Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Fitness This Week 12/17/2014

Hello! Much has been going on. I was a bridesmaid to my gorgeous sister-in-law at the beginning of November, and had a blast at her wedding! The following weekend, we attended Jeff's friend's wedding at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News. It was such a neat experience being able to browse the exhibits with no one else there. Then, I got to see Atmosphere for the ninth or tenth time, and it was a fantastic show as usual. I always love seeing folks play at The National in Richmond.

The last week in November, Jeff and I finally got to go on our long-planned eastern Caribbean cruise! We drove to Port Canaveral and hopped aboard the Carnival Sunshine to visit Nassau, Saint Thomas, San Juan, and Grand Turk. All except for Nassau were new ports for both of us! The level of beauty once you get farther east into the Caribbean is unparalleled by anything I've seen in real life before. Just random rock islands jutting out into the sea, waves breaking and spraying against them... it was so lovely. We realized when we got home that we'd done a great job at being in the moment while on vacation. We didn't worry about work, chores, or guilty feelings about the amounts of food we were eating. We just savored each flavor as it blessed our tongues. It was heavenly! There are a ton of contradictory remarks out there in ship reviews about Carnival Sunshine - it's marketed as a new ship, when it's really just the Carnival Destiny with a huge refurbishment and overhaul. It's a pretty old ship. My overall impression is that the ship is still in great shape, the staff were pleased to be aboard the Sunshine, and that areas that get too crowded can just be avoided. There was always so much going on that if we got to a comedy show and the line looked too long, we just figured out a more quiet place we could people-watch or catch some live music. We spent a ton of time in the Red Frog Pub, because not a lot of other folks did, and because there was trivia there! Trivia that we were actually kind of good at! We almost won three times - but only truly won once. Our prize was a giant 101oz tube of Thirsty Frog beer!

Most folks struggle with fitness on vacation and right afterwards. I am no exception! I actually felt lazy, and slightly guilty last week when I realized my husband had done more workouts than I had... this is just such a drastic reversal from the past few years! I'm so proud of that man. He really works it when he's got the energy. I, however, have been full of excuses: Mom is still visiting, and she might get mad if I don't spend more time with her instead of going to the gym every day. It's December, so my body wants a few extra pounds to keep me warm this winter. I put on ten pounds every winter and then lose it again, which is totally fine and healthy (no, it's not.).

Sigh.

Anyways, this week I'm trying something new. I'm following my first major rule when it comes to building new habits (or building them back up, because sometimes you just go back a few steps): START SMALL! I really just want to have more active days than nonactive days, but having checklists or plans that dictated which workout I'd do on which day have sometimes been more of a problem for me than an aide. It's easy for me to get frustrated with missing a planned workout, and then frustration easily morphs into self-loathing, which sometimes triggers very self-destructive things. Usually beginning with skipping MORE workouts.

So this week I've decided I've just got a "magic number" of workouts that I'd like to hit. I want to get in eight workouts. This is still a lot by many standards! My fitness interests are so widespread, and I like to include a lot of variation each week to avoid boredom. I intend to get three strength workouts completed (working on week 1 of a Weider X DVD system I picked up super cheap on a Walmart Rollback deal), three yoga sessions, and two cardio sessions.

We'll see how this goes. So far I am doing great! I did the second of three Weider workouts this morning, got a great hour of self-guided yoga in yesterday, and have already done one of the cardio sessions. So all that remains is one more strength, two yoga sessions, and one more cardio workout which should occur after work today at the YMCA. I'm hoping that seeing the little checklist will motivate me to check the items off quickly, and then I'll have some leftover energy for bonus workouts over the weekend. But there's a huge possibility that I'll see the last little checkmark and think, "I can wait until Sunday to do that last yoga session, I'm relaxing now!" For now, I'll just try to stay in this moment on this day, and hope that I make it to my cardio date at the YMCA. The hubby and I have big plans to go out for Northern Neck Burgers tonight since they're donating part of tonight's proceeds to the local high school's wrestling team... whatever, it's an excuse! Haha :-)

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