Fitness Challenge Update

I know that quite a few people had asked me how I was getting on with my fitness challenge so it’s time I updated you! I’ve been trying to be more active with a view to increasing my fitness levels, and consequently my general health. I just didn’t realise how much this Winter would throw at me!

Activities

The intention is to go to the gym 3 times a week for resistance training, then at least another once a week for hot yoga. Now typing that makes it look far better than it has actually been of late. I managed 4 sessions of hot yoga over the Christmas break, and they were awesome; I really love this type of class and want to do it more. I went back to training when the kids started back at school, and within 10 days managed to get struck down with an awful dose of bronchitis which really laid me up, and I had no training. I felt like I was back to square one and I comfort ate because I was miserable. Very similar to what happened when I broke my wrist last November.  I am fully back on track now but finding that getting back into the training rhythm is making me feel exhausted.

Food

Oh this is the bane of my life. As I mentioned above, I comfort ate my way through bronchitis, so basically ate far too much, and horsed into the “bold” stuff leftover from Christmas. Last week, when the kitchen was pulled out, seriously tested me. I had plenty of meals prepared and planned in advance, only I didn’t realise that I wouldn’t have even a sink for 4 days and this made washing up a pain. I should have bought paper plates or something in advance. Basically I’ve had 2 weeks in a row of dreadful eating.

It’s Wednesday now and I’m back in my kitchen. It’s half finished so I won’t have a reveal quite yet. I do have an oven that works though. I’ve been making every effort to stay on track and try and only eat the right things this week. Of course I have serious sugar cravings after eating all the junk last week, and I’m wrecked tired, I mean WRECKED.

Sleep

I actually bought the The Gro Company Gro-Clock Sleep Trainer on Amazon a few weeks back for the boys to try and encourage them to stay in bed in the mornings. The 5am starts are very hard when I don’t go training until late in the evening. For the most part it has worked and they follow the blue star until the sun comes up (when they can get out of bed). While I’ve not been sleeping wonderfully thanks to my cough, my husband has no problem sleeping through this – he’s deaf in one ear so just turns the hearing ear down onto the pillow when he goes to bed at night!

Progress

My weight-loss has stalled and I hate typing that. I’m letting myself down because I’m more than able to do it, just let myself get sidetracked too easily.

Strength & ability-wise though there is a huge change. It might seem like a simple thing, but I can stand up from a sitting position without having to help myself. For years I had to put my hands on the side of the armchair, or on my knees to leverage myself up. Now I just “stand up”, I never realised how something so simple would make such a difference.

I can do sit-ups. Not just a few but buckets of them in a row. When I started my fitness challenge I couldn’t even sit up once on my own. I remember the first time I tried it my trainer had to literally sit on my toes and use his hands to help me up. Now I just do it, no hassles (apart from groaning when it’s the 20th time and my muscles are screaming!).

I’m loving the increased strength from the training, and the flexibility from the yoga. It’s like the perfect combination and I hope I can continue for as long as I can.

So that’s it for now. I hope that the next time I post an update I’ll have conquered my sleep issues because I feel life would be an awful lot easier if I got more rest!