The key is consistency

I’m beating myself up with last week’s exercise routine. I’ve been pushing to a 60 minute, three mile goal in one daily session. Worse yet, the weather is cooling and arthritis has invaded my knees and right ankle.

My muscles were screaming like spanked children too -- so I took some time off of the Gazelle and rested. I hope I didn’t justify myself back into being complacent fat ass. No, I didn’t. I won’t let that happen … again.

I get into these motivated pockets and work my ass off to achieve my goal and then after a few days or (this time) weeks I quit. I burn my body out. My brain -- dream world -- wants to do it, my body – reality – fights back. It’s like all or nothing for me.

I realized, while 60 minutes a session doesn’t seem like much, for my body it really is. It’s too much. I have to accept that I’m fat and out of shape. No matter how much I mentally push myself, it’s my body that has to keep up. I’m not as strong as I always thought of myself as being. It’s humbling and pathetic.

This weekend I’ve been struggling with a solution (while sitting on my ass). I’m going to break up my workout session into two. It’s not totally uncharted. I did want to work my way up to two hours a day, one in the morning and one at night. However, I’m going to do two 30 minute sessions a day and my overall goal is 12 miles a week. I’m also going to throw in a 30 minute wind down Yoga session before bedtime.

As for the pissy old lady joints, I can push through 30 minutes in the morning. At night I’m going to pop some Motrin an hour or so ahead of time and hopefully that’ll do the trick. (I did chat with my grandmother this weekend and she suggested Tylenol Arthritis. You’re supposed to last eight hours, so I’ll pick that up next time I go to the store. Maybe that’ll help out with my morning routine if I gobble them at bedtime.)

The big challenge here isn’t if I can exercise, it’s if I can make it consistent. That’s my goal, consistency.

Also, in the next week or two (I’ve got to read the book first. My good friend the bodacious athlete kindly loaned it to me) I’m going to start the South Beach Diet.