Oh hello again… I’m back

Pushing on through…

I’m back. After my longest time away from Freeletics yet. A five week break, but it feels like longer.

My job involves a pretty massive project that happens every two years. It’s an eleven-day event that means I’m working 14 hour days for about two weeks, plus long days and nights in the lead-up. I wrote in my last post about how it’s hard to keep up momentum when life or work takes over, and after writing that I decided to cut myself some slack.

On the plus side of not working out, I massively increased my step count every day and I often eat less (adrenaline, time etc). On the downside, I tend to drink more at social events in the evening, and when I do eat, I tend to choose quick-fix food like pasta, pizza etc rather than wholesome meals. Mmmm, hot cheese and carbs.

But the event is over now, so I’ve been reclaiming my routine. Pretty much everything else went out of the window too – I stopped reading, keeping a journal, drinking enough water, swimming, getting my five a day etc etc. So this week has been about pushing myself back into these habits.

I was also daunted by where I stopped in my coach week. I left a workout hanging – Dione plus some other stuff (can’t remember what now), and every time I opened the app there it was looking scary and difficult.

So this morning, after a long night’s sleep (I still have quite the sleep debt to repay), I decided to redo the fitness assessment and start again. A five week break seemed like as good enough reason as anything, and I figured that doing something quick and undemanding like the test might help me break the psychological deadlock I’ve found myself in.

It’s pretty easy – a dynamic warm up which is pretty standard, then 10 pushups, 25 sit ups and 25 mountain climbers. Didn’t really break a sweat. But it felt good to be back on the mat, and now doing it again tomorrow doesn’t seem so scary.

On a related note, I’ve really noticed that I feel more stiff and more achey after a long time away from Freeletics. My back hurts again and I don’t feel as flexible. I can’t touch my toes, when before it was really easy. I’m going for a massage on Tuesday to try and ease up some of those muscles.

It feels like the perfect time to get back into Freeletics now that the sun’s out (kind of – it’s raining here today), and the weather is nicer.

#noexcuses

Committing to doing something…

It’s a familiar pattern for me. Work gets busy. It’s cold outside. I’m working long hours. I’m tired. I try and get up early but even when I wake up, it’s hard to get out of bed. And I stop exercising.

I’ve blogged before about how if I don’t work out in the morning, I’m much more likely not to bother. I get hungry towards the end of the working day and then by the time I’ve cycled home I’m starving and don’t have the energy to train.

I did Freeletics once last week. And I swam once. I also cycled to work. But I try and do Freeletics four times. Yesterday I reset and said I’d definitely train four times this week. And now Monday has passed and I didn’t this morning.

So I guess this post is just saying: I’m finding it hard to get the motivation at the moment. But I’m also working fucking hard in other areas of my life. So maybe that’s okay.

Maybe two or three times a week is all I can do. Maybe only once. But I’ll commit to doing something. And for the time being, that will be okay.

A Change of Daily Routine

Photo: David Mao, from Unsplash

Despite all my enthusiasm and renewed energy at the beginning of the year, I’m finding January really hard. I’m sleeping lots, feeling tired (work is also quite full on at the moment), and finding the motivation to exercise is really low.

I last did proper workouts nearly a week ago. I’ve still been cycling to work, and I did my first yoga class last week (more on that later), but Freeletics has been a really struggle.

Today I did 50 jumping pull-ups and 50 burpees, which is one part of a day that Coach has given me this week.

So here’s the thing. I think I need to make some routine changes. First, here are the problems…

1. I never work out in the morning, but when I do, I feel amazing
2. I’m always too hungry to work out after work

Here’s why I think these things are happening (bear with me on this)

I try and be in bed by 10:30pm, but then I often don’t go to sleep until about 11.30pm, which means that to get eight hours sleep I don’t wake up until 7.30am. I like to have a cup of tea in bed, check the news, plan the day. Which means I’m not usually in the shower until 8.30am, and then it’s a rush to get to have breakfast and get to work for 9.30am. And ideally I’d like to be there at 9am.

I tend to eat porridge/fruit or yoghurt/granola for breakfast and something light for lunch (salad, sandwich etc), so by the time it gets to 5.30pm, I’m starving and just want to finish work, go home and cook dinner.

So at either end of the day, I don’t have the energy / time / desire to exercise.

Now the solutions.

1. Go to bed earlier. Lights out by 11pm.
2. Get up at 7am
3. Spend less time drinking tea and looking at the internet in the morning
4. Work out in the morning
5. Eat a big breakfast and a bigger lunch

Then I can relax in the evening, or do other fitness stuff, having completed my Freeletics workout.

Which brings me on to… Yoga!

I did my first class last week. I’m doing Iyengar, which involves a lot of held poses, rather than yoga with ‘flow’. I enjoyed the discipline of holding stretches and poses, and I felt great afterwards.

Also, I was really surprised with how much Freeletics had improved my ability to hold the poses and my general flexibility. I’ll definitely be going back.

Tell me – what’s your routine? When do you work out?