As I have talked about in the past here on this blog, this year back in January I started over in my exercise journey. I have been in various levels of shape over the years and my exercise and fitness routines have been knocked down more than once from health, surgeries, depression and other set backs. But this year seems different. Before I always exercised pretty much for vanity reasons. I wanted to look a certain way and keep my weight in check. This year I switched to exercising for health. I want to be healthy. I want to be stronger. I want to move better. And yes I still want to lose weight and look a certain way in my clothes. But now by having more and different motivations I have made exercise a way of life. I crave exercise and finally understand other people who crave exercise as well. Exercise helps my stress and my mind. It helps with my writing. It gives me energy at the day job. It's helped me heal from an injury that had me using a cane last year. It is slowly changing my life.
With this new found and truer appreciation of exercise, I have been thinking about even making this a side career for me. I have been looking into becoming a certified personal trainer this summer. I would love to really work with others who are coming back from illness or injury in particular. I have even been playing with the idea of starting YouTube channel once I am certified to help people workout in the comfort of their own homes, mostly where I myself like to workout. All of this is still in the planning stages. I am trying to decide where to get my certification from at the moment, so if I have any trainers reading this and who would like to give me some insight on the certification they received, please drop me a message, I would love to hear from you!
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Since January of this year I have been working out on a consistent basis. I started out slowly and have been building and getting in better shape each and every week. Not only am I starting to see some health benefits to all of this exercise, but I am seeing improvement in my writing life as well. I now come home from the day job, exercise, and then get down to the writing part of my life. And you know what? Now that I am exercising before I write I am feeling more creative when I sit down in front of the computer. I am writing more words, in fact this month is the best month of writing that I have had in over a year. Each month this year I am writing more words than the month before and it is feeling good! Who knew that taking care of my physical self would help with my writing so much? I think that things in my life are finally starting to fall into place.
I had a bit of a rough start to 2019, with illness stopping me from exercising as much as I would have liked. But this is a new month and a new year being alive since I recently celebrated my birthday and I am back on track to getting in shape! I have moved on from some small one mile workouts that I could do in January and am now getting in two mile workouts, some with HIIT involved even! Next up I want to add some three mile workouts in and then get back to doing more yoga. I have been using the Walk at Home app from Leslie Sansone for my workouts for ease and so I have a variety workouts anytime that I have to sneak in some exercise. With my health I have good days and bad days, but I am starting to get some consistency with my workouts and that is giving me a few more good days I think. Hopefully I see some pounds start to drop off soon, but being healthy really is more important than losing weight to me at this point in my life. And I am still cooking more at home and I feel that is only improving my health as well. I think that taking better care of myself is even helping my art and writing!
As I continue to revamp and better my life and my health, that of course means that I need to look at and improve my eating and exercise routines. Now if you have read my blog before, you may know that I have had many health setbacks and have had to restart my fitness routines over and over again. Well I guess the important part is that I keep dusting myself off and starting over, which is what I have been doing this past month.
First off, for the diet part I have been doing intermittent fasting. Now I don't want to get any messages saying that I am starving myself or how unhealthy it is. I have done my research and this method of eating not only works well for people with health ailments and it seems to be working really well for me thus far. I used to have stomach issues if I ate too early or too late. Those have virtually disappeared. I have lost 8.5 pounds, which is amazing as I have not seen the scale budge since my hysterectomy. I still eat enough and no foods are off limits, though I am trying to eat more mindfully and eat healthier more often than non-healthy. That's it. It's simple and something that I think that I can personally live with for the rest of my life. As for the exercise part of my revamp, well that is still a work in progress. I have started off slowly as U have had a recent physical setback. So right now I am working on walking more. I am getting at least 30 minutes most days of the week. I feel that is a pretty good start and I am slowly adding, trying to get back to 10,000 steps or more per day. I know that I will get there, it just takes time. I am again concentrating on health and something that I can do for a lifetime, not trying to look like a supermodel in my 40s. I am also starting to add yoga back into my life and feel so much better for it. I am starting slowly, but soon I will have incorporated yoga into my life at least three times a week. I am hoping that these small but sustainable changes are what I need to get my health back on track. These are also issues that I will be talking about in the vlog that I am starting soon on Youtube. Let me know what you think and how you stay healthy in the comments below. A couple of times this year I have tried to start a consistent exercise program, only to be derailed by health and life. And that is how I find myself starting over once again. Sometimes falling off the exercise wagon makes me feel like a loser, but I always manage to pick myself back up and again and start over. As long as I keep trying I am making forward progress.
Now I am still suffering from some long term health issues, so this time I am starting off smaller and building as my body will let me. That means I'm mainly focusing on walking and getting my steps back up and doing yoga on a daily basis again. I think that I what I am going to focus on until the end of the year. Maybe if I ease my body into exercise, I can start to add more after the new year. While I do hope to lose some weight from this exercise program, what is more important to me is feeling better and helping my health. I'm hoping this time I don't push myself too far and overdo it, that way hopefully I can stick to it this time. If not, well I will just start over one more time. So if you read this blog on a regular base, you know that I am attempting to slowly get back in shape. Well it is time to get serious and that is why I am committing myself to a 31 day health challenge. I signed up for a yoga program that has the 31 days all planned out for me. I hope this really jump starts a regular yoga practice for me. At the same time I am getting back into using my Fitbit to hit at least 10,000 steps a day. I figure 31 days of hitting my step goal, combined with daily yoga is a big step in the right direction. I am also slowly cleaning up my eating, though I love food too much to ever be perfect in that area. As I get in better shape I hope that I see improvements in my overall health. Stay tuned for weekly updates, I need to be held accountable so that is why I am putting my health journey out there.
If you are interested in doing the same yoga challenge that I am, here it is: http://yogawithadriene.com/revolution-31-days-of-yoga/ I have been struggling to get back into shape ever since my hysterectomy last year. Well it is time to start an actual plan to get in shape. My health always acts up in the summer, so I am starting slow and aiming to exercise for 30 minutes, 3 times a week. Plus adding some planking and legs and arms. I snagged this meme off a friend's facebook, so I am giving it a go this month!
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AuthorAuthor, artist, jewelry maker and all around creative person. I write in many genres and have a lot of fun doing so. Please take a look around and enjoy! Archives
January 2022
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