Time for an update.

I was up and working out 4 days last week. I was starting to feel a little bit under the weather and I was up late Thursday night with my EMBA dinner, so I slept in Friday. Then Saturday was a full day. Sunday I didn’t do any organized exercise, but I did play quartet handbells and full handbells so I got in some activity.

I’m still doing a good job of getting up at 5am, too. It is working out well to get the Egoscue and work out done so early and then have time to do some reading or writing before starting work. But when I finally start trying to wake the others up at 8am it’s hard not to be a bit high handed since I’ve been up for 3 hours and have been so productive.

Eating habits haven’t been quite as good and I need to pay more attention there. As usual, what is in the house is pretty healthy, but it is too easy to eat too much during the day.

I went shopping for new jeans (the ones I have are just too tight and won’t fit again, it’s time to admit that). If I lose more around my waist, then I can buy another pair. It is fun to wear a comfortable pair of jeans.

I also feel the need to remind myself why I do what I do. It gets so hard some days and I just want to stay in bed longer and laze around without making myself sweat and push. But I need to take the long-term view and know that in addition to being good for me now, this will be good for me for many years to come. Putting it off won’t make it easier.

First, Egoscue. I do this to increase my flexibility and improve my posture. It really works. I started it to see if my sore rotator cuff would heal faster. Anthony started because his knee was hurting. He realized after starting the e-cises that his lower back stopped hurting. It adds another 20 to 30 minutes to my morning, so I have discovered audio books. Christianaudio.com has a free resource each month. In January, while doing my Egoscue e-cises I would listen to the Oswald Chambers biography. This month it is Not For Sale about the modern-day slave trade. The e-cises look easy but they can actually be a bit challenging, since they are trying to get my body to change. I enjoy seeing how much easier a position gets as the days pass.

Also for flexibility, I do power yoga. I started yoga when I was in New York, when I found that Beryl Bender Birch taught classes a few nights a week. I went fairly regularly and saw the potential, even though I saw little progress since I have so little flexibility. Since this is something I need so much, it becomes a lot of hard work and is the one thing I am most liable to want to skip. I also groan and grumble the most when doing my yoga. Which is not the mindfulness and attitude I should have. I have spent some time each year trying again, but this is the longest I’ve stayed pretty consistent with yoga. I started last summer (before I hurt my rotator cuff) and have done yoga almost every week since then. Currently I do yoga 2 or 3 times a week, with another form of cardio and strength training the other days.

Other strength/cardio workouts. We have an elliptical, a Bowflex, and PowerBlocks. I have done individual workouts, but find it hard to keep myself going hard enough to get a real cardio workout and find it hard to fit in both cardio and strength training, since I am already doing the Egoscue and yoga. So, right now I use videos. I have been working out with the Slim series by Debbie Siebers that I bought from BeachBody a few years ago. I enjoy her style and the exercises that we do. I have also done some Tony Horton workouts, also from BeachBody. In the next week I will be starting something new. I read this review on Health.com and I admit the comment about being able to charge up stairs without panting is exactly what I want. I know my breath support needs help. The actual PowerStrike website looks very interesting. I’m starting with an older DVD that I won on eBay yesterday. As soon as it arrives in the mail I’ll be trying it out.

I missed posting last week, but I had good news to report.

The week of Jan 26-Jan 31 I was up around 5am and worked out 5 of the 6 days.

This past week, Feb 2-Feb 7 I was up around 5am and worked out all 6 days.

Eating hasn’t been as good. I’ve done pretty good when eating at home, but we ate out a few times and that was certainly not good. Pizza and fried foods a few times this past week. This week should be better!

It is still hard to get up in the morning and put in the effort to work out. I try not to think about it, just get up and start moving.

Time flies. This week went really well, considering I missed a few days.

The facts: I missed Monday and Friday, completely. No Egoscue, no cardio, no strength training. Eating was fair but only because I don’t have crap in the house.

I did get all my pieces and parts on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. That’s good, but it isn’t the best part.

The best part is that when I skipped my workout Friday I missed it! I was bummed that I couldn’t fit it in that day and would have to wait until Saturday.

And there’s an even better part. The 3 weekdays that I worked out, I actually got up at 5am! (Well, 5:12 is more like it.)

While browsing blogs early this week I came across a link to an old post about the 5:00 club. It isn’t anything new or ground breaking. It’s just honest and real. Working out in the afternoon/evening is very prone to being displaced because too much life happens then. Either a late meeting gets scheduled, a deadline looms, a friend wants to do dinner. Even if it isn’t unplanned, there is just the fact that fitting in dinner for the family and working out nowhere near a mealtime before bedtime is hard.

So, I decided last week that I would have to work out in the mornings. But doing that means getting up early. It’s winter – that makes it cold and dark, not my favorite environment for getting up early. Last week I was trying to get up at 6am. I skipped Thursday and almost skipped Friday because I pushed the snooze button a few times and tried to talk myself into getting up but then by 6:20 I would be saying “Now I can’t fit in the whole workout before I have to start work, there’s no point in getting up.” See that, I just talked my way out of a workout.

Then it happened again on Monday. That makes a pattern which leads to a habit, the wrong habit. Sooooo, I set my alarm for 5am Tuesday. I had clothes out to change into, and anything else that could possible derail me or discourage me enough to stay in bed I took care of the night before. I hit snooze once, and then I just did it. I got up, worked out, showered, and then sat down at my desk with enough time for a quiet period reading the Bible and praying! Amazing how that works.

I may have annoyed Anthony and Connor a bit this week because by time they finally started moving around, I had been up for 3 hours and in a very productive mood. I wasn’t asking them to be productive, I was just working around the house making productive noises and satisfied sounds were coming from my soul.

There is a downside to this. Getting up at 5am means I am not staying up until 11pm. Anthony is trying to adjust to this new schedule where I shut everything down, prep the house for the next day, and then disappear a bit earlier than before.

He’ll get used to it. It’s the New Me!

I forgot to post yesterday. I had a good week.

Activity: I did Egoscue, strength training and some form of cardio 5 days out of 7. Thursday got away from me and I almost missed Friday but when dinner plans were cancelled I squeezed in a workout.

Food: I did fairly well last week. I ate too much Saturday but it wasn’t anything really bad for me.

Progress: If we are talking consistency and doing something even on the days when I don’t want to do anything, I am doing pretty well.

If we are talking changes on the scale or in the way my pants fit – none to report.

With the Egoscue, strength, and cardio – I have been taking an hour each day (plus time to change before, then shower and dress after). And I’m reading that 30 min a day is nice, but to actually make a difference it takes an hour a day. I guess I’m doing the right things, I just have to keep doing them.