Sustainably Fit!
It’s been almost a week since my last post covering my recent “slump” and some strategies I came up with to beat it, and I’m happy to give you guys the update that I believe I’m making some progress! At the same time, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been approaching my fitness goals and am trying to shift my mindset about exercise to achieve those goals in a sustainable manner so that I can avoid burnout periods like the one that brought on this recent slump.
So, let me start with the more positive aspect of things: my strategies have been panning out pretty well thus far! On the week days at least, I’ve been getting up at 7:30 consistently, and I find that my other method of staying off my phone for the first thirty minutes after waking up does, in fact, help me start the day more efficiently. If I get up immediately to brush my teeth and wash my face, I feel much more energized and ready to start the day—which usually means ready to hit the gym or go for a run! Additionally, staying off my phone for thirty minutes before going to bed has allowed me to start a great new book [I’m reading Fools Die by Mario Puzo, the guy who wrote the book version of The Godfather currently]. Reading before bed definitely puts me to sleep, and since I want to savor this awesome novel, I happily put it aside and close my eyes after twenty pages. So much better than scrolling Instagram or flipping through Snapchat stories mindlessly before suddenly realizing I’ve been doing that for an hour. The only one of my strategies I haven’t quite kept up with is scheduling “me time.” I’ll definitely be working more on that for the rest of this week!
Not only have I been sticking with these strategies, but they’ve definitely been making me feel more energized and productive throughout the day. There’s really something to be said for waking up early [although I think 7:30 is really only early by college student standards] and starting the day with a workout! I enjoyed a great long run on Sunday, covering eight miles, and although it was very hot out and challenging towards the end, it gave me that running-induced endorphins rush that reminded me how great running makes me body feel and got me excited for more runs in the near future. I’m even excited to get to eight and a half miles—at least!—this weekend. Having spent some time working with these new methods in pursuit of slaying my summer slump, I’ve also decided to add a couple new strategies to my list.
First, it’s come to my attention that I definitely need to eat before working out in the morning. I often skip breakfast before running because I worry that my stomach will hurt if I do, but especially when I’m working out in the Rec Center, I feel fatigued and hungry by the time I’m done with my cardio and ready to start my lift or circuit. So, I’m going to commit to at least a small breakfast [hey Trader Joe’s Mango & Cream Yogurt, I’m looking at you] before every workout.
My other idea is that my slump may be related to my lack of a larger goal at the moment. For a while, of course, my big goal was running a half marathon. Before that, it had been losing weight, getting a certain time on my rowing 2K, or going to the gym four times per week. Now, my overarching goal is a little bit more ambiguous. Of course, I want to run another half marathon and I’m working towards that still by increasing my long run distance each week, but I already know that I can achieve that goal. That said, I think I’m going to make it more real by selecting a race to run at the end of this summer—more news on that soon [still deciding where and when to do it in a way that will avoid death by August humidity]! In addition to that, however, I’m going to set some other fitness goals that I want to meet in the near future:
1. Exercise six times per week [Six does not equal seven! Take an off day!]
2. Do five consecutive unassisted pull-ups
3. Do leg day one time per week
Only three goals, but three goals that I think are attainable and that I really want to meet! I have never been able to do more than one pull-up [not counting my cheater pull-ups where I jump up from the ground to the bar], but I’m going to work on gaining the strength to do five in a row. Once I meet that goal, I’ll think about doing more than that. I’ve also been slacking on leg day. I always put it off, using the excuse that I don’t want to tire out my legs for running. There’s secretly another reason that I often skip it though: I don’t feel entirely confident in the weight room. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t—many other women that I talk to feel the same way. For me, it’s not that I am concerned about being able to lift much less than the gym bros that populate the Rec Center’s middle level, but that I worry about my technique, especially squats and deadlifts. I feel totally comfortable doing arms on the benches in front of the mirror, swinging around my twenty pound dumbbells like I don’t have a care in the world. Once I get to the other side of the weight room, however, where the squat racks are, I feel a little bit more out of my element. For starters, I don’t have great ankle flexibility [another thing I’m always working on], so I put tiny 2.5 pounds weights under my heels to preserve my form. Basically, I want to get more comfortable on that side of the gym.
My first goal, regarding exercising six days a week and making sure to take a rest day, is especially important to me. While I do want to maintain an active lifestyle and healthy habits, I also think it’s extremely important to strike a balance that doesn’t lead to exercise fatigue. My mom recently started doing Pilates [this is related, I promise], and her instructor told her something that she recently relayed to me and that really stuck with me. Essentially, she talked about how important it is to practice sustainable exercise: it’s not necessary to drive yourself into the ground, to push yourself to the point of exhaustion with every workout. We should be kinder to our bodies, make exercise something enjoyable that we want to keep doing for our whole lives.
I know that this might sound somewhat controversial to some people, and I totally see where you’re coming from. I get it—I’ve definitely been of the mentality that a workout isn’t “worth it” unless I’m sweating bullets by the end, or feeling crazy sore the next day, or efficiently burning at least ten calories per minute, or any other arbitrary measure of fitness success. I understand why I have felt that way too. My desire to lose weight pushed me to aim for maximum calorie burn in each workout. My desire to get faster at rowing while competing against other girls around me forced me to put everything out on the erg every day of practice. But my mom’s new ideas about sustainable exercise resonated with me. I love working out and I want to maintain an active lifestyle that includes working out for as long as I possibly can. If I’m pushing myself to the absolute maximum in every workout, will I burn out earlier? Will I get injured more easily? I think the answer is probably yes to both of those things.
Obviously, as in pretty much everything in life, there are exceptions to this theory. If you’re training to compete in athletics seriously or play a professional sport or something like that then yeah, maybe you do need to reach your limits with every workout. However, for the purposes of this blog, I’m talking about myself and people like me. People who enjoy exercise or are trying to get into fitness and like casually training for achievable goals as part of that process. People who want to continue to practice fitness as a lifelong fun and doable endeavor. That’s what I want. So, even as I set fitness goals and decide to consistently exercise six days out of the week, I also aspire to be more gentle and kind to my body and responsive to the cues that it gives me. For instance, if I had planned for a rest day on Saturday but my body is asking for one on Tuesday, I will honor that request and try not to get down on myself for needing a rest day sooner than expected.
That said, I’m not going to give up “going hard” in my workouts entirely. I love the exhilaration of finishing a challenging workout or sprinting the last block to my house at the end of a long run and happily collapsing onto the cool grass of my front lawn afterwards. I simply want to be more responsible with the intensity and frequency of my workouts to ensure that I continue to love fitness and am able to enjoy it for the rest of my life, because it’s such a good way to take care of my body and my mind. I always want to find the fun in working out, and I believe that being kind to my body is a huge part of that.
In the spirit of taking my mom’s Pilates instructor’s advice about practicing sustainable fitness, I’ll be trying Pilates for the first time tomorrow evening. I’m hoping mixing up my fitness routine will also help me feel happy about exercising! Let me know what you guys do when you’re experiencing a workout burnout—I’d love suggestions. And don’t forget to be kind to your body this week and every week. I have a feeling it will thank you for the consideration!
