Work It OUT!

I did NOT want to hit the gym this morning

I did NOT want to hit the gym this morning

See that picture?!?! That is exactly how I felt when I got on the elliptical today. I don’t know about you, but I find that if I get away from my exercise routine for any significant length of time, I lose confidence in myself as an athletic, capable person. This morning I knew I needed to get it going. August was so busy that I didn’t get all of my workouts in. In fact, I would say that I probably worked out about eight to ten times during August. Maybe more, maybe less, but we hiked, traveled, got my classroom ready, swam and a myriad of other things. Exercise for the sake of working out just seemed exhausting!

Today my goal was to break that cycle and finally get back to it. I didn’t rely on motivation or anything else to get on the machine, I had to use straight up determination. It was all up to me, nothing external was going to get me rolling and I wanted nothing to do with the workout! I was grumpy, surly and irritable as I started the workout. Everything was an inconvenience, and the most irritating thing was that my son was watching Handy Manny on the tv in our home gym, and that’s what made me realize what a crab I was being. He was working out, too, which is very impressive for him. I needed to let him use the tv, I could use my iPad, so I just got going and stopped letting small inconveniences ruin my ability to work it out!

It's always nice to have a babe of a husband over your shoulder!  He worked it out for almost two hours!   So did my boy!  :)

It’s always nice to have a babe of a husband over your shoulder! He worked it out for almost two hours! So did my boy! 🙂

About 15 minutes into the workout I started feeling better. It’s funny, this whole business of a runner’s high, or whatever, and how true it is. Nothing fixes a foul mood for me like a workout. My head gets cleared out, I start making plans, creating goals… It’s like everything becomes clarified and transparent somehow. I started using the commercials from The Biggest Loser for circuit timings (I was watching it on my iPad) to hop off of the elliptical and jump onto the stair stepper machine or to do some reps on my arms then back to cardio, either the treadmill or the elliptical. I watched almost an entire episode of season 11, burned well over 500 calories, spent 90 minutes in my spaceship (home gym) using all my equipment except the stationary cycle, and got a whole new attitude about my day!

While I was on my machines getting my sweat on, I remembered that one of the best ways for me to get rolling with a so,I’d workout plan is to use regular and reasonable goal setting, so I’m going to do that here.
By next Friday, I want to:
Hit 10,000 steps every day.
Hit 150 minutes of cardio.
Work my arms out three times.
Run outside at least once.
Run at least ten miles.

I’ve learned that I don’t really have food problems so much anymore. Which is really weird. Junky food is not satisfying to me any longer. I’ve realized, aside from my ice cream habit, I am not terribly interested in junk. I like my diet of eating all the protein, fruit and veggies I want and mostly just monitoring my dairy and carb intake and find that the other stuff makes me complacent, sluggish and apathetic. I just hope that this shift last until I die. Seriously!

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