Learning to love (and do) exercise
I’ve always enjoyed exercise to a degree. That doesn’t mean I always feel like doing it though! At different times in my life, I’ve found doing exercising more challenging for many different reasons, including raising young children and anxiety. It can be easy to focus on simply just doing more of it, however for sustainability and longevity in this area, I found there were mental hurdles involved for me to overcome first. Now today, I am fitter now than I have been in my entire life, and as I look back, I can see the personal issues I overcame that helped me find ways to incorporate exercise into my life.
1. Decide
The first step was to make the conscious decision to do something about my health. I wrote about it here: Feeling Fat and Ugly (written in Nov 2010).
2. Embrace
Secondly, I needed to embrace who I was and the changes in my body after five pregnancies. I wrote about it here: Weight Gain and Post Baby Body Issues (written in August 2011)
3. Grow
A great thing about blogging is looking back and seeing how much you’ve grown. Last year, I wrote a post titled I don’t cry for my body anymore (written in August 2013)
4. Do
I jumped those hurdles, and now I have the freedom to work out what fitness/health routine works for me. I explained more fully a motivator to exercise in this post: What a Bad Week, Taught me About a Good Week.
Fitness Routine
When working out a fitness routine, it’s a good idea to know the activities you enjoy (and don’t). Here is my list:
What I don’t enjoy:
• Exercising by myself at home
• Exercise videos
• Wii Fit
• Doing weights at the Gym
• Swimming laps
What I do enjoy:
• Running
• Team sport
• Walking/Bushwalking by myself (and with others)
• Group exercise sessions
• Bike riding
• Aerobics Classes
• Being out and about with my kids
My routine
Once I worked out the types of activities I enjoyed, I looked to see where I could fit some of these into my life. For the last year, I’ve been with Lauren Phillips from Phizique. She offers fitness challenges, personal PT and group PT classes. I prefer doing exercise with a small bunch of ladies than in a regular gym so it works well for me.
There’s variety too, which is important to me. Thinking about it, although we do many similar exercises every week, I don’t think there’s been a class exactly the same! Pictured below are some of the exercises I do for strength. In a week, all going to plan (which with a family, it doesn’t always) I usually do:
Strength: 2 strength classes
Cardio: 1 boxing class
Fitness: 2-3 runs runs
That does seem like a lot but I’ve worked up to this over a year and a half and my stage of life makes it possible too.
You can see more of the exercise I do regularly in this post: 15 Minute Circuit (you can do at home)
Tips
Below are some ways I’ve learned to love and do exercise:
Variety: keep it interesting!
Do what you enjoy: find out what you enjoy and find ways to do that
Challenge your mind: when doing repetitive exercises, I usually count in 5’s. So if I’m doing 20 Bench Leg Raises, I will count 1,2,3,4,5 / 2,2,3,4,5 / 3,2,3,4,5 / 4,2,3,4,5. I figure I can always do 5 so it helps me get through them. Another way is to count down for the last 10. So I might count the first 10, then change to 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Seems pretty simple but I find it helps me get mentally focused. When I run, I choose a point ahead of me and pick up the pace before slowing down or having a drink break. I see this as mentally cutting up exercise in chunks.
Keep going: I remember when I first started doing serious exercise, especially when I started running (I began running back in July 2012), I was so exhausted I could hardly move for days! “Where is all this energy everyone promised!?” It took a little while (3 weeks approx for PT – 3 months for running) for me to adjust but I just kept going. So keep going. It does get easier.
Food
I started a fitness & health challenge at the start of this year, and below is my week 9-8 week food. I’ve noticed now, that it’s not so much about discipline or cravings anymore that I struggle with, but more-so the preparation. If I’m not prepared, that is when I lapse. However, overall, I’m thrilled with the progress I’ve made with eating more vegetables and whole foods in my diet this year. And I’m really enjoying porridge in the morning, so you can see!
Week 8
Day 50
Breakfast: Porridge
Snack: Carrot & Cottage Cheese
Lunch: Wholemeal bread with turkey, cottage cheese, mustard, tomato & spinach – Plus a nectarine
Snack: Rye mountain bread roll up with all-peanuts peanut butter
Dinner: Banana pancake (make from half a banana & 1 egg)
Other: Natural yoghurt with wheatgerm & dried apricot
Day 51
Breakfast: Porridge with linseed & crushed almonds
Snack: Date & Oat Ball
Lunch: Broccoli & Cauliflower soup
Snack: Carrot & cottage cheese with berries
Dinner: Lentil & spinach soup
Other:
Day 52
Breakfast: Porridge with sunflower seeds & linseed
Snack: Ryvita with all-peanuts peanut butter
Lunch: Lentil & spinach soup with a date & oat ball
Snack: Pistachios
Dinner: Lean mince with beans & spinach – served with pasta
Other: 1 piece of chocolate with small chocolate custard
Day 53
Breakfast: Porridge
Snack: Beetroot, carrot, ginger & celery juice
Lunch: Broccoli & cauliflower soup with linseed & cottage cheese. Natural yoghurt with strawberries.
Snack: Almonds
Dinner: Turkey with broccoli, cauliflower, carrot & rice
Other: –
Day 54
Breakfast: Porridge with strawberries & natural yoghurt
Snack: Oat & Banana Cookie
Lunch: Wholemeal bread sandwich with turkey, spinach, tomato & cottage cheese
Snack: Pineapple
Dinner: {wedding} Entree: Asian lamb salad; Main: Chicken breast with sweet potato mash & veges; Dessert: Apple crumble
Other: –
Day 55
Breakfast: Apple
Snack: Oat & banana biscuit (no sugar, butter)
Lunch: Chicken breast with salad and olives
Snack: Date & oat ball & small banana smoothie
Dinner: Lentil & spinach soup
Other:
Day 56
Breakfast: Banana & spinach smoothie
Snack: –
Lunch: Grilled Chicken with salad, avocado, mushroom, spinach, carrot
Snack: Sunflower seeds & carrot
Dinner: Turkey, brussel sprouts, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli – served with mince, bean sauce
Other:
Exercise
- 3 group PT session
- 1 x 6.5 k run + 15 minute circuit
- 1 x 8k run
Week 9
Day 57
Breakfast: Green smoothie (with protein powder)
Snack: Almonds
Lunch: Chicken, spinach, tomato, sugar snap peas, carrot
Snack: Boiled egg
Dinner: Tuna salad with tomato, spinach, mushroom & cashew nuts
Other: –
Day 58
Breakfast: Natural yoghurt with sunflower seeds
Snack: Tuna & avocado
Lunch: Lentil & spinach soup
Snack: Carrot & sunflower seeds, cashews
Dinner: Grilled chicken, broccoli, carrot, cabbage)
Other:
Day 59
Breakfast: Multigrain bread with avocado
Snack: Date & Oat ball with handful of organic popcorn
Lunch: Tuna, broccoli, purple cabbage, carrot
Snack: Greek yoghurt with linseed
Dinner: Quinoa, broccoli, tofu, onion and soy
Other: —
Day 60
Breakfast: Quinoa porridge with kiwi fruit
Snack: Oat & banana biscuit (no butter or refined sugar)
Lunch: Vege juice (V8)
Snack: Ryvita with all-peanuts peanut butter
Dinner: Chicken stirfy with spinach, carrot, purple cabbage and rice
Other: –
Day 61
Breakfast: Porridge with linseed
Snack: Oat & date ball
Lunch: Quinoa salad with spinach and tomato
Snack: Oat & banana biscuit (no refined sugar or butter)
Dinner: Salad with spinach, onion, tomato, fetta cheese (no dressing)
Other: Natural yoghurt
Day 62
Breakfast: Porridge with linseed
Snack: Carrot
Lunch: Grilled chicken breast with salad & egg
Snack: mini connoisseur ice cream (vanilla)
Dinner: Natural yoghurt with wheatgerm
Other: 1 Oat & banana biscuit
Day 63
Breakfast: Porridge with natural yoghurt & linseed
Snack: –
Lunch: Tuna with spinach and tomato
Snack: Almonds
Dinner: Grilled chicken with spinach, tomato, cucumber, cottage cheese
Other:
Exercise
- 3 group PT session
- 1 x 6.5 k run + 15 minute circuit
- 1 x 30 minute walk
On the home stretch of this challenge now…but I know the changes I’ve made will stick with me.
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