Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Thanks to the junkies and fictional men.

The last few weeks have been tough! Man. First there was that foot injury. After a few days of rest from cardio, I was back on the treadmill. I also switched from my new shoes (which I’ve decided now are too small) to my old shoes. Knock on wood, things are great with that! Phew. Right as I was getting back into the swing of things, I ended up getting sick. Not crazy sick, but I felt like I was stuck in the coming down stages of something like a cold or suffering from allergies. I was constantly exhausted, my head felt clogged, and I just felt like crap. Not fun! Regardless of all that, I still ran on the treadmill every night for an hour, but Jillian took a back seat. Kind of strange, since the majority of the Jillian workouts I do are around thirty minutes or so and I opted to drop her rather than an hour on the treadmill. Honestly though, Jillian Michaels is a mean mean woman! And her workouts kick my butt! Before I came down with the strange never hit it’s max but sure packed a punch mystery illness, I was doing Shred It With Weights. I still love that workout, by the way, but man. Do those rotating squats while holding the kettlebell kick my butt. I have a love to hate relationship with all her workout programs. I love how I feel afterwards, and honestly, I do enjoy doing them. Most days. But up until recently, it was really easy to drop Jillian for a while. Plus, I love cardio, and when I run on the treadmill, I listen to a lot of fun music. Like, DDR and Disney and other nerdy stuff. ;) I’ll touch base on this in another blog entry later, but I like to make my cardio a lot of fun so I’ll keep going back to it. :D. Sometimes Jillian can get a bet repetitious even if you are switching back and forth to different programs. 

And then… it was getting to where it was getting a bit hard to pick Jillian back up. I took about ten days off doing any type of DVD, which is something I have not done since I started adding her workout programs to my normal routine. It’s not that I didn’t think about doing them; quite the contrary. I thought about Jillian every day. It was just hard to get back on the bandwagon, especially when I still wasn’t feeling quite 100%. What helped me though was a group on Facebook I joined that is dedicated specifically to Jillian Michaels workouts. It’s called Jillian Michaels Workout Junkies, and there are a few very nice women in the group. I’ve never actively posted there but I love reading what they have to say. Some of the posts there helped get me back on the bandwagon! I just decided, screw this waiting to feel better to pop in a DVD or open Youtube. Time to get back on the ball! So far, so good! Back to doing Jillian and getting an hour of cardio in. Reunited with my routine and it feels so good!

It’s times like these when I really feel victorious. It would have been so easy just to put all the Jillian DVD’s away and hide them for a few months, maybe until next Spring. I would have eventually forgotten how I let her run me down every day, right? I refused to let it happen, and that makes me feel like I’ve had a victory! I can’t completely take ownership for it, either, and here’s another epiphany I had. Most of my journey I’ve done alone. I don’t actively talk about it to many people (I actually just shared this blog on my personal Facebook page. If you’re reading this, hi!! Love you!) and I’ve been kind of a loner. And that’s what would have made dropping the DVD’s easier, because it would have been my dirty little secret, I guess you can say. Joining that group and seeing it pop up in my feed on Facebook helps keep me accountable. And I’m able to meet some people who’ve experienced what I’ve experienced, or I’m seeing ladies who are where I was at just a few years ago. And I know that if I am really struggling, I have someplace I can vent to, and that’s a great feeling. Not always something I had while being a loner, running all by myself, eating healthy all by myself. It helps remind me what my ultimate goal is. And because I’m a nerd, here is another thing that helped:  One of my favorite authors recently came out with a new book. Get my workout out of the way so I can read!! Well, actually, yeah, that’s kind of how it was - but wait! There’s more. I’m not going to say who the author is or what book just in case this might spoil (it SHOULDN'T spoil you never know!) but in the book, there are two main characters; a male and female. The guy is a total workout-aholic and an MMA fighter. I’ll admit it; part of me will always love wrestling. I touched base on that before when I mentioned twisting crescent pose reminded me of Hurricane Helms. ;). So in addition to the main character training for various MMA matches, there is constant talks about him being a the gym, training, working out. That helped. Of course, he's fictional. The photo below says it perfect. ;) 



What makes you feel victorious? 
Do you prefer to lone it out while working out, or do you need others around you? 

Thanks for reading!

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