Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Making and keeping resolutions

Once again this year, I put being active and getting fit as one of my top resolutions in making the time to take care of myself.  Yes, I know, I have been told by many that I am in shape, however, for me  getting fit is really more about a state of mind and how my body feels. For the past few years I have really felt like I am always one step behind and oh, so tired all of the time. I have also relied heavily on chocolate and caffeine to get me through my days. I am well aware that it is a vicious cycle of not having enough energy to work out and then continuing to feel lethargic because I am not working out.

So this year I decided to take action and make some real changes. To begin, I started making going to sleep at a decent time a priority and getting at least 7 hours sleep - which is a dramatic improvement from about 5 hours sleep. I also booked a personal trainer for several sessions to give me the motivation needed to get myself out of bed in the morning. It is too easy to fall into the trap of saying that I will work out later or that I should sleep that extra hour since Isla woke up during the night. I never end up working out later - at this time in my life there is never time during the day with the kids and I am exhausted by the end of the day and the gym is the last place that I want to be. And, truthfully, when I work out in the morning it gives me more of an energy boost than the extra hour of sleep or any caffeine or sugar rush would ever provide. And that is the push that I needed.

I now remember how amazing, healthy and self confident that I feel after a work out and I carry it with me throughout the day. I am more conscious of the food I am choosing to eat - fruit and veggies become much more appealing as opposed to craving muffins and chocolate (which don't get me wrong are still very appealing, but I feel better about eating those types of food since I have also had fruit or veggies along with them). I am also making an effort to be more active with my family - like choosing to go skating or get outside to build a snowman - things that before were just too much effort! I also like the example it sets for my children. It is very important to me that my children grow up to lead healthy, active lifestyles and the only way that will become engrained within them is to live it as they are growing up.

The personal trainer that I have to thank for providing the push that I needed is Katie Squires from Fit Mom in Barrhaven. Katie has an amazingly inspiring story of how she came to reach her present fitness goals. She is a certified trainer and runs multiple marathons a year - so a great resource if you are interested in training to run. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to fitness training and I was really only looking for someone to get me out of bed, but Katie has done so much more. She has introduced me to new training tools to achieve the goals that I had - I now love the TRX and I am inspired to begin running again. She is so fun to train with and one hour feels like minutes. I now have a whole new training routine and so many new exercises to push myself to a whole new fitness level.

In order to try and keep up these changes I have tried to remain realistic. My goal is to train two days a week. Right now that is all the time that I am able to commit without feeling overwhelmed. So far, I have also been able to fit in a run once a week without feeling the stress of not enough time.

With spring feeling like it is around the corner, I am excited to get outside soon and begin running again. I have joined a team and I am now registered to take part in the Spartan run. I have never done a run before, so this is a little out of my comfort zone, but I think it will help keep me motivated and I am excited to try something new.

What inspires you to remain active? Or what fitness goals do have for this year?


1 comment:

  1. I am amazed by how much stronger you get each time we meet. Today having Ewan watch you being SUPER MOM STRONG and Running Super Fast made my heart sing! You could tell he thought you were pretty cool :) That is a very very neat thing.

    ReplyDelete