Archive | Motivation

Weekly Workout Recap: Planning for Fitness and “Testing” Some JM Videos

Umm.. no way will this ever be me. (*hides*)

I have been thinking quite a bit about the goal that I want to work towards.

Initially, I figured I needed to join a sport of some sort since it would be easier to visualize. So maybe working towards a body competition, you know, the fit ladies who are super tanned in skimpy bikinis? I had a friend who was into it and I know she devotes an inordinate amount of time to prepare for it. I then remembered that I am an introvert and doing anything on stage practically naked is probably not a good idea.

So what about rock climbing, boxing, cycling, triathlons, half marathons, power-lifting, etc.? It dawned on me that choosing a specific sport too soon is too much commitment in time and money for something I don’t know if I will like just so I can force myself into a goal.

I figured I should start with the journey before I determine an “end goal.” So ultimately, I decided that…

  1. I want to get into the best shape I have ever been
  2. I want to incorporate exercise videos into my life as a daily habit (I want to feel weird if I go a day without doing it)
  3. I want to be able to develop my cardio endurance enough so that I can participate in a 5k without stopping, maybe in a Disneyworld 5k!
  4. I want to be able to do a proper pull-up/chin-up, 5 total! (for now)
  5. Lastly, I want to be able to do a hand stand, hand stand push-up, and maybe walk on my hands!

Yes, that’s literally it. Those are the goals for now. I would like to learn how to swim eventually and maybe even do a proper cartwheel. Heck, I might even work up into playing basketball or some kind of adult sports league. We’ll see!

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Weekly Workout Recap: Leading up to the Dieting and Soreness Prep

I will be posting in this format which will allow me to write freely and post it once a week to avoid annoying any readers (my mom, ha!). I would much rather devote the daily energy to working out and and watching what I eat!

During the time leading up to the great big “Sore Weekend,” I was still attempting my daily Fitbit goal of 10k steps a day, which I will regularly reach after walking to and from work and marching in places or pacing around the apartment to finish off the remaining 2k steps or so. If it is a busy walking day where I might clock in 15k steps, I would be sore the next day! So while I was much more active than the previous 5 years, I was still out of shape.

Starting in early November, I slowly incorporated Intermittent Fasting as a part of my “diet” although I feel it would be more apt to describe it as a habit instead. I’ll post a longer entry on it eventually, but the gist is that I follow an 8/16 hour cycle of feeding and fasting. I would eat within an 8 hour window and fast in the remaining 16. It amounts to basically skipping breakfast and having lunch at noon and dinner finished by 8pm. I would adjust the dinner time accordingly depending on when my first meal of the day was. Eating between the lunch and dinner hours are fine too and I do snack as normal. I found that cutting breakfast had removed about 300-400 calories from my diet which was hovering about 1600-1700 calories a day. I was now keeping it about 1200-1300 per day which is recommended for someone who sat around all day as I did.

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Fitness Lifestyle 2017

I did not want to turn this into a journal detailing the minutiae of my day, but I needed some kind of accountability to reach my goal of having fitness and health become an integral part of my life. Starting brand new blog explicitly for fitness was not a good idea since the single events/hobby blogs I start tend to fizzle out after time and get wrapped into this blog anyways.

I also didn’t intend to have this become a New Year’s resolution event post either, but the proximity of New Year’s and finally starting my workout happened to coincide with major events going on. I am honestly not the type of person to do New Year’s resolutions (rolls eyes). I find them silly because if you want to improve something about your life, you should do it ASAP and not let holidays push you around!

My original intention was to start concurrently with the last semester of grad school, but I underestimated the workload for my classes (2 intensive classes + full-time job = not easy). I also accepted a new job offer and was transitioning during that period. The workout start date kept getting delayed, but was always on my mind.

Fast forward to December. I technically started working out on December 9th to get the soreness out of the way as to avoid using soreness as an excuse to stop working out once the program began. I was also heading into a very busy 2 weeks of work at the new job (13-14 hour work days), and I didn’t want to stress over trying to fit in exercising while things were getting crazy.

I decided on December 26, 2016 as the official start date as I would be done with school, I would be done with the work crunch, I would be done with the temptations of Thanksgiving and Xmas, and my work literally shuts down the days between Xmas and New Years Day, so I was home and able to focus.

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