It’s been a year and a half since I last had a steady fitness plan, and my body aches. I’m out of shape. I’ve gained a lot of weight. And I feel like crap. I’m not a fitness fanatic, but the older I get the more it becomes clear that I have to make fitness a priority and take steps to reduce stress.
For the last year or so, my job has been the most stressful I can recall during my tenure at my company. I worked almost 80 every week, for weeks, skipping sleep and meals without regard for my health or happiness. My family suffered but I did my best to put on a happy face and be as present as I could, letting all other priorities like fitness and nutrition be put aside. The demands of the project and the needs of my family were all I had the capacity to handle. This persisted for 4 months and it definitely took a toll.
I put on roughly 40 pounds, and managed to lose any strength progress I had made the year prior. What a shame. I have lost so much I worked hard for. It’s created some slight depression and definitely stirred old habits of eating to self medicate. But that’s life.
If there is anything 46 years has taught me, its that seasons change, time passes, and nothing stays the same for long. That is the beauty and burden of life. Good days come and good days go. The same can be said for sad days, bad days, stressful days, and even the very best days. You enjoy the good and learn from the bad.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I practice grace and gratitude as a way to center and humble myself. I’m not perfect at it, but I try to practice it every day. This doesn’t mean that I’m happy all the time. That is impossible. It’s insane to think that every day you will be happy. No growth can come from that. In order to recognize happy, you have to experience sad. Its just the way life goes. But practicing grace and gratitude allows me to forgive myself and others from transgressions and be grateful for the information I received in the process. This is a necessary step for me to experience situations presented to me from soup to nuts, start to finish, birth to death, and move through them without carrying them into my future like emotional baggage.
Again, I’m not perfect at it, but I try. And it helps me keep my head straight. Maybe I’ll do another post on that sometime.
Anywho, things have calmed down at work and I’m ready to start working on strength again so I made myself a 12 week plan, I thought I’d share. Its pretty straight forward and easy to follow. Print it out here!
I found the layout on Canva in the “planner” templates and added the strength plan I used a couple years ago that helped me get in pretty good shape. The workout can be found here if you want to read more about it. The post goes into detail about the why, when, and what of the plan. Good read!
The workout does require some equipment, so for me it means I have to go to the gym. I have a nice set of dumbbells at home, but that’s about it. For me the best time to workout is first thing in the morning, with a 5 am wake up time. It’s hard at first, but I find I adjust quick to the early start and it sets up my day for success right from the beginning.
I’m off work for a week starting tomorrow, so I’ve decided to use the time as the start of a 12 week restart. I plan to follow the M,W,F power lifting schedule, with some light core work on T,TH. I will also do some cardio during the week but I prefer to do cardio in the evenings with my family and the activity changes frequently so I’m not listing what and when I will do it. Instead I left a spot to write in what activity I do, when I do it. My cardio is usually a walk/run with a group 2-3 times per week but can also be a sports game with the kids, jump rope, or a dance video game.
While I’m tempted to give myself a step goal, I think it will be too much too soon for me, so I’m going to focus on the strength training for 12 weeks and let the cardio figure itself out.
This might not result in any weight loss or obvious physical changes in only 12 weeks, but I know it will result in me feeling better and setting me up for more changes in the next 12 weeks.
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