Happy Monday! It's day 15 of my new challenge and things are going well - not perfect - but I'm feeling some new healthy habits setting in, which was my main motivation for doing the challenge.
Monday started out with a leg workout from LIIFT More. I did three sets of 12 reps of the following:
Hanging squats
Bulgarian squats
Side lunges
Frog bridges
Stiff leg deadlifts
Calf raises, both regular and pigeon
I finished with a power loop burnout, doing three 45-second sets of side steps, front-to-back steps, and squat-to-heel lifts. Wow, that burned! After that brutal round, I did some core moves.
On Tuesday I did a shoulders workout from LIIFT More. I did three sets of 12 reps of the following:
Upright rows
Reverse raises
Arm openers
Overhead press
Front raises
Lateral raises
High rows
Trap rotations
Trap openers
I finished with a burnout round of incline presses, forward swimmers and back swimmers. And, of course, there's always core exercises!
Wednesday was a Booty Blend workout from Barre Blend. Like my booty wasn't sore enough from Monday - ha!
Thursday was a chest and back workout from LIIFT More. I did three sets of 12 reps of the following:
Standing rows
Seated reverse fly
Chest press
Neutral press
Single-arm row
Pullover
Incline press
Incline fly
The workout sucked. I felt tired, I went down in weights, and I was on the struggle bus the entire workout. In fact, once I finished the lifting portion of the workout, I decided to skip the HIIT and core portions and just rode my stationary bike for 15 minutes because my upper body was dead. I attribute the poor performance to crappy sleep the night before. My husband had gone out of town and I never sleep well when he is away. My nutrition was still good, though. I was meeting my protein and calorie goals all week. I was also hydrating well.
Friday was supposed to be a Barre Blend workout, but my body felt tired, so instead I did a 30-minute at-home walking workout that I found on YouTube. It was low impact, I barely broke a sweat, but I got in some movement, which was my only goal for the day. Work was stressful and so by the time I got off of work, I was tired and fixed myself a cocktail and warmed up some leftover pizza that I had in the freezer. It tasted so good. I needed the comfort food, apparently.
On Saturday I was feeling much more energetic, so I did a dance workout from Let's Get Up and then a 15-minute at-home walking workout from YouTube. I went to a local book club at the coffee shop and then came home and cleaned the house. David arrived home around lunchtime and so we ordered Jersey Mike's for lunch. The tuna sub is my go-to; I choose wheat bread and opt out of the oil blend mix and just get lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. Yum! Saturday night was pizza again, but it was homemade pizza with vegetarian toppings.
On Sunday morning, I went for a long walk with my friend who is doing the challenge with me. We talked about our struggles for the week and our goals for the upcoming week. By the end of the walk, I had over 10,000 steps! By the end of the day, I had close to 14,000, which for me is a lot these days. I spent the afternoon at my daughter's dance recital (she is a dance instructor) and so although I didn't end up getting all of my water, protein, and calorie goals met, I made healthy choices and enjoyed the day.
My goals for this week, aside from the daily tasks of the challenge, are to get more walking steps in each day and stand more at my desk in lieu of sitting for prolonged periods of time. I would like to take 15-20 minutes each day at lunch time to walk outside. Normally I'll sit and watch TV while I eat my lunch and then sit outside with the dogs if the weather is nice, but instead I'd like to take a short walk to get some steps in once I'm done eating my lunch.
I think that 10,000 steps a day may be too much for now with my busy work schedule, but if I can get 6000-8000 steps a day, that will be a great improvement. I was almost able to achieve that last week, so I believe I can do it.
My friend and I are going to try and check in with each other at the end of each day this week. The first week we did that and it was really helpful to check in and feel accountable to someone. Last week, we slacked off on it and we both agreed that it added to our struggles for the week. Hopefully checking in daily this week will get our momentum going again!
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