About a month ago, I wrote a post about how I wanted to start maintaining a healthier lifestyle by eating healthier, exercising regularly, and generally taking better care of myself.
This week, I finished a Pilates workout calendar for beginners created by my favorite online fitness guru, Cassey Ho of Blogilates. The workout calendar was 6 days on, 1 day off, complete with either three or four workouts per day. The days focused on abs, lower body, upper body, and total body – most often, it was a combination of everything.
I admit, it was hard for me to work out 6 days in a row. If I’m being totally honest, I think that only happened during the first week. For the most part it’s been three or four days on, a day or two of a break, then back to three or four days in a row.
As a result, it took me about five weeks to finish a four week workout calendar. Oops.
However, despite not following the calendar religiously, I have definitely noticed a change in my body in the last few weeks. On the whole, I feel so much stronger. I’m not as strong as I would like to be, but I’m definitely getting there.
During the first week of the workout calendar, one of the daily exercises was “Wake up and do a one minute plank”. At 15 seconds, I wanted to cry. At 20 seconds, my body was shaking so violently, I thought I was going to fall over. At 35 seconds, I started making some very unlady-like grunts due to the amount of pain I was in. At the end of 60 seconds, I fell on the ground and laid there for a few minutes, cursing the stupid workout calendar.
Yesterday, though, part of my workout was another one minute plank. Though my body started shaking a little halfway through, it seemed like the minute passed by without any trouble. I was so happy, I could have cried.
I’m also starting to physically see the results on my body. My legs are trimmer, my butt is slightly perkier (though, at this point, I’m convinced nothing is going to make that thing firm), and I can see some definition in my abs. It’s exciting to see and feel my hard work paying off!
The one thing I’m still having trouble with, though, is doing enough cardio. All the muscle I’m building will never show through if I don’t do something to burn the fat that’s still covering it up. I’m so tired after my Pilates workouts that it’s tough to go out for a run afterwards; conversely, I wear myself out so much when I go for a run that I have no energy left to do a Pilates workout post-run. I need to figure out a way to be able to do both and have enough energy to keep myself going.
The thing that has been the easiest to change is my diet. Since I’ve been living with my roommate and only buying groceries for myself, I find that it’s so much easier to buy as many fruits and veggies as I can handle and consistently come up with ways to keep my diet varied enough that I won’t get burned out on eating any one thing. Maybe my next post will be sharing a few of the healthy recipes I use on a regular basis…
The toughest part of changing my diet is cutting out refined sugars. Lord help me, I love me some refined sugar. You name it: Snickers bars, cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, frozen yogurt topped with the absolutely unhealthiest toppings…I love it all. And it has been so freaking hard to not eat any of it. It got to the point where I craved them so much that I literally couldn’t stop thinking about them. I have learned, though, that giving in to a sweet craving every once in a while is not going to skew my diet and it’s not going to destroy all the hard work I’ve been doing. Eating something sweet and sugary feeds my soul and perks me up a little.
Don’t get me wrong, though – it still sucks not eating it all the time.
I still have a long way to go before I get my body in the shape I want it to be in – lean, toned, and, most importantly, strong. I heard somewhere that it takes around 30 days to build a habit…and I’ve been working on this one for about the last 37. I hate to jump the gun, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of taking better care of myself.
Twenty-Something 