I completed a month of training
January was really tough. I got a chest infection and then I effectively knocked my immune system out. When the GP said I needed to rest and take it easy I was not happy. Add to that back and muscle injuries re-appearing and I was not in the best place mentally. Then there was isolation rules and covid restrictions. I wasn’t able to spend much time with family before my wedding. My mental health definitely wasn’t at it’s best.
Fast forward to April and things are looking different.
In March I completed a whole month of exercise – for me this looks like training 6 times a week with one complete recovery day i.e stretching only. I can’t remember the last time I did that. I normally take about 6 or 7 days off during my menstrual cycle and then this leads to me giving up until the new month calendar arrives. For most of March - my days included walking an average of 6000 to 7000 steps. I’m drinking more water and eating about 2-3 portions of fruit a day and 2 portions of veg. Protein intake is still a challenge but I’m intrigued to work on this more. I even tried a few more resistance band workouts that aren’t in the photo shown above.
The reason I’m proud of this is that for a while I have been telling myself I would train daily and get more movement into my days other than just daily steps. But each morning would arrive and I would put off my training session or do the minimum amount (like 5 minutes of low impact sessions).
I absolutely love training so at first I didn’t understand why I was continually putting off exercise. I started journaling and digging into it and realised I was making it really hard to consistently exercise. I kept on thinking to myself “I need to do 60 minutes daily or there’s no point”. I would also tell myself that each workout needed to be super intense or I was wasting my time. All of this is what created a mental block for me and made me become nervous of exercise. So nervous that I was not only afraid to try but afraid to fail and get injured. This then started the negative cycle of believing that I was never going to be able to lose any weight or lead a healthy life. Exercise actually has very little to do with weight loss as it’s more about eating a nutritional diet full of fruit, vegtables and vitamins etc. Exercise is an added bonus for getting toned and adapting your physique as well as getting your heart rate up with cardio.
My philosophy now is to start training and to do at least 10 minutes (5 minutes if I’m feeling really low mood or depressed). Once I start doing 10 minutes of exercise I find that 9 times out of 10 I keep going and even enjoy the challenge of intense pilates sessions. I don’t feel guilty if I stick to just 10 minutes. What I do is tell myself that I did really well to move my body and it becomes easier to repeat the process the next day because I’m not dreading it. Those 10 minutes don’t mean me going flat out with pushups and burpees or planks. It means me moving, stretching and perhaps getting one plank or 3 pushups in at the end. The main thing is I’m listening to my body and challenging it slowly over time. I’m always curious to see what I can do next. Even if, say, I’ve done a YouTube video hundreds of times before - I’m always curious to learn how I can improve. Learning is a fun part of working out and I encorporate some form of it into each session.
The other thing I wasn’t doing to begin with was tracking my macros. Now I don’t mean calorie counting on its own – that is a numbers game that can be dangerous. What I mean is looking at the calories my body needed and the amount of carbs, fat and protein I needed to feel full and have energy without having a food coma after 4pm. This is where my 90 day fitness journal comes in.
I’m looking to start my next 90 day journey to lean up and build a better relationship to my body. I’m planning on allowing myself 1600 calories daily and will ensure I drink as much water as I feel I need. I plan to track my food, my water, my sleep, my workout and my emotions i.e moods.
This helps to create an overall picture and when I feel good and happy I can go back and see what I did to create that result. It’s about getting curious and being scientific to a certain level. I’m not trying to be perfect so that I can then write it down. I’m going to live my day then track it and then look at what works and isn’t necessarily working.
Now I don’t track my intake perfectlyfor most of these challenge type projects – there are occasions where I get take out with the hubby and I forget to track my food altogether. I don’t go back and force myself to remember. I tell myself it’s ok to have a day or two off and that I can start fresh the next time I track. It’s part of having a self-love mindset around health and wellness. This stops me from giving up.
I have a lot more trust in myself these days whether it be enjoying snacks I like or having a rest day or even two/three rest days over a holiday. I don’t start thinking “what if I quit or don’t get back on the wagon”. I think to myself “I’m enjoying my rest/recovery time and I will absolutely continue the progress in small steps by listening to my body and soul”. There is no wagon to get back on. If I put on weight I explore how my body feels and I want it to feel. If I enjoyed my food and put on a bit of weight in the process I see it as me enjoying something. That isn’t something to punish myself for. I have lost lots of weight in the past and I now have the trust that I can do that again should I want to.
I’m slowly realising that by being kinder to my body it is MUCH easier to consistently train, eat well and feel more peaceful. It’s a huge domino effect and one that stops me from going back and trying fad diets or relying on any one “super”food to help me lose weight fast. Ok so occasionally I might end up on google “researching” how to lose weight fast but I know that those searches come from wanting fast results and not feeling adequate. It’s about getting your mind in gear. It always starts with the mind.
Ready to start loving working out and build a better body? Come work with me and I will help you build a mindset that helps you fall in love with exercise and even helps you to work towards those big goals. It IS possible I promise you!