Browsing Tag

90 day fit

The road to hell…

… is paved with good intentions, so they say. Well, with all the good intentions in the world to make the most of my holiday, the training plan this week has utterly gone to pot.

I started well with Body Pump on Monday and Virtual Spin on Tuesday. By Wednesday I was feeling good and strong, but my willpower had other ideas and when a few cocktails were suggested to celebrate finishing work for 6 days, I gave up the gym in favour of that option. On Thursday I went to my Mum’s to stay and to visit my Nan in hospital so didn’t have chance to do anything and Friday was filled with getting home and going shopping and relaxing. A bit of a disapointment really.

I find that without the routine of the gym near work and knowing there are classes to attend I haven’t yet got a set of things I can do when I’m not there. On Saturday I tried the Virtual Spin class at the local leiscure centre and on Monday went for a bracing windy walk locally, but I need to get my arse in gear to find ‘non-London’ things to do, either indoors or out. Trouble is, the revolting weather this weekend didn’t help with any motivation to leave the house. There was definitely more cooking and eating than training done!

Madge has ordered some resistance bands, which arrived, so I’m going to trawl YouTube to find ideas of how to use them.

So, 2 sessions in 6 days is not good. But I’m not giving up. While I might not get every day of the 90 ticked off, I’m still doing more than I was before (which was nothing) and was really starting to love how I was feeling last week, so I shall try extra hard with the exercise and eating from tomorrow. Thankfully all the chocolate has gone!

And my Mum has booked me a ticket to join her and Dad on holiday for 6 days in Antigua in June, so now I’ve got an extra reason to train hard.

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29th March 2016

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Days 4, 5 and 6: Yoga, swimming and…errr housework

I was working from home on Friday, but still got up at the usual time. I decided to do an online yoga class, as I was really, really aching and still not feeling right. There’s no way it could still be jet lag related, but I definitely still felt out of sorts. So I did this.

It was really hard. Mostly because I was aching and stiff as a poker, but also because I don’t do yoga regularly enough to be any good at it. I got properly fed up half way through and really frustrated with my inability to move and stretch and moaned to myself about how yoga is just not suited to fat people. I persevered, but didn’t really enjoy it. I was feeling a bit low, exercise-wise, and wondering if the travel earlier in the week and missing a night’s sleep then going into work was catching up on me. I didn’t feel despondent in terms of the challenge, but I did in terms of how unfit I am and how far there is to go. I also realised I need to book in for another sports therapy massage as my neck and back are still tight.

On Saturday I woke early, still aching! I felt tired and run down when I woke so decided to swim. I went and managed to swim for all full 30 minutes. It wasn’t non-stop but I did do as much as I could and pushed an extra 2 lengths, so I felt satisfied I’d done enough. It was also lovely to be in the pool floating my aching limbs in the water.

I made a bit of a radical decision on Day 6 – and decided to rest from ‘formal’ exercise. Radical, because it’s so early in the 90 days. I actually felt right for the first time all week, and had lost that weird feeling I’d been carrying since Monday. It was a hard decision, whether to push myself to do 30 minutes, but I figured that my body was crying out for the rest so I listened to it. I am hoping that is the only rest day I will have, but realistically in a 3 month period you are going to get times when you just feel a bit under the weather.

That said, I still had a pretty active day. I did loads of stuff around the house, and made sure I was squatting and doing core exercises while I was doing everything! I ran up the stairs a few times and ended up being on my feet and active for 4 hours without stopping. So, while I can’t claim it as real exercise, it was an active day and I feel pretty comfortable that there was a good 30 minutes of running around in there! I don’t feel like I’ve given in early, and I know that if I had been feeling better all week I would have been able to carry on today. I also wanted to be strong to start the week, and not go into Monday feeling weak.

So, tomorrow is another day, as they say…bring on the virtual spinning.

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20th March 2016

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Day 3: Oh. My. God

Feeling achy but not jet-laggy, finally. My legs hurt walking up the stairs at the station this morning, which was not a good sign considering I’d booked a circuit class for lunchtime.

I was a bit blasé, thinking that a ‘fast 20 minute circuit’ wouldn’t be too hard. Not that I’ve ever done a circuit before, so had no idea what to expect. Let’s just say I’d lulled myself into a false sense of security. It was awful.

There were only 2 of us in the class, so that meant maximum attention from the instructor and absolutely no hiding. There were 6 circuit stations, with 2 exercises for each. Each exercise lasted 20 seconds with a 10 second break between them, and they ranged from such horrors as jumping squats, ‘mountain climbers’, lunges, planks, something I couldn’t pronounce, dips, a press up thing against a box and steps ups onto a step the height of a table. I’m sure there were more, but my memory has blanked them out!

In reality I was definitely not ready for that type of class. I’ve not got enough strength yet in my arms or legs and both were aching from the previous two days of effort. I also don’t really like that being shouted at as encouragement thing that personal trainers do. I’d rather have a nice chat 🙂

Anyway, to keep this up for 90 days I’m going to have to try lots of things for variety, and there will be some I don’t like, or can’t do. I wonder if going on my own today made a difference.

The girls went to another spin class, but I wanted to do something at lunchtime, and it definitely wasn’t so much fun.

Tomorrow is a ‘rest day’ so I’m going to find some yoga or a light workout on YouTube I can do at home for half an hour, and look up some classes at the local council-run fitness centre that might work for Saturday and Sunday.

Daily exercise:     Fast Circuit
Venue:                      City University Gym
Type:                          Mix
Duration:                30 minutes

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17th March 2016