Tag Archives: challenge

Being Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life)

Posted on July 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Being Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life)

Happy July! 2021 is officially half over! And half my monthly challenges for the year are done as well. I haven’t done really well with my monthly challenges, but it’s also been a tough first half of the year for me. Things are getting better for me, so hopefully the challenges will as well. But I also have been picking challenges that I know might take me longer than just a month.

For June, I had a challenge to work on organizing my desk. This was a project that I have been putting off for a while and I knew it needed to be done. My desk has been very messy for a long time and I got lazy with keeping it organized when my work life was in flux. I was storing a lot of paperwork that I might need or used to need and wasn’t too worried about keeping my workspace clean and easy to find everything. But as I started to work more and more, the piles were making my workspace cluttered and I wasted time looking for things.

While this challenge can’t be considered complete, I have made a lot of steps in the right direction and have more work I plan on doing. I have to do a big overhaul of my filing cabinet and storage and it takes time to go through everything I have in there and decide what to keep. I also have been working on scanning paperwork that I want to keep but don’t need the originals. This is a big project and I knew that going into it, but I’m seeing lots of progress and I know it will continue to be worked on. Hopefully soon, I’ll have the nice and clean workspace that I dream of.

And for July, my challenge is all about being out and about in the world again. I tend to wear a lot of comfortable clothes. When working at home, you don’t need to dress cute and I would prefer to be comfortable. And when I wasn’t going out for anything, staying in comfortable clothes all the time became the norm. But as I am going out and doing things more and more, I want to find ways to feel cute and stylish again.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I need to buy a ton of new clothes. I will buy a few new things, but I’m working on being a bit picky and making sure they are really what I want. But I have plenty of clothes that I could wear, I just am out of the habit of putting together outfits. And I want to take more risks with style a bit. For a long time, I dressed to hide my body. I don’t know if that made me think I was hiding my size and shape or it was just a lack of confidence. But I’ve realized that there’s no point in me doing that. I want to feel cute and if someone sees what I really look like then they do. A good example of a risk (that seems like a very nothing risk) I took recently with clothes was tucking in a flowy shirt with jeans. In the past, I would let it stay flowy over my stomach and feel ok that you couldn’t see anything. But it also made me look bigger than I really am. So I did a French tuck in the front so it was still flowy but you could see my shape. I won’t say I was completely comfortable with it, but it felt good to not feel like I’m in shapeless clothes and I tried to feel more confident. But I think the more I do this, the easier it will be for me.

So hopefully this month, I will work on finding new favorite outfits in my closet and finding ways to feel more stylish. I know this is superficial, but finding some more confidence is important to me. And I think being confident can lead to other positive things in my life.

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My First 90 Minute Class (or This Was Intense And Awesome)

Posted on June 15, 2021 | Comments Off on My First 90 Minute Class (or This Was Intense And Awesome)

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was going to save my Saturday workout for another post. And that’s because my Saturday workout was my very first 90-minute Orangetheory class! 90-minute classes aren’t usually on the regular schedule, but they do them throughout the year. And for the most part, these classes are also special donation classes that are to help raise money for different charities. The 90-minute classes have never been in my usual class time before, so I never really thought too much about taking one. But the one on Saturday was during when I usually am there on Saturdays, so it felt like it was meant to be and I signed up!

Because this month is Pride Month, the charity we raised money for was The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is an amazing organization that helps young people in crisis. They also have other support programs for LBGTQ youth and I think that’s amazing. While I’ve never needed this type of support, I have friends who have and I want to be a good ally to others. So I was happy to donate to The Trevor Project and got ready to take the 90-minute class.

I have done some classes that lasted longer than 60-minutes (like the Dri–Tris), but they usually haven’t been much longer than maybe 70-minutes. And while I knew that I would be ok working out longer than I’m used to, I was a bit nervous. I wanted to make sure I didn’t go too hard at the beginning because the class was going to be 50% longer than I’m used to. But what helped me was thinking that the length of time I’d be at each section of the room was similar to what it’s like in a 2G class, but I was going to have it in all 3 sections of the room. Having that mindset made me feel a bit more at ease even with my nerves.

This class also was 80s themed, but I don’t really have any good 80s workout gear. I just wore my regular workout clothes and hoped I wouldn’t be the only one not in a cute outfit (fortunately, it was a mix of people in regular workout clothes and themed clothes). And it was being coached by Coach Benzo, who I currently have as my Wednesday and Friday coach. I knew he’d do an amazing playlist and that would help keep me motivated too.

The workout was similar to what I’m used to, just with extra work. But the way it was split up was nice because we were in each section of the room twice. The first time around was similar to what we do in a regular 3G class, so that felt fine. Then the second time around the room was the extra time and I was feeling more prepared for it. We had 4 blocks in each section of the room, 2 blocks in the first round through and 2 blocks in the second round through.

For cardio, the first block was a 6-minute distance challenge. This was a good way to ease into the class and I was able to do the entire thing at the new resistance level I’ve been using. I did stay alert to not going too hard at first, but it felt good and I was able to be pretty consistent through the entire time. And the second block was 4 rounds of 1-minute push paces and 30-second base paces with a 30-second all-out at the end. The goal was to match or beat your first distance and I was able to do that! Once we were back to cardio again after rotating through the entire room, the next block was a 3-minute distance challenge followed by a 90-second distance challenge. And the goal was to get at least half the distance in the 90-second one as you did in the 3-minute one. And we ended with a 1-minute all-out and a 30-second all-out.

The first rowing block was timed out with the floor block. But it was 6 rounds of 30-second base rows, 20-second push rows, and 10-second all-out rows. It was hard to try to row for 6-minutes without a break and I did have to take a few moments to recover. But I did try to do them during the base row time when I could. The second row block went with the second cardio block with the rounds of push to base paces and ending with the all-outs. It was a lot of rowing where we didn’t have set breaks and I think it might have been some of the hardest rowing I’ve done in a while. The third row block (after rotating around the room) was similar to the first, but it was only 3 rounds of the 30-second base, 20-second push, and 10-second all-out. And to finish out the rowing, we had a 90-second distance row, 1-minute all-out, and 30-second all-out. I was so glad to make it through all the rowing, but I am glad I have been making so much progress in my rowing lately because I know that helped me a lot.

And on the floor, it was a lot of lower body work. The first block was similar timing as the first row block. But we had 1 minute of lunges and then the 30, 20, 10 second intervals with squats and repeated that 3 times. We were supposed to do front lunges, side lunges, and reverse lunges. But I did static lunges for the front and reverse lunges since it’s hard for me to keep my balance otherwise. And the squats we had after each type of lunge were regular squats, squats with calf raises, and in and out squats. The second block was on our own timing and just had the number of reps to do. We had another round of lunges, bicep curl to shoulder press, and plank low rows. The third block was back on timing it with the rower with 30 seconds of sit-ups, 20 seconds of hip raises, and 10 seconds of toe reaches. I did have to modify these a bit because my hips were starting to hurt, but I tried my best to keep moving. And the final block on the floor (and the final block of the workout for me) had side plank leg raises, seated torso rotations, and we ended with a 30-second plank.

When we were done, I was exhausted. This was possibly the hardest workout I’ve ever done. The Dri-Tri is tough too, but that’s a different type of difficulty. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but this workout was really intense. But I’m so glad that I did it and I’m really proud of myself!

And of course, we had to do some post-workout group photos to celebrate completing the class (a lot of us hadn’t done a 90-minute workout before).

And I needed to take a photo with Coach Benzo. He’s only been my coach since things have reopened, but I am so grateful he’s been coaching at Culver because he is so amazing at encouraging us and pushing us all to improve in our workouts!

After the class was done, I was a bit sore, but not too bad. But on Sunday, the soreness really hit me. But that’s not going to discourage me. I will still be doing my regular workouts this week and just taking it a little easy. And I would totally do another 90-minute workout again, I just might not do a workout on the Friday before. But it was a great way to challenge myself and see what I could do. And I know now that I can do a great job in a 90-minute class and it will be interesting to see how I do when I do another one in the future!

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A Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month)

Posted on June 1, 2021 | Comments Off on A Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month)

I hate when I fail my monthly challenges. I try to set them up to be things I can be successful at as well as things that I want to do. I always feel so accomplished when I end a month and see what I’ve been able to do. And so many of these monthly challenges are things that I still keep up with every day. I love that I have created so many positive and productive habits. And I always hope that whatever my next challenge will be that I have the same outcome.

But that wasn’t the case for this past month. Honestly, this may have been the biggest failure of a monthly challenge for me. I challenged myself to try to work on creating some weekly meal plans that I could have ready to go. A weekly meal plan seems easier to me than figuring out each day one by one to be ready for a week. And while having a meal plan still feels like a bit of a reach for me to be able to do, having a plan is the first step to making it happen. So even if I only planned out a good weekly meal plan but never used it, I would have considered that a win with this challenge.

I didn’t even get started with planning last month. Some of this was due to being busy with other things, but I can’t use that as an excuse. I could have found the time to do this if I really wanted to. But I never had the motivation to do it. I know that this would be something good for me, but I just didn’t want to. And this is the ongoing struggle I’ve had with being better at cooking at home. I don’t like to meal plan. I don’t seem to always feel motivated to cook. I don’t know what it will take to make this click for me, but I really want to be hopeful that something will. And I just have to keep trying until I figure it out. And I guess this idea wasn’t the right thing for me at this time. I’ll keep the idea in case I do find the motivation to do it, but I guess this past month made me realize while I loved the idea it wasn’t right.

And while I would love to have a monthly challenge this month that I know I will be able to be successful at to redeem myself from last month, I’m not going easy on myself. I picked another challenge that I have been putting off and I know there is a high risk of me having another big failure at doing. My challenge this month is to reorganize my desk and filing system.

This might not sound like a big deal, but my desk has become a catch-all place in my house. If I have paperwork I need to save for taxes, it gets dumped on my desk. Eventually, I’ll put it in the file folder I have for taxes, but there is almost always a huge pile of paperwork on my desk. And if there is something I want to put into my filing cabinet, all my file folders have labels for things that I don’t need or use so I don’t know where to file them.

I’ve been putting off organizing my desk for a long time. I know I need to do this, but I was always finding excuses why I shouldn’t. When I wasn’t sure what my job situation would be, I was putting it off because I wanted to make sure I was creating files that would be right for my new job (even though I knew almost every job I have is mostly digital files and I wouldn’t need to file things away). I’ve held onto things that I know I do not need or use, like information from when I was a substitute teacher.

And because I spend so many hours of my day at my desk, I want the space to be much more functional and not feel cluttered and hectic. And the only way to accomplish this is to do a big cleaning and organizing mission. And I also know that to do this, things will have to look messier for a while. I need to pretty much clear everything out of my desk and sort through them before seeing how to put things back. And maybe because things have to get worse before they get better, I’ve been putting this off every time I tell myself I need to do it.

I do hope that this month, I follow through with this. I know I might keep putting it off and fail again, but I have to set it as a challenge because I need to try. And maybe I’ll surprise myself and this won’t be as bad as I think it might be. And in a month, I might be writing about how I was overreacting about this challenge and it wasn’t that hard to get done.

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Making The Month A Little Less Lonely (or Still Trying To Find Challenges To Do While Isolated)

Posted on January 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Making The Month A Little Less Lonely (or Still Trying To Find Challenges To Do While Isolated)

I got another Volt Planner for 2021, so I’ll be doing another year full of goal setting! I love using this planner for setting weekly, monthly, and annual goals as well as monthly challenges. I also use it to track my daily intentions and my gratitude list. It is a planner so I can track other things, but that’s what I mainly use it for. When I was able to work out at the Orangetheory studios, I would also use it for some workout tracking. But since I’ve been working out at home, I don’t really do that.

It really is the perfect planner for me and I’ve been using them for several years now. I keep all my old planners because it’s interesting to see what I’ve accomplished and how far I’ve come. My collection is pretty decent so far.

My monthly challenges used to be much more excited. But since we’ve had to isolate at home, they are not as grand and much more personal. For December, my challenge was to get myself ready for 2021. And I did a fair amount of preparation with things I wanted to do like getting different parts of my house organized. But the plan to prep was sidetracked a bit by getting a new job. I think that’s a very good excuse to be sidetracked. And in a way, getting a new job was preparing me for this year. I needed a new job so I wouldn’t be struggling as much. But there was some other stuff I wanted to do that I didn’t get a chance to, like doing some rearranging of things in my kitchen. But nothing I didn’t do was urgent so I can get them done this month.

And for this month’s challenge, I was a bit inspired by the idea of how we’ve all been isolated for so long. And being isolated at home doesn’t have to mean being completely isolated from the people you love. I know that I have been isolating myself more than I’d like to, but it’s what happened to me when I was feeling low. It’s so much easier for me to ask a friend to get dinner or hang out if I’m lonely compared to asking if we could have some sort of virtual hangout. But virtual hangouts are really all we can do (with few exceptions).

So my challenge for this month is to not isolate myself from my friends completely and to make sure that I connect with someone that I care about every day. This means I can’t go run an errand like go get groceries and count seeing people in the store or talking to the cashier as a connection. This has to be with a friend or family member.

And I know there are different levels of being able to connect with someone. Right now, the thing that would make me happiest is seeing someone in person (outdoors and keeping a distance between us). This isn’t the easiest thing to do, and also not necessarily the safest for now. If I can make this happen, awesome. But I also understand that for now, I might not be able to do this at all this month. But it’s something to hope for. Next, would be doing a video call. These are totally safe, but so many people have Zoom/video chat fatigue. I get that. Then I would put phone calls next on my list and texts/message groups last.

My goal is to not just do texts every day with friends, but I know that there will be days where texts are the best I can do. I hopefully can have more phone and video calls with friends and family this month and continue that beyond this month until we can all safely meet in person.

I’ve been isolated at home for almost 10 months now, and it’s really getting to me. It’s easy to avoid people, but I know that it’s not the best thing for me to do. So hopefully this challenge this month will get me back to being more social in whatever ways I can and I can feel much better about the current situation. I need to figure out how to be happier while I wait for things to be safer. And I know having time with friends and family will help do that.

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Another Thing Vertigo Screwed Up For Me (or Wrapping Up My 2020 Challenges)

Posted on December 1, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Thing Vertigo Screwed Up For Me (or Wrapping Up My 2020 Challenges)

I can’t believe 2020 is almost over. This was the year that none of us were expecting. I went into the year really hopeful about what I could get done. And so many things just couldn’t happen because of the pandemic. It’s been hard to not be down about this, but I’m trying.

And November almost felt like a mini-2020 with how tough the month was for me. I started the month strong and then only a few days in I was brought down by extreme vertigo. I’m almost completely recovered from vertigo, but it’s still a little bit there. But a majority of the month was affected by it. And that includes my monthly challenge.

I really wanted to get a lot done on the new book that I wanted to write. I had an idea that I wanted to put to paper and I was so excited to see what I could do. And before I was hit with vertigo, I was doing great. I was hitting all my writing targets and I thought I would at least get to the final word target for the month (I didn’t think that would necessarily be the full book, but a great milestone no matter what).

As soon as I got sick, I had to stop writing. I wasn’t able to sit up, let alone sit at a computer. And once that happened, I got out of the groove of writing. It sucked and I tried to get back into it and it just wasn’t happening. I don’t know if I stopped being interested in writing the book or if I just was in a funk. Either way, I just didn’t do much more than what I did before I had vertigo.

But it wasn’t a complete fail. I did start the book. I did get quite a few chapters done. I wrote character bios for many of the characters in the book. I created an outline of chapters going forward. I have a plan for when I am ready to get back into writing it. Just because I didn’t get to my goal last month doesn’t mean I can’t go back to it and write. Maybe I’ll be inspired in a week or two. Maybe it won’t be for a while. But it’s there for me when I’m ready to get back to it.

To close out 2020, I wasn’t sure what I wanted my challenge to be. I know I’m in a bit of a funk still. This year wasn’t my year. This year felt stagnant and I don’t know what I could have done to change that and still feel safe. And I’m ready for next year to be here because I want to believe it will be better. I know just a new year won’t change everything, but I’m hopeful there will be a vaccine that works and is available to all in 2021, and that will allow us to start doing things again.

So my challenge for December is to get myself ready for 2021. I want to believe it will be a much better year than this year was. I want to make sure that I am in a good place to enjoy life again when I can. I want my house to feel organized for when I need to find things so I can leave. I want to work harder in my workouts to get ready for when I can be back in the studio. I want to feel ready to live my life again and not be trapped in my house.

Just like many challenges this year, this one is a bit abstract. But I just want to feel like I’m ending one year and starting another both mentally and physically. I think a lot of people feel this way too. And I just have to find the ways that it can be done for me.

I do think this challenge will be good for me because it will keep me in a mindset of moving forward and planning ahead. I will be thinking of a post-pandemic world and what I want to do. I need to keep thinking that way and not focusing on what I’m only doing now.

And hopefully, with however I prep for 2021, I am ready for the new year and what things it may bring to me.

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Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

For October, I challenged myself to find more simple recipes to have as easy meals I can make with little effort. I know that cooking for myself doesn’t have to be an elaborate production, but it’s felt like that for quite a while. And I know that in order to be more on top of my health, I need to be cooking for myself more often. I can’t just rely on delivery food and frozen dinners. But it’s been a struggle for me for so long.

I don’t know if I will say I was totally successful last month, but I think I made some really big steps forward. I wanted to have a few more easy recipes that I knew I could turn to, and I don’t know if I got as many as I would like. But I did add a few more that only require a little shopping. For example, I found a good chicken recipe that only really takes some chicken, the healthy type of cream of chicken soup, cream cheese, and Italian seasoning. While these are not things I normally have in my house, they are easy to get ingredients. And to put this meal together, it only takes about 15 minutes in my pressure cooker. The recipe says to serve it on pasta, but I had it with some broccoli mixed in and ate it by itself. It almost felt like a deconstructed pot pie.

I’ve also realized that it’s ok to use some frozen ingredients along with a little cooking to make a nice meal. My friend Tara sent me a super easy recipe. All it took was some frozen pepper pasta from Trader Joes and pancetta. Make the pasta as directed and cook up the pancetta and it’s almost like a pasta carbonara. I made this and added some peas to it (although I know I added too many peas) and it was really good! I don’t know if I’d use the pepper pasta again because it was a little too peppery, but it was still very tasty!

And even though my goal was to cook more, I also tried to find ways to make cooking easier or to find shortcuts. I know it’s super easy to boil water for pasta, but when I’m just cooking for me it takes a long time for the water to boil (sometimes I’m waiting over 10 minutes and it’s still not simmering). Pasta isn’t the healthiest thing to eat, but sometimes it’s the easiest thing and it’s healthier than ordering delivery food. So when I saw this microwave pasta cooker, I ordered it. I know that I don’t need it, but it’s nice to know I can make pasta super fast and without getting a giant pot dirty. And I know that it says you can cook other things in it as well, so I’m going to explore those options too.

While I didn’t get as many recipes added to my list of things I can pull together with minimal effort, I’m happy with the steps I did take and how much more comfortable I am with just looking around my kitchen and finding things I can pull together to make a simple meal.

And for November, I’m doing something I’ve already challenged myself to do in the past. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again. But this time, I’m not working on my book that I’ve been working on the past few years. That book is pretty much done. I know that technically it might never feel done, but I feel very happy with where it is. I do have another chapter or two that I want to write with lessons about dating during a pandemic, but it’s not something I feel like I need to work on this year. This time, I’m working on a completely new book.

This time, the book I’m working on is fiction. It is also about online dating, but it’s a completely made-up story. I don’t want to share too much about it since I don’t have it outlined yet and it’s still just ideas, but it’s almost like a mystery/suspense book that has online dating as a way to move the story forward. I’ve had this idea in my head almost since I started writing the first book, but it’s only been a few notes that I’ve saved. Now, I’m trying to flesh out the idea and actually get some things written down.

This time, writing a book is different from the last book. I don’t have the entire story in my head. I don’t have real things that happened to me that I’m writing down. I’m making it all up and I don’t have much done at all. So I don’t know if I’m going to get to 50,000 words this time, but I’m going to try. But the main goal I have with NaNoWriMo is that I want to get a full outline done for this book. I do want to get as much written as I can, but I also know that there may be a time this month where I’m stuck and don’t know how to write the next chapter. So I’m lowering my goal a bit. But it would be nice if I surprise myself and am able to write almost a full first draft by the end of the month!

I’m excited to see what I can get done with writing this month. I think it will be a really good thing for me to do for so many reasons. This idea has been in my head for too long and it’s time for me to get it out in words. Also, this will be a good way to spend time each day. I need to work on being more productive and this will give me something to do every day.

I can’t wait to share with you all how it goes and I hope I have exciting news about how my writing goes by the time I write my update on this challenge!

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Hell Week/Month Completed! (or I Need To Find Some Motivation For Me)

Posted on November 2, 2020 | Comments Off on Hell Week/Month Completed! (or I Need To Find Some Motivation For Me)

I’m officially a Hell Week Survivor! I’ve accomplished this every year I’ve been going to Orangetheory, but it always means a lot to me that I can do this. This year, Hell Week was anything but routine for me. Not only was it spread out over the entire month, but I had to do all the workouts at home. Even though I have almost been doing this for 8 months now (I still can’t believe how long I’ve been doing this), it doesn’t feel normal to me yet. And I think Hell Week made me miss my studio even more than normal.

But even though it felt weird, I am glad that I earned my Hell Week shirt! I don’t have it yet, but I did get a message that we should be getting instructions on how to pick them up soon. I can’t wait to have the new shirt to add to my collection!

All the workouts this past week for Orangetheory at Home were Hell Week ones. Technically, my Friday workout wasn’t an official Hell Week one since I did it over Zoom with my coach. But still, all 4 workouts were tough and I worked hard to get through them all. I was sweating like crazy and sore most days. But it did feel good to push myself and I can only hope that I did something close to what I would have done in the studios.

But even with working hard and wanting to complete my Hell Week workouts, it’s becoming more and more of a struggle for me to get my workouts in. I know I’m not as motivated as I normally am. I notice myself doing my workouts a bit later in the day, which I don’t like too much. I want to be able to do them in the morning so they are done. I don’t want to put them off. But the motivation just isn’t there for me like I know it can be. And this is a struggle I’ve been dealing with since we started having to work out at home. It comes in waves with how much or little motivation I have, but I know that overall my motivation is down much lower than it is when I go to the studio.

I’m hoping that if I’m able to do the outdoor workouts in another week or two that it will help fix this problem a bit. I think the isolation, in general, is tough, but the isolation with workouts when it’s always been a social thing for me is even harder. It was hard for me to find a workout that I loved. I tried so many different things. And with the workouts I enjoyed, it’s always been because of the people around me and coaching me. Even the workouts I didn’t stick with that I enjoyed were about the people. And Orangetheory was the first place that combined the social aspect with a workout that I loved. And I crave getting that back.

I’m not going to give up doing my workouts at home, but I need to find new ways to feel better about doing them. Even if I start going to the outdoor classes, I don’t know if I’d be doing that for all my workouts. So I need to be good at doing the workouts at home.

Having challenges like Hell Week do help with the motivation a bit because I am super competitive and I wouldn’t let something get in the way of me accomplishing it. But I can’t rely on just those challenges to keep me going. I don’t know how long it will be before I can go to my workouts in person for all my classes (either outdoors or in the studio). I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for several more months of this. And it’s not easy. But I know I have to do it. My mental health depends on it. I can’t imagine how much worse I would feel if I didn’t have my workouts as a part of my weekly routine.

But while I do want to focus on improving myself and making things better, I need to remember to celebrate any victories that I can. And for now, I need to celebrate being a Hell Week Survivor during the most hellish year I’ve ever experienced!

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Getting Back On Track (or Another Continuation Of A Monthly Challenge)

Posted on October 1, 2020 | Comments Off on Getting Back On Track (or Another Continuation Of A Monthly Challenge)

For September, I challenged myself to get back on track. I’ve done a lot of variations of this challenge since the pandemic started. It’s been hard to get back to good habits when my world is not the way I’m used to. It’s hard to have a schedule when you don’t have things to schedule around. I tried to find a way to get things to feel a bit more stable, but I kept struggling.

And just like every other attempt at this challenge, I feel like I made some progress but I didn’t fully succeed. But I do feel like I made more moves forward than I have before, and that’s something I’m proud of. I think it did help that I had 3 things that I really focused on and I had some clear ideas of what I wanted to do. I focused on my sleep, my workouts, and my food.

For my sleep, I’m not quite back to my regular sleep schedule. But I’m getting closer. I am still staying up a bit later than I would like to, especially when I know I could sleep in if I wanted to the next day. I’m really trying to get back to my regular schedule where I don’t sleep in. There’s really nothing happening now that I need to stay up for. I just don’t go to bed on time. I’ve been getting much better at getting in bed before midnight (I want to get it closer to being in bed by 11:30 or maybe a little earlier). And while I do read in bed before I go to sleep, as long as I’m in bed by that time I usually do ok with my sleep. I had occasional nights where I was up until 1 or 2, and I felt really miserable the next day. I think that I just need to keep working toward going to bed earlier and I’ll be back to my schedule soon.

My workouts also are feeling a bit more on track. I’m having setbacks and my bad weeks are really tough on me. But having weights really has helped me feel like my workouts are closer to what I used to do when I went to the classes in person. I’m feeling sore, which is a good feeling to me (I still can’t believe I like feeling sore) and I know that I’m getting some of my strength back. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t struggled to keep up with my workout schedule because that would have been really hard to fix. But having half-ass workouts has been a bit of a struggle too and I feel much better about how my workouts are going after this past month.

Getting my food back on track was harder for me. This is something that is so hard for me even in normal times. But doing it during a pandemic when I’ve had so many setbacks is even harder. But I still had some good things happen. I’ve been more mindful of what I already have when I make my grocery list. I try to limit how often I get groceries delivered. I’ve tried to not order in as much from different restaurants because I know I always have something I could eat at home when I do that (it just might not be as tasty or what I’m craving).

And getting my food back on track fits in with my challenge for this month. I want to work on finding some more easy and lazy recipes this month. By easy and lazy recipes, I mean things I can put together with almost no effort and with things that I either usually have in my house or have ingredients that are easy to get. I don’t have a lot of these recipes right now in my life. I would say making a turkey burger or veggie burger and steaming veggies is one of them. Another is roasting some potatoes and onions and then putting an egg on top of it (sometimes I add cheese too). Those are super easy for me to make and I don’t have to think too much about it when I’m making them. I also have minimal clean up when I make them.

I know having more recipes like those will help me continue to make progress with getting my food back on track. I don’t think I will ever be someone who wants to cook every night (although that is a challenge I’m considering), but I’d love to cook from scratch a majority of the time. If I eat a frozen dinner once or twice a week and have things I made the other nights, I would consider that a huge step forward. But in order for me to have that happen, I know I need to find more lazy recipes. That’s the only way I can see that idea sustainable.

Hopefully, I’ll find some great recipes that I will want to make over and over again. And if I don’t, I’m still hoping that this challenge makes me cook more and gets me to a better place with my food. The only way I see myself failing this challenge is to not try. And I know that is possible, but I’m really hoping I don’t allow myself to do that.

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Dri-Tri At Home (or Taking Challenges Where I Can)

Posted on September 29, 2020 | Comments Off on Dri-Tri At Home (or Taking Challenges Where I Can)

As I mentioned yesterday, one of my workouts last week was doing the Dri-Tri at home. I’ve done almost every Dri–Tri since joining Orangetheory. I missed the first one because I was scared and had something that I thought would prevent me from doing it. I missed the one earlier this year because it happened right after the gyms closed. I was getting ready for that Dri-Tri during my last in-studio workouts.

Some studios in different areas have reopened, and it is Dri-Tri again. So those studios were going to do them as close to normal as possible. Some studios did them outside or modified things, but they were still close. But for those of us who don’t have studios open yet, Orangetheory created a Dri-Tri that we could do at home. It was the video workout for Saturday, which worked out perfectly for me.

I love challenging myself in the Dri-Tri. I always have new goals in mind with what I want to be able to do. I usually wonder why I’m doing it at some point in the middle, but I’m always so happy when I’m done and I feel so proud of myself. And I really wanted to try to get that feeling at home.

Obviously, there’s no way to do the Dri-Tri exactly the same way at home. I guess if I had a rower I could do it with running/walking outside. But I do appreciate that they tried to do something that was close to what we do in the studio. For this video workout, we were coached through the entire thing. The coaches were doing the workout too. They didn’t just show the exercises and leave us to it. I really liked having that constant coaching.

For the rowing section, we had exercises that worked out the same muscles that rowing does. It was about 8 minutes long, so a little shorter than I normally take to do the 2,000-meter row. But just because it was faster, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t just as tired. I did try to challenge myself with the weights I was using for that section to make it hard.

For the floor section, we had the same types of exercises that we have for the Dri-Tri, but they were timed intervals and not the number of reps. Again, like the row, just because it was different didn’t make it easier. And for the cardio, we had different exercises that got our heart rates up.

The entire workout was about 45 minutes long, so it was a similar length to what it takes to do the Dri-Tri. And I was exhausted after I was done. This was a really hard workout and I tried to make it as hard as possible with challenging myself with the weights.

There were aspects of the regular Dri-Tri that I missed. I love doing it with people cheering us on. I love how we come together as a group to cheer on the finishers and we don’t stop until everyone is done. I missed the personalized coaching. I missed using the rower and having a good way to compare one Dri-Tri to another.

I hope that by the time the next Dri-Tri happens, gyms will be able to be open. I know that I might struggle more than I have in the past, but I just want to do it in the studio to feel that same sense of accomplishment. I am proud of what I did, but it’s not the same. I keep saying how I crave that feeling I used to get in my workouts, and this was just another sign of how much I want to get that feeling back.

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A Double Hard Workout Week (or I Did Want A Challenge)

Posted on September 7, 2020 | Comments Off on A Double Hard Workout Week (or I Did Want A Challenge)

So many of my workout recap post on here have been about how I know the workouts I’m doing at home are better than nothing, but that they are not close to what I know I was doing at the studio. I have worried about gaining weight, losing muscle, having setbacks for when I finally do get back into the studio, and losing my motivation to do my workouts the way that I was doing them 6 months ago. And while I still think that there will never be a perfect replacement for the in-studio workouts, this past week of workouts was easily the closest I’ve had since I started working out at home. And this was due to 2 things.

First, I finally got to work out with my new weights!

These took a bit longer to get to me than I expected, but now that I have them I’m so happy! As you can see, the weights go from 5-25 pounds in 5-pound increments. While I do use 12- and 17.5-pound weights when I’m in the studio, I didn’t think I would need those for now. I know for sure that I have lost some strength and need to work on rebuilding that. So for things that I used 12-pound weights, I’m using 10. Instead of 17.5-pound weights, I’m using either 15 or 10 (depending on the exercise).

The first workout that I got to use the weights was my Monday workout and I immediately noticed a difference in how I felt after I was done. The workout was so much harder than any other home workout and I was even feeling a bit sore. The weights are pretty easy to use and switch out how heavy or light I want them to be. It’s not as easy as having a set for each weight that I use, but I also know that having a pile of dumbbells would not fit in my house. These are perfect for what I need and they fit in very nicely with the rest of my home workout equipment.

I used my new weights for every workout this past week and I really felt a huge difference. It was a little upsetting and sad when I realized that I cannot do what I used to do. As much as I told myself that would happen, it was hard to see it come true. I know that I can rebuild my strength and muscles and I’ll be back to where I was soon enough. And now that I have some good weights at home, hopefully I’ll be closer to that whenever I’m able to get back into the studio.

The other reason why this past week of workouts was so hard was that I did 2 days of Zoom workouts! The group that I do Zoom workouts with normally does them on Tuesdays and Fridays. I cannot join in for the Tuesdays ones, so I only get to do the Friday workouts. But this past week, things switched up. Instead of Tuesday and Friday, we had Zoom workouts on Wednesday and Saturday! This was only a switch for this week (I wish they could move the Tuesday one to Wednesday, but that schedule doesn’t work for the rest of the group). But it allowed me to have double the Zoom workouts that I normally get to do.

Between the new weights and the Zoom workouts, this was the most challenging and most rewarding workout week in a long time. I want to say this was the best week I’ve had in the 6 months that I’ve had to work out at home so far. I really felt like things were going so much better for me in the workout and that I was doing a really challenging workout and not just goofing off a bit. I know that having these weights is going to help me feel like this a bit for all the rest of the workouts because I do have something that can make the exercises harder. And I can see the progress as I’m able to lift heavier. That’s something I haven’t been able to see since the studios had to close.

After this past week of workouts, I’m on such a high. I needed this challenge and this boost. I have been feeling so low about my workouts and my weight for too long and this really made me feel more in control of things. I know that having weights in my house isn’t going to be a magical fix for everything, but it is a big thing that I know I’ve been needing to have. And now that I have them, I can’t wait to continue to challenge myself and see if I’m able to have any big workout wins like I used to have in the studio.

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