We can do it! Wednesdays: exercise goal update 2

I set a goal at the beginning of the month to exercise 2 days per week with strength training plus 2.5 hours per week of vigorous activity. This was way harder than I thought it was going to be. I’ve been at it for two weeks and at the end of both weeks I found myself working out like crazy on the weekends to make up for what I had neglected to do during the week in order to meet my goal. For examples, this past week I met my goal by doing BodyPump on Monday and Wednesday and then 50 minutes of cardio each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

During the week I get weary after work and instead of going to the gym to relieve stress, all I want to do is hang around the house and eat. I’m going to try these three things for next week to help motivate me to go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday nights:

1.       Pack a snack to eat at work at around 4pm – this will keep me from feeling like I’m starving once I get home. That way I can go straight to the gym after work instead of eating dinner first, then waiting until after I digest everything to go out to the gym. At that point I have usually talked myself out of going already.

2.       Leave gym clothes out in the morning so they’re ready when I get home – this one seems lame, but I think it will help me. Usually I’m so beat after work that the last thing I want to do is more chores once I get home (on top of cooking dinner). So having my clothes all picked out and my towel and water bottle ready will help me get ready for working out the second I get home without encountering too many distractions.

3.       Limit mid-week dinner prep – lately I’ve been slacking on my weekend cooking duties, which means I need to go shopping for groceries and cook our dinners for Wednesday-Friday during the week. These added chores always give me a great excuse to skip the gym, so I’m trying to focus on getting all meals prepped before the week starts. I’m also working on making double batches of all of our meals and freezing half of them to make dinner prep easier in the coming weeks.

I’m going to try these this week and see how it goes. Also, for next week I’ll report on my progress on a new health goal (only eating fruit for dessert). This is super difficult for me because I have a huge sweet tooth and like to end the day with a yummy treat. I am currently eating dark chocolate AND some cookies that I made last night, so I’m going to go ahead and set the start date for this goal to tomorrow.

Have a great week. Good luck with your health goals!