Pivot!!

Thanks to everyone who provided words of support and encouragement for my post about feeling my age. I'm looking at last week as a life lesson. Mainly, that sometimes we just have to pivot if things aren't going the way we planned.

I've spent much of 2023 focusing on building muscle and lifting heavier weights. My goal was to get stronger. I experienced a lot of ups and downs, mainly with hitting plateaus and not staying consistent with my nutrition. But I constantly downplayed the stressful events that were happening in my life. I felt like I should just be able to overcome the stress and focus on my goals.

I think that last week, after pushing myself for weeks with my workouts, my body said, "When are you going to figure this out? You're burned out and tired." Yes, I was killing my workouts and I was doing better with nutrition, but I was sore, tired, and stressed out from trying to figure out meal plans and tracking what I was eating.

While I'm so proud of where I'm at with health and fitness, I feel like I've been in a state of denial with not only my age, but life events that are currently going on. It was finally after talking to a friend over breakfast yesterday that I understood that I've been going through a lot this year, and that perhaps I need to give myself a break.

I have a husband with health issues, a dog who is having surgery next week which will require a long recovery period, and a busy job. I've refused to give myself any kind of rest because I've always been the type of person who hates to ask for help and I always feel like I can handle things on my own. I'm strong and I can push through.

My friend advised that perhaps right now isn't the best time to try and reach high goals. With everything going on with David and Kali, perhaps it would be best to just go back to basics.

I know it sounds silly, but I think that I've just been waiting to get permission from someone that it's okay not to strive for big goals right now. That it's okay if I don't stick to a workout program or eat healthy every day. I can set basic, minimal daily goals and be okay with that. Taking care of a sick husband and dog and keeping up with my job is challenging enough; I don't need to put additional pressure on myself to do more than that.

So today I'm working on just taking care of myself, doing my best, and trying to accept when my best isn't always that great.

I started with trying out a different workout program. LIIFT More is just too intense and strenuous for me, at least right now. So today I tried out Day 1 of a new workout program that I hadn't tried before, called Fire & Flow. The workouts are 30 minutes long, six days a week, with three workouts a week consisting of strength training and three workouts a week focusing on mobility. Since my mobility is absolute shit right now, I think that this program is just what I need.

Day 1 of the program focused on Upper Body.

While we focused on upper body strengthening, it felt more like a total body workout since we combined leg movements, such as squats and lunges, with upper body moves. For instance, one of the moves was a squat into a shoulder press. The moves were slow and deliberate, which I liked because I could use a lighter weight and focus on form, but I still felt the muscle burn.

After each round, we did a cardio HIIT move for 60 seconds. We finished the workout with a couple of core moves using resistance bands. I really enjoyed the workout. Jericho is an energetic, encouraging trainer, and the music that accompanied the workout was high-energy. I'm looking forward to trying the mobility workout tomorrow with Elise.

Today my nutrition will focus on whole, clean foods. I drank a protein shake after my workout and for breakfast I had these protein egg bites with black coffee:

Lunch will be leftover vegan broccoli cheese soup and dinner will be shakshuka. I'll fit in some fruit, yogurt, and veggies for my snacks, also.

I also want to get in some movement throughout the day, so I'll aim for 6000-7000 steps today.

For me, these are simple, sustainable goals. I think the difficult part for me will be to not try and do more, or to let myself rest if I feel tired.

I'd like to try and keep writing every day on the blog because writing things down is helpful for me, but I also want to cut myself some slack if I can't keep up with it every day. Some days I just don't feel like writing and have nothing to say, and that's okay.

Thanks to those of you who have been following along every day and are cheering me on. I can't do this alone, as much as I'd like to convince myself that I can. Life (and aging) are hard enough, let alone trying to deal with stuff on my own. I never want to take my family and friends for granted!