Fitness Progress

It's been about a month since I last posted about my fitness journey... I figured it was time for an update!

The BIGGEST challenge for me as far as exercise goes? Fitting that exercise into my schedule! At this point, I've had to sacrifice sleep and some housework to fit it in. I've been getting up at 4:30 am to exercise, because it's the only time of day I can really do it! It's really only an hour earlier than I normally get up. My family has been really helpful on my workout mornings, picking up my slack and doing some of my regular morning tasks for me, like emptying the dishwasher and starting breakfast. I'm hoping once I close my daycare in September, I'll have more time to fit it all in AND still get some sleep.

In the last two months I've gone from maybe an hour a week of sporadic exercise to roughly 4 hours a week of moderate to intense exercise. Last week, I completed a four week, twice-a-week Fitness Bootcamp. It was rough getting up at 4:30 every Monday and Wednesday, and the first couple of sessions were HARD. By the eighth session, they were still hard, but instead of "OMG I can't do this!" I started to think, "This sucks, but I'm doing it!" Our instructor offers modifications for some of the harder exercises, and in the beginning, I was doing pretty much all the modifications. By the end, I was only doing a few, mostly for a wonky shoulder that can't quite do full pushups yet.

In addition to Bootcamp, I've been going to Zumba class once a week, and I've been trying to go for brisk walks on weekends.  Before I started, I weighed myself and took all my measurements. I kind of expected that I would see some dramatic weight loss in a month's time, but as of this past Friday I've only lost 3 pounds, and saw no change in my measurements. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little disappointed about that, but since I feel stronger and healthier overall, I do know that ~something~ good is happening from all this, and that is what's motivating me to keep going.

But the big question is... can I sustain this?  I'd like to say that daily exercise is just a regular part of my daily routine now, but it's really not, yet. At the moment, exercise classes have been a strong motivator to get me moving. I'm very frugal, so if I've paid for a class, I WILL go, so as not to waste that money. However... it would be great to someday have enough self-motivation to exercise without spending money to do it. But for now, this is what's working for me. I'm looking at it as an investment in my health.

Next post, we're going to talk about a weakness of mine... Cookbooks!