October 18-26, 2015 – Good start, rough finish. Time to reset!

On Sunday, I was in AZ with my sister, and walked 7.8 miles throughout the day. We wandered around a few state parks and historical sites, and then around ASU’s main campus and downtown Tempe — pretty solid activity level for a day I spent 3 hours on a flight.

I walked to work every day last week, and walked home all but two days, which helped me hit my 10,000 step goal 3 of the 7 days, and got within 2,000 another 2 days. I also ate pretty well during the week, having Freshii soup for lunch twice, butternut squash soup once, and salads, pasta, and lots of fruits and veggies frequently. I also started making my own smoothie bowls, which has been an awesome way to get extra veggies in (and fruits, but I never have an issue with that). Plus, they’re delicious.

This weekend was pretty bad in the physical-activity department.. I was super lazy and sat on my couch most of the time. I also ate a whole bag of Guittard Milk Chocolate Chips (AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS but pretty horrible for me) between Friday and Sunday, so that was a bummer…

Already have my alarm set for tomorrow morning’s run, though, and got my shower drain fixed so I don’t have the “but I can’t shower at home” excuse for not exercising, either.

Hoping to reset this week!

Third Time’s The Charm?

I’m pretty sure my last post was the last thing I did before everything came crumbling down in busy season #2 (or, as I like to call it, “the worst time I’ve ever had in my life,” “A supposedly fun thing I’ll be doing again every year for eternity,” or “hell”). Okay, to be fair, I survived, learned a lot, and had some decent times this fall leading up to the September 15 deadline. But I worked over 80 hours per week for seven weeks straight, sometimes getting into the 100+-hour range.

Needless to say, I did not get “back on the band wagon” as my previous post indicated.

Having been working for nearly a year now, and gone through two busy seasons, I feel like I have a much better sense of what to expect, and how to structure my days so I can have time to work out, eat well, and stay sane during busy seasons. Because of this new perspective, I have more reasonable goals set for myself, and I am planning to start working out NOW, during the slower time, so that I can create a habit and keep momentum when next busy season starts in late January/early February.

I have signed up for the Chicago Spring and Fall Half Marathon series — one on May 22, and another on September 25 — and am planning to run a Spartan Sprint (or Super, if I’m feeling really ambitious) in the end of January with my sister in San Diego. Having signed up for events with hard dates should help me achieve some goals, and I’m really excited to get back into running (I know in  a previous post I said I’m not into anything cardio if it doesn’t involve sports, namely soccer, but I’ve recently changed my mind. I miss running!).

I’m planning to do weekly (or more frequent, but weekly at a minimum) posts to keep myself on track — they’ll likely sum up everything I did for exercise in the week, might be in fragments rather than complete sentences, and probably won’t be very long. I’ve learned from the past, and this whole writing-multiple-paragraphs thing only comes along so often… I’m planning on Friday blog posts, and they’re written in my planner for the foreseeable future, so odds are pretty good that I’ll follow through — my planner is my boss. If it says to do something, I’d give it a 92% likelihood that I’ll do it!

Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow (Friday) for my first weekly update!

Back on the Workout Wagon

So I clearly did not make it to 100 days…. I blame it entirely on myself not having the willpower to work out for even 20 minutes per day during work.

To be fair, I’m not entirely disappointed in myself. I started a new job in January, which is my first full-time job after graduating college. This job is in public accounting, which has “busy seasons” twice a year – meaning 70+ hours of work every week for 6 weeks in the fall and 10-12 weeks in the spring leading up to the September 15 and April 15 filing deadlines. This past spring was a particularly busy busy season, so I was working 7 days a week for an average of 12 hours per day, every. Single. Day. for about 11 weeks.

I also had appendicitis mid-February, which did not help the exercise motivation, since I was ordered by a doctor to avoid exercise for 3 weeks after my surgery.

But again, I’m not trying to make excuses. Looking back at the past seven months, though, I understand why it was difficult for me to maintain a fitness habit, and I’ve learned a lot about what I need to do to get back on the “workout wagon.”

I moved to a new neighborhood in Chicago recently, and I just purchased a gym membership at a gym roughly 1.37 blocks from my apartment building. This is a fancy-schmancy gym with a spa in it, and I got 3 free sessions with a personal trainer when I signed up.

I haven’t been going to the gym every day at this point (I’ve had the membership for 2 weeks now), but I’ve been 6 times since signing up, and I’m working on getting in the habit of going for at least 30 minutes 4 times a week so I can try (again) to make exercising a habit. I want to be one of those people who just doesn’t feel her best unless she works out or does something active that day. Because that positive feeling is what I believe will get me to be a fitness-as-a-habit person.

So, starting today (or two weeks ago, I guess), I’m making it a goal to get to the gym four times a week or more. And for some extra motivation, if I swipe in to the gym 36 times in the first 90 days of being a member, I earn my enrollment fee back. That’s $180 just for meeting my goal! And it gets paid back to me in the form of gym credits, so I’ll just have to use it on spa treatments, personal training sessions, or workout clothes…. what a bummer!

As part of my 4-times-per-week goal, I’m aiming to work out every Monday to set the “workout mood” for the week, and likely once on the weekends, since I have more time to myself and not at work on the weekend days (it’s busy season again — hooray!).

Other than Mondays/weekends, I’m aiming to make it to the gym on Wednesdays or Tuesday/Thursdays, depending on the week. I like to give myself Fridays off from non-work responsibilities, to be able to take some time in the mornings to relax, and know that when I go home in the evenings, I’m done for the week (until I go into the office the next morning… but I just pretend I’m not).

Tomorrow’s post will be “day one” again — we’ll see how it goes this time! My goal is to make it up to 100 again, but not in 100 days. This time I’m setting a more realistic goal for myself, given my time constraints and history of not working out very consistently. So it will likely take me around 175 days (25 weeks) to get to 100 days of working out 4x/week.

Let’s do this!

Day Twenty Eight: YMCA Workout

I went back to the YMCA today and just did a 35-ish-minute workout. I ran for about 20 minutes on the treadmill to warm up and get some cardio in (I’m still working on increasing cardio workouts – I’m not a huge fan of doing more than 20 minutes or so, unless it’s Sproing or a sport for fun…). Then I did some lat pulldowns and rows with 60 pounds, and then I did 30-second plank intervals (30 seconds plank, 30 seconds side plank, 30 seconds plank, 30 seconds other side plank, without dropping), 30 pushups (15 normal, 15 triceps), stretched, attempted to do a splits stretch, and headed home. Not the most strenuous workout I’ve ever had, but my body is still feeling all the barre workouts I’ve been doing, so I’m glad I took it a little easier than normal today.

Day Twenty Seven: Pure Barre Marin

Today’s workout was another Pure Barre class (yes, I’m somewhat of an addict… I’ve looked into monthly contract pricing more than once), at a different location. It was another great workout that made my legs, abs, butt, arms, and everything else burn and shake in such an awesome way. And I looked at myself in the mirror this evening and I can definitely see results! My arms are more toned, my stomach is flatter, and my butt (“seat,” as they call it in Pure Barre) is lifted. So cool to see! And now I’m even more committed to working out and eating healthily, after having seen some positive change in just a few weeks (27 days, to be exact).

Anyway, the barre class today was great, and the instructor, Alex, was really fun and upbeat, as all the Pure Barre instructors have been! And after class, we could try some free juice samples that a neighboring company makes. Pretty cool, and an overall positive workout experience!

Day Twenty Six: Bar Method Marin

I went to another ClassPass class today, this time at the Bar Method in Bon Air Shopping Center. I’ve been to another Bar Method class, in Chicago, which I enjoyed due to the emphasis on getting perfect form, but I have to say I LOVED this class! The instructor, Alyssa, was incredible – knowledgeable, encouraging, and engaging, as all instructors I’ve had are, and she also had a killer sense of humor. When she explained which part of the body we should be focusing on in certain exercises, she told us which items of clothing it would make us look great in. She gave us alternatives for exercises that would make them more difficult by saying “And here you have the option to *whatever*. And by ‘option,’ I mean ‘it’s a Friday in the holiday season, get your butt in gear!'” These little one-liners and jokes made the class fly by, and it kept me focused on something other than the burn. And yes, it BURNED!

This class was one of my favorites to date!

Day Twenty Five: Pure Barre San Rafael

Today, I realized that my ClassPass month is ending on December 7, and I haven’t used my 3 allotted uses out of some of my favorite studios in Chicago, and since I can use it in any city with ClassPass, I signed up for my favorite – Pure Barre!

Just like all my other Pure Barre experiences in Old Town Chicago, I had a great time at Pure Barre San Rafael, and had yet another great instructor who pushed all of us to give it our all and corrected when needed while still being encouraging and upbeat. The class definitely kicked my butt (in an awesome way, of course), and I’m so glad I went!

Day Twenty Four: Long Walk and a Few Hill Sprints

The three-week workout program I mentioned in yesterday’s post called for 45 minutes of cardio today. My initial thought: “um, no.”

I’ve never been a huge fan of running just for the sake of running – it was always for soccer conditioning in middle school and high school – and I’m not a big biker, swimmer, ellipticaller (?), or any other cardio-based workout that isn’t playing sports. I would’ve been down to go play soccer or tennis or some fun sport with friends, but since I’m currently at home with my parents, the pickings are slim for fielding anything more than 2-player soccer (to clarify, that would be me and a wall).

I was honestly pretty close to not even working out today. I was pretty lethargic, and it was one of those dark gray almost-raining-all-the-time-but-never-quite-raining days, so I had very little motivation. But I made the smart choice to tell my mom about the three-week workout plan, and I answered her inquiry about today’s workout being 45 minutes of cardio, she suggested that we go on an up-tempo walk. I like to encourage my family (mostly my parents, since my sister is a workout powerhouse) to be healthy, so I figured this was good for me and for my mom. And I even did 3 sprints up one of the steep hills nearby. I was huffing and puffing so hard that by the top of each hill sprint I probably would’ve been going faster if I had walked, but I felt good about getting some high-intensity moments into the walk.

We ended up walking for over an hour,  and while this isn’t exactly the style of cardio that I’m hoping to do on most “cardio days,” I still consider this a workout, and I don’t feel bad at all about counting this as my 45 minutes of cardio!

Day Twenty Three: YMCA Membership and a New 3-Week Program!

I went to my local YMCA today and got a month-long membership for only $50 – a pretty awesome deal! After filling out the necessary paperwork and swiping my card, I went in to the gym and started day one of a three-week workout program I found on Pinterest (of course… because where else do I get new ideas?). It’s from HerCampus, and it’s technically a pre-spring-break workout for college students, but there’s no reason I can’t just use it to amp up for the New Year! Here’s a link to the workout program. It’s pretty cardio-heavy, which I’m not too psyched about, but as I’ve mentioned in past posts, cardio is the area I think I need the most help in, so it’ll be good to try to force myself to get better about it.

Today, I did the Monday workout for week 1 – 30 minutes of cardio, and the arms, abs, and legs exercises. I think I was a bit dehydrated, because I got a little lightheaded at times, so I’ll need to pay attention to how much water I’m drinking every day and be sure to up my consumption levels, but other than that, it felt like a solid workout! Hopefully I’ll get myself to stick to it for these next three weeks… the challenge will be continuing it while I’m in Seattle visiting Nate… the weekdays are fine, but weekends when he’s home from work can get a little rough in terms of fitness…. We’ll see how it goes next week!

Day Twenty Two: Lazy Day #3

Today, I didn’t do much physical activity (again). Officially Day Three of Slacking Off.

We cleaned up the beach house and packed up the cars, and my sister, her friend and I left around noon and took a leisurely drive down the coast, stopping in various small towns to look around shops and get some snacks, back to our house. Then we went to see the new Hunger Games movie, which I thought was pretty good, picked up some Thai and Chinese food for dinner (I went with Thai – yum!), and spent the rest of the evening hanging out as a family before my sister left the next morning. It was a nice off-day, and I don’t really regret not working out as much as I have the other two days that I missed.