My Love Hate Relationship

No, I'm not talking about Pat. LOL! I'm talking about something that in recent years I've attempted to form a good relationship with many many times...and yet every one of these attempts fails. Oh sure, I go in all enthusiastic, wanting to do it every single day, and then somewhere around a month my love starts to falter.

I'm talking about exercise. I mean actually working out. I don't count things like going out for multiple walks a day with the kids and the dog or running up and down the stairs 500 times to get whatever it is I forgot or dancing around in the kids' rooms listening to music. That's just every day life. What I'm talking about here is me trying to keep myself motivated to want to workout more than once in a blue moon when the mood strikes.

I signed up for a fitness challenge this year logging my hours. I'm supposed to try to get to so many hours for the year. I can't even remember how many. It breaks down to being about 150 minutes a week. When I signed up this really sounded like nothing and it's really not bad. Except that I live a real life with a lot of distractions and lack the internal focus to want to stick with anything for more than a couple weeks.

So I've made it through the first month and was doing pretty well but now that we're getting into the second I feel my interest waning. This past week Alora went on a sleep strike for a few days. She woke me up literally every half an hour for a few nights in a row. By Wednesday I was exhausted and by Thursday I felt physically ill from sleep deprivation. Thankfully Thursday night she did finally let me get at least 5 1/2 to 6 hours of sleep. But my exercise mojo took a big hit from feeling completely drained.

I know everyone has weeks like that but in the past a week like that has always completely derailed me. The next week I'll keep thinking of reasons to put it off and then next thing you know it's been a couple months since I really worked out. Eventually I get back to wanting to do it again...for another month or so until something happens to distract me.

Seriously I don't get it. I pretty much never want to work out. Unless I'm feeling incredibly stressed. Then sometimes the mood strikes. But if I do make myself work out by about 5 minutes in to it I'm feeling all excited about doing it and then afterwards I feel so much healthier and calmer. I know this. So why the hell is it so hard for me to stick to it??

I think I need to mix it up again. I've been doing primarily Zumba, cardio workouts via Netflix, and yoga. I like them all well enough but I get bored of things easily. I'm going to have to branch out a little more. Part of my problem though is its hard to find times to do some of the things. Pat's been working more lately with getting his agency going so he's never home anymore during Alora's naptime for me to go over to the fitness center like I had been at the beginning of last month. Anything that involves being on the floor a lot is out when she's awake because mom on floor = mom wants to give me a pony ride in Alora's little mind. And I was reminded again this week that workouts that involve too many exercises like squats with my legs spread plie style results in my hips killing me all night long since I've had hip problems since birth. So I'm on the lookout again for something new I can do at home.

I'm determined I'm going to do this. This is my year. This fitness challenege is my goal and is going to help me stay on track. Unless I see a shiny object and get distracted. No wait. This is going to be my year :-)