My Journey With Health And Fitness – Getting Into My Groove

Finally we seem to be making progress with our new kitty. After the 1st week we managed to completely traumaticize him. We decided to do a reset so put him in our basement family room and kept all the other pets away. We tried to make him feel comfortable and safe by leaving low level lights on, kept the fireplace running (it get quite cold in our basement) and left on a pet calming music channel (yes there is such a thing). After a week we started leaving the family room door open and the cat has slowly started to explore. While he won’t let us touch him yet, he is not running away when he sees us. I am calling this progress.

When I returned from Mexico I vowed it was time to give this health and fitness thing my all. There were some things that were easy to get started; reduce alcohol, watch carb intake and increase lean proteins. Those have all been relatively easy to do. But I knew I had to up my game when it came to workouts. I needed to go back to my no excuses mantra and go back to a tight schedule for my workouts. I think I am having relative good success.

I was at the fitness center this morning for a strength training class. I saw on the whiteboard what we were going to do so grabbed appropriate weights. I knew we were starting with dumbbell deadlifts so grabbed a couple of 20 lb weights which I thought was pretty good. But no, the trainer announced that no one should be using less than 25 lb weights. I sighed and grabbed a new set and you know what? 3 rounds of 10 reps and I didn’t die. Next was barbell back squats (have I mentioned I hate back squats?) and we were instructed to weight up the bars so I pulled out a couple of 15 lb weights which meant with the weight of the bar I would be squatting 65 lbs. Again I thought this was pretty good but when I turned my back to get clips for the weights suddenly I had another 10 lbs added to the bar so now I am going to be squatting 75 lbs! Again, I got through it and didn’t die. As a matter of fact I felt pretty good.

I realized I had for quite a while slid into the habit of taking the easy route. Today just proved to me that kind of mentality needs to stop. Yes, I have limitations but those need to be dealt with as one offs, not the entire workout routine. I have so much room to get even more fit and I am going to get back to being in the best shape of my life. I even managed to get in 20km of walking today and expect, for the 2nd day in a row to burn 3,000+ calories.

So I am getting into my groove. I am back to planning each day and how I am going to get all my workouts in. I know tomorrow I have a lunch to go to so that means fitness class followed by 3 hours of walking in the morning and then another hour in the afternoon. Thursday I have client work to do but I know how to do a work around to get in all of my training.

On a final note, I feel really good. Right now I go to bed at night just anticipating what I will accomplish the next day. That is what my groove looks like.