In Which I Go Nowhere

Our first visit home has been tentatively scheduled, and I intend to complete a race while in California.  Therefore, I began official training last week.  As my exercise during the past ten months has consisted of whipping eggs for cake by hand and maniacally mopping my floors, it was a challenge to complete the first week of my training plan.

Getting back to exercise is a great sign.  It means I have mentally settled in, and am ready to have a life. I currently am able breathe, eat, shower, and sleep with a degree of familiarity and routine.  It took long enough.  But now I am ready!

So I’ve been getting ready to get back to sweating (on purpose instead of incidentally).  I paid for a month’s subscription to the fitness center in a local resort.  Now I have access to a windy, shady spot to run on the dreadmill, use the elliptical and lift weights.  Although I prefer covering actual ground instead of running and going nowhere, running in the sun after 7 am really isn’t an option here.   I developed a training plan for my potential race.  I bought a huge container of Gatorade mix to hydrate while I exercise in 90-degree, 100%-humid weather.  I instituted a schedule of laundry that allows me to wash my exercise clothes between uses.  I am all set.

This week so far:

Sunday: 2-mile run, Sexy in Six Week 1 weights.
Monday: quick Jazz-class type stretch, a few Pilates exercises

The rest of this week, proposed:

Tuesday: 3 miles on the treadmill, SIS Week 1 weights
Wednesday: 20-minutes Pilates Mat Workout
Thursday: 7-miles at the local park
Friday: 3 miles, SIS Week 1 weights
Saturday: 3 miles

Ready, Set, Go!

 

In which I attempt to keep my sanity in a bastion of confusion, disorganization and hectic-ness

There is no definable point at which a plan becomes a reality.  It is a gradual process.  One day,  however, you look around and realize parts of your life are very, very different and show no signs of stopping there.  Our plan to move has been many years in the making.  I can tell it’s now become a reality when I look at our near-empty living room.

It’s a unique feeling to see a space you thought of as ‘home’ for years looking empty and foreign.  There’re twinges of sadness, anxiety (what if we need to go back and now we’ve sold all our funiture), but also lots of excitement.  I’ve never been a minimalist by nature.  I’m actually more of a born hoarder.  I thought letting go of all the furniture my husband and I picked out at the beginning of our lives together would be immensely painful. However, where I expected to feel a sense of loss and emptiness, I actually feel eager and excited.  I absolutely love having less stuff.  I am focused less on the past and more on the future.  I highly recommend paring down.

It seems there’s an endless to-do list when you move, especiallly to another country.  So how does one maintain sanity in an empty-ish-but-somehow-still-untidy house with endless lists of errands, phone calls and packing tasks to accomplish?  One sweats out the stress!  I’ve learned supremely well in this stressful season that skipping workouts is not helpful in the long run.  When you stop taking care of your basic needs, the end of your motivation and staying power is near.

I am about to try Personal Training with Jackie: Power Circuit Training.  I obviously don’t have time for a lot of working out so each minute has to count.  I also don’t have a gym membership anymore, so a workout can’t require a lot of equipment.  Bonjour home workout dvds.  (Netflix has all the new good ones and some oldies you can check out).

Now that I’ve downed my green smoothie and coffee for the morning, I’m ready to sweat.  Hopefully, the workout will leave me all sweaty and de-stressed and ready to make a dent in my super-long to-do list.

I’ll keep you posted.

Ciao,

Amanda

 

In Which I Begin: An Accounting of My Current Habits Part I (Fitness)

I divide my life, as relevant to this blog, thusly: fitness, food and miscellaneous interests.  In today’s post I will begin an account of my fitness history and habits.

I like to think of myself as a naturally active person with varied activity-based interests.  However, I must admit that more appropriate terms may be ‘schizophrenic’ and ‘short attention span.’  I have always been a physically active person and through rigorous testing and with plenty of outside confirmation, I have proven true my hypothesis that unless I keep up a minimum level of exercise, I become rather bristly and unkind.  Therefore, I am always doing something.

I have concluded that for my best health and well-being, I have to incorporate cardio, resistance training and stretching.  Balancing all three is tricky but necessary.  I don’t like feeling strong but stiff, or else supple but weak.

At one time, I was convinced I had to do everything at least three times a week to have a minimum of fitness.  I scheduled it all out using complicated spreadsheets and schedules from my gym, dance studio and running buddies.  I ended up scheduling something like four hours a day for exercise.  A smidge excessive, you say?  I concur.

At this mature (snort of derisive laughter) stage of my life, I try to incorporate a variety of activities on a regular, though not necessarily weekly, basis.  If I have a big event coming up, I will spend more time training for that activity and reduce time spend in others.  However, I find I like a varied and balanced fitness portfolio, which is why I have largely given up participating in orchestrated events like races and rides.  I had that stage: when racing was so exciting and training schedules were new and promising.  But having done it all the way up and through a marathon, I must admit the mystique and allure have left the building.  Races are fun, but I have bigger priorities at the moment, namely, keeping balanced, sane and moving to anther continent.

I will have to devise methods of keeping said balance even in foreign surroundings.  I believe it will be, to quote J.M. Barrie, “an awfully big adventure.”

Tomorrow’s Post: In Which I Dance
(An Accounting of My Current Fitness Habits, Part II)