How to Make a Hype Workout Stick? Part 3 – Listening To & Loving Your Body
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This is part three of a three-part series on how to make a fitness regime stick! Please take a look at my posts on defining a hype workout here and the first and second posts in this series for more information.
Pushing Yourself
Listen to your body. It knows you better than you know you! There are plenty of days where I get to the gym and I just have NO energy. If all you have the energy for is a brisk walk around the block – THAT’S OK. As someone who works in engineering, I’m on my feet a lot of the day, so when I come home and look at that stupid treadmill about 30% of the time I’ll take a pass on the cardio or shorten my cardio time. Usually, that’s if I’ve passed between 10K or 15K steps during my day. This is also a key to finding time for your workouts. Start small, ladies! My husband and I work for the same company, which is great and also incredibly annoying at the same time. But some days we take desk breaks! If we’ve had a really heavy analysis or computer day my husband and I will grab our water bottles and just take a few laps around the admin area to get the blood moving. I’m not saying this is a substitute for real cardio, but it’s a great place to start.
Pain
Listen to your body clearly also applies to pain. Obviously working out requires a bit of discomfort because you are exerting yourself. However, if you feel pain – true pain – STOP IMMEDIATELY. Don’t push through just because you think it’s working a set of muscles that you don’t have. Take a second to double check how to do the exercise and then retry. Also, make sure to cater to your injuries!
For the first time ever, I had a back spasm early February! I had never been injured before during a workout so I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed. I also had no idea that most workouts sort of require your back, so while it was inflamed working out pretty much any part of my body was a challenge. My first leg day after the injury was so painful! I LOVE leg day, so it was hard for me to take it easy and not push myself. I ended up only being able to workout for about 15 minutes before my back started to scream at me… The physical therapist put me on body weight only workouts for a couple of weeks and told me to take my exercises way slower. Though my heart rate range suffered, I was able to focus on engaging my core and it actually helped me become stronger in the long run!
It’s OK to fall off the bandwagon
Girls, it is not the end of the world if you can’t keep up with the challenge of certain workout routines. Sometimes you just aren’t ready! But that doesn’t mean you give up – do not get discouraged. For example, burpees suck. When I started BBG this past year I couldn’t get through 10 in a timely manner – I’d spend 2 out of the 7 minutes in one circuit trying to get through 10 of those things… Now people may disagree with me on this, but I worked my way up to being able to do 15 burpees in a row (with good form.) So the first couple of weeks, I only did 5 burpees out of the 10. I would slowly add one each week after that until I was comfortable doing 10 in a row. This way I felt like I was getting a well-rounded workout in (and not just exhaustedly trying to do burpees.) Moral of that story is that I didn’t let my inabilities get the better of me. I stuck with it and didn’t get discouraged.
Lastly, Love you for you, ladies!!!
It’s kind of dumb that I have to say this at all, but look in the mirror tonight and tell yourself that you love you. If you have self-esteem issues, this can be pretty freaking challenging!
Today I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t see as many faults as I used to. And that’s not necessarily because I’m in better shape (though I am), it’s mostly because I’ve trained myself to focus on the good. Random anecdote: Back in college I had a few rough relationships that gave me some serious self-esteem related fears (to the point where I sought help.) It took a really really long time and continual reinforcement from myself and my now husband to remind me that I’m worth something. If any of you have struggled with self-esteem issues or body image issues, you will know this feeling. And I want to say that you are all beautiful and you are all worth taking the time to better yourself.
Hopefully, this puts into perspective how long it’s taken me to get to a remotely healthy lifestyle! And I’m still learning. Like last weekend, I learned that you can’t have pizza and beer Friday, and then like 4 beers on Saturday and then weigh yourself on Sunday expecting good BMI results… oh well!
As always, thanks for reading!
Love,
Francesca Nicole
