The Experiment

Pinterest. Where we spend countless hours pinning projects we’ll never finish, recipes we’ll never cook, and workouts we’ll never do. Until now. If you’re anything like me, you have some sort of fitness or health board on Pinterest. At last count I have 782 pins on my board. I’ve probably only ever done one of them. To be fair, many of these are motivational quotes (we see how well they’re working). But the movie Julie & Julia gave me an idea (and it wasn’t just about using copious amounts of butter in my cooking). I’m going to systematically go through all of the workouts that I have pinned one by one and try them out and then report how it went.

As one of my many pins says, “If you spent as much time working out as you did pinning workouts, you’d be in shape by now.” (It’s not verbatim) Now, let’s put it to the test. Somethings will have to be modified. I don’t have much equipment – just a few resistance bands and some jugs of water. I’ve been using 6L bottles of water with handles to do  weight lifting. We’ll see what we can do with what we’ve got. Also, I won’t be doing any running. Reasons: (1) It’s very hot and humid here (2) I don’t have a treadmill to run indoors with my air-con on and (3) I don’t particularly enjoy it. So all of those interval treadmill exercises are off the table. And as for 30 day butt/ab/etc… challenges, they will be postponed until another experiment. Everything else I will make work as I go.

Scheduling. I’m starting at the top. I’ve created a second board for all of my completed exercises. As I finish one, I will move it from the old board to the new one. At the moment, my goal is still to workout Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Anything else is bonus. After I feel comfortable in this routine, I’d like to add another day to the mix. Gotta stick to realistic goals right now.

Motivation. The last couple of days I’ve felt less than excited about sticking to these changes. I’ve got to give a shout out to @getfitwjessica on Instagram. I’ve found her journey super motivating and looking through a few posts today helped re-energize me for my upcoming workouts. So many times I’ve given up quickly after not seeing immediate results and ended up right back at the beginning. Her story has been inspirational because she has persevered and has seen the fruits of her labor.

So, today being Thursday, our workout is:

Abs, Obliques & Transverse Slim Waist Summer Workout for Women 

First and foremost, I was very impressed with Spotebi. When I followed the link through to the website I found more than just an infographic. After the visual, there were written instructions for each exercise. And then, best of all, they had it all set up. Push play and the timer counts runs automatically, each exercise is announced, and I didn’t have to think. Having to time circuit workouts is one of my biggest deterrents to doing them. Spotebi made it super easy. Thanks!! I will be returning to them in the future for more workouts. They even had a playlist from Spotify ready to go. Unfortunately,  Spotify hasn’t launched yet in Thailand. I can deal with that.

When it came to the actual workout, I survived. I’m still at the beginning of this process, so some modifications were made. For the ‘toe touch’ my legs just couldn’t make it to 90°. Not yet, anyways. I took more breathers than were probably intended, but kept up pretty well. I keep reminding myself  that the mind is the master of the body. If I tell myself I can do it, I can. And I did.

One Pin down, countless to go. Check back Saturday for Leg + Bum day.

17 Days and Counting

Well, it’s been a whole 17 days since I got back on the taking care of myself wagon. In the last 17 days I have worked out 10 times. Some days I worked out when I hadn’t scheduled myself to workout – just because I enjoyed it. It wasn’t out of guilt either. Exercise for the sake of exercise.

I’m really glad I found some Zumba videos on YouTube. They’re not the greatest – I definitely miss my old class – but they do the trick for now. Although, I am finding that I am less motivated to push myself while doing Zumba as I was in an actual classroom setting. Using others in the class to set the bar higher, the instructor pushing me to go that little extra bit – I need to be that for myself. But overall, it has definitely motivated me to workout more.

Sometimes it feels like diet will be a lifelong battle. When I do watch what I eat, I don’t eat enough. When I don’t watch what I eat the calories come easily – but all from the wrong things. Living in a tropical place means fruit is abundant year round – and it is delicious. So, I end up having a lot more sugar than recommended. The only added sugars I have in my diet right now are a daily dose of honey in my earl grey tea. Although, I did eat a snickerdoodle yesterday (the hubby really wanted cookies – and who can bake 85 cookies without tasting one?) But overall, I’m not having dessert everyday – except for fruit. I feel like at this point in my journey I’m not going to deprive myself of fruit. It’s my compromise for not having ice cream every other day – which is tempting when its 90 degrees outside everyday. My favorite treat right now is frozen grapes. They’re like healthy popsicle bites. Delish.

I am pretty excited to reach my first fitness goal: week four = two hour massage. I’m working very hard to not reward myself with food. So every four weeks that I keep up my workout schedule and eat well I get a two hour Thai massage. This is an affordable splurge here: $12. Seeing as I don’t have a scale, I can only track my fitness results via a tape measure. This is fine by me. But next I need to set a goal and a reward for loosing x number of inches. Both the goal and reward are to be determined. In addition to setting these short term goals, my specific long term goal is to be a size 6. At the moment I’m between 12-14. I hope this is a reasonable goal. I just need to believe in myself!! I can do this!!

Next post will be at week four – after the massage and some measurement updates. Until then, stay healthy!

 

Not Giving Up

It has been ever such a long time since I last ventured to write about my health journey. And so much has changed! Amidst all those changes, taking care of myself hasn’t always been at the top of the priority list.

As a brief synopsis, in the last two years my hubby and I had been working towards moving abroad. This meant lots of moving, living with friends, selling our things, and being unsettled for about a year. In that time I tried my best to at least keep moving. I’ve always struggled with routine in my life – in all aspects – so having an unsettled life made it that much more difficult. But in all the craziness, I found Zumba. This was the last thing I thought I would love.

I first attended a couple of Zumba classes with a girlfriend. And then I went alone. I was hooked. This is coming from someone who generally finds dancing a rather unenjoyable pastime. But I found myself loving the music, having steps to follow, and letting go. I could shake my booty without any worry of judgement. In the beginning it was a little daunting, not knowing the steps yet. But after a few sessions, I began to pick up on it. It got easier, and therefore more fun. And the more of the routine I knew, the harder I could push myself. For the first time ever, I found a cardio activity that I loved. An hour flew by. Never before would I do an hour of cardio. I always found it so boring. So with that, I tried going to class 3 times a week. It didn’t matter what I was doing. I would schedule work and other plans around Zumba. And then, I moved.

I had grand intentions of keeping up with my Zumba via Youtube. I have now been in Thailand nine months and only ever did it once. First of all, it’s very hot here. And I only have air-con in my bedroom.  Working out in 90+ heat and 75% humidity doesn’t sound appealing to me. But I need to make it work.

A few times here and there the last few months I’ve done some circuit workouts, but have not kept up the motivation (did I mention it’s hot here). But something clicked last week – I can do this, no matter where I am. So, I re-downloaded MyFitnessPal, re-downloaded Sworkit and got to it. I’ve tracked food for six days, and exercised thrice since. Although running the air-con is a bit spendy, I’ve told myself I’m worth it. If that’s what it takes for me to workout, then I’ll do it. And my hubby is on board. So, current plan, workout Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. I’m just getting back in to the routine, so I’m trying to make realistic goals.

So, last Saturday I started with 20 minutes of Sworkit abs for beginners, then five minutes of stretching on either end of that. Monday I did 35 minutes total of full body with stretching.  I’m not scheduled to workout until tomorrow, but I had the motivation and the time to get in a workout today. 38 minutes of awkward, uncoordinated Zumba with a video from Youtube in my air-con room. There was no end to the sweat. But it felt good to do it again. I hope to incorporate it more in upcoming weeks.

On the nutrition front – I’m struggling. I’ve given myself a goal of 1750 calories – but for some reason I can break past about 1300. Perhaps because it is so stinkin’ hot. I don’t feel terribly hungry. Living in Thailand, my options for eating out are all laden with rice, MSG, sugar, and canola oil. Because of our busy schedule, it’s often convenient to grab food out. But even just eating home-cooked, I struggle to reach my calorie goal. Balance is always a challenge, and perhaps in time I will figure it out.

For now I will continue to forge ahead with this endeavor. I will also do my best to keep journaling for the mental health aspect of this journey. I haven’t given up yet.