and haw about the fact that my week doesn’t look as glamorous or visually appealing, but that’s something I think I’ll get better at over the course of time/use. For now, I’m focusing on my ideas coming to life! ❤️
It’s been well over a year since my first posts and I feel the need to pick-up where I started, but, of course, this time see some goals all the way through. In light of that, here’s five things you should know about me:
I have a very difficult time committing to building positive habits. I usually have the enthusiasm to begin something – the excitement that comes with envisioning where you could be if you changed just this one thing. That excitement carries me over for a couple of days, maybe even a week if I’m lucky, but then I lose traction. I start to feel that the change feels like work and I give up. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I don’t do the change long enough for it to feel natural. It does take a lot of willpower though.
I’m a perfectionist or at least I try to be, sadly, even for the most mundane things (e.g., making my bed). This relates to starting things and sticking with them long enough to form a habit because once I ‘mess up,’ I feel the need to start all over again, rather than just continue onward. A great analogy to this would be one cheat snack turning into one cheat meal to one cheat day, so forth, deciding I will start eating healthy ‘tomorrow.’ Yet, it happens again and again, and basically I never actually start doing anything. Then, I feel regret for not starting sooner and I drown my feelings in a tub of ice cream.
I’m a slowperson. What does that even mean? It means that given a physical task, I would probably take twice as long as the average person would. I’m efficient in some things, usually mental functions, but as soon as I have to use other muscles or limbs, I operate at half that speed. Half of it has to do it with energy levels and the other half has to do with my fitness levels…quite literally, my body slows me down.
I’m analytical = I overthink EVERYTHING. My thoughts are non-stop and I’m pretty sure because my attention is easily diverted, I go in ten different directions at one time. I tend to focus on researching, making a to-do list, etc., instead of actually doing things. I’ve been classified as a “be-er” before, not a “do-er.” You can imagine though that being a perfectionist + slow + analytical means I can get overwhelmed or exhausted easily.
I am not a morning person. Again very cyclical, but I don’t know if this has to do more with my circadian rhythm or that I don’t manage to have a night routine down pat. Not being a morning person can be a disadvantage because my job/schedule requires me to get up early, and most of the times, I get up feeling drained and that gets carried throughout the day. I’m basically a slug!
Those are my core ‘negative’ qualities that I need to work on. Not necessarily get rid of, but embrace and work around. I plan on setting challenges that’ll allow me to slowly experiment with what I can change and what I just need to accept…at the end of the day, I need to try. Keep with me, and let’s see what we can get done! 🙂
30 Day Life Challenges 