My Journey With Health And Fitness – Changes Are Happening

After bootcamp this morning I got home and had a serious thought about what I was going to do for my next workout because it was freezing cold! While I was tempted to scale things back a bit I resolutely put on a couple layers and headed out for a run. At about the 5km mark I finally felt I was warmed up though I was sure my face was so frozen it was going to drop off. I kept going and then did my 5km walk (including Oxford Hill). I felt pretty good about pushing through the cold weather and later in the day managed to walk to a community centre where I do volunteer work and then walk back home despite the fact that it was snowing. Ok, determination is absolutely in place.

I noticed a few changes that seem to be happening with me. I’m going to start with how I am dressing. During the holiday season I got a bit lax and was back to dressing mainly in sweatpants all day. Of course then I went to Mexico where it was ultra casual most days. Now I am back and decided I need to return to dressing properly each day. By that I mean no comfy sweatpants everyday but instead pull something decent out of the closet and put it on. I admit that it is usually jeans but hey, the past couple days it was actually skinny jeans which while a bit snug fit better than expected. I consider this an important thing to do each day to keep myself normalized.

Next is the fact that since I wrote that blog last week about challenging myself I have really done so. For example, today we had to do push presses with bar bells. I picked the heaviest set but noticed after 2 of 3 rounds that there was a set I could use on the next set that was slightly lighter. Yet, I got to that last set and just picked up the heavy set and pushed through it. The past couple days I have done not only my class but also a run and some serious walking (though weather dependent tomorrow I may take a recovery day and scale back a bit and not do 3 hours of walking). I want to keep challenging myself in some way every day while I sprint my way to peak fitness.

And then it is how I look. I have mentioned several times about how toned I am. I realized yesterday that I am now getting beyond toned and can refer especially regarding my arms to my muscles being sculpted. Sometimes I see myself in the mirror and can’t believe how muscular I have become. Those muscles don’t just appear when I am using weights, they are now pretty evident with every movement that I make. I am pretty sure that there is very little fat left on this body other than my tummy (though I acknowledge that one is tough to determine because of having some excess skin there). I wonder how everything will look if I keep doing what I am doing now.

Finally is the running. I said to my husband yesterday that after 3 years I am starting to enjoy running. I know, for 3 years I have said I don’t like doing it but I have to as part of my fitness. Lately because I have focused on getting a fair amount of runs in I have started using that time to not only clear my head but also to map out my day. I take the opportunity to bring my expectations of myself into check and lighten any burdens I might be carrying. The end result has been that I feel really good at the end of the run and quite frankly energized as well which gives me the strength to get on with the day.

Those are a lot of changes that have happened in the past 2 months, I really didn’t expect so many of them. Here’s hoping that this huge sense of motivation that I have right now stays with me as I literally run down the path of this journey.