My Fitness Journey (Part 2): I Started Rolling

I am two weeks into my fitness journey, and I feel like a superhero. I very diligently get up early and get my workout done every morning. My darling husband sets the alarm for 4:45 am and wakes me up at 5 am. Although I am not in the mood to wake up and leave my cozy sheets to work on my fitness, I do. Why am I getting out of bed at that ridiculous hour? Well, that’s the only time where there is absolute silence in the house. While the children are sleeping, I can start my day with a solid session. I drag myself very quietly to the lounge and dress into workout clothing. I have to mention that the clothing has been in a special place in the back of my wardrobe for five years, and no longer fit the way they should.

I’m not going to lie, the first week waking up at sparrows fart was tough. Even though it’s hard, I kept at it, and by the second week, it does get much easier. My motivation remains the same, and I will not let anything stop me. That is until I visited my Family Doctor. If there is one thing that shattered my motivation, it was when I weighed myself at the Doctor. Two weeks into my training and my weight has not shifted. Not at all!

I left the doctors’ rooms, and I was devastated. The early mornings, muscle pain, and being tired, all for nothing. Motivation went from 100% down to zero in 15 minutes. Sitting down with my Doctor, discussing my goals and what I have been doing for the past two weeks, all seemed so worthless. I started to think that there are underlying issues and it should be investigated. The Doctor assured me that I should not worry, but to be safe we scheduled blood testing for later that week.

Then my Doctor hit me with some hard truth. I am eating too much and not to mention too much of the wrong foods. No amount of exercise will work if I don’t eat better. All of this is not new to me. I used to manage a personal training gym for three years and learned how to do resistance work along with proper eating habits. Not only did I learn a lot, but I was a product of fitness success pre-children. Therefore, if I know all of this, why was I not making more of a change?

I found myself back at the drawing board and realized that I need a plan. This plan has to include a workout routine, meal plan, targeted research, and monitoring. There is no way that anything will work if there is no plan in place.

Workout Routine

Finding a workout routine didn’t take much effort. I searched YouTube for 30 minute home workout plans. It is surprising and delightful how much is available online. I had an idea of what I wanted and found what worked for me. After a few free sessions on YouTube, I invested with Team Body Project for more planned and scheduled workout plans.

Research

Targeted research is an effort to see what food works best for me and my lifestyle. It will be pretty pointless to cook three different types of meals to accommodate everyone in the household. Furthermore, I do not have the time to cook all day every day. However, I took my Doctors’ advice and looked a bit deeper into a vegan lifestyle. Veganism and the function are not new to me. My husband has been vegan for over a year, and by default, I have been a “part-time” vegan. Although I transitioned my husband to being vegan, I didn’t grasp the difference between vegan and plant-based diets. Yes, there is a big difference. However, this is not the place to delve into this topic.

Meal Plan

As I mentioned in Part 1, I was eating all the wrong things at the wrong time. Skipping breakfast, lunch, and making up for all of those missed meals at dinner. It was disastrous! Things needed to change drastically. As part of my research, intermittent fasting is one of the topics that I delved into. Although I was doing the intermittent fasting, I was calory loading at the wrong time of the day. I simply switched to loading my calories in an eight-hour window between 7 am and 3 pm. Sounds simple enough, but trust me when I say, IT IS HARD.

With my plan in place, only one item remained. How will I monitor my progress? There is no tip-toeing around this one. I simply have to get onto the scale and check my weight. Daily. That’s right, daily.

My husband checks my weight for me each morning before my workout or eating food. We have a deal that he will only share the numbers with me if I lost weight. It is better this way for my self-esteem and continued motivation. However, there is a method for my daily measuring madness. This is an indicator for me to see how my body reacts to certain foods on my new found eating habit.

Continue to follow me on my fitness journey, as I will share with you my finely tuned routine. Then find out how much weight I have lost.

See you in Part 3 soon!