gym motivation | The Crafty Momma

I am pleased to report that my health kick is going well!! To recap, I had quite fuzzy goals. Nothing specific like a dress size, or a race to enter. I just basically wanted to move more, eat more veg, and feel a bit better.

I run in 90-100+ degrees currently – now THAT is dedication.

Well, so far, I have succeeded! I have run twice a week since that goal. I am pleased that even running this small amount has allowed me to improve – I was worried twice a week might not be regular enough to see improvements in my pace and distance but I have gone from walking 1/2 of my ~~paltry~~ [<— must not be negative! Must be positive about my achievements!] 2.3 miles to jogging the whole way, and from struggling to get a 10.5/min mile, to averaging 9.5/min mile, with a PB of 9.23/mins. NOT BAD. Most importantly twice a week was just enough to get running vaguely pleasant – the first 6 or so runs I HATED almost every minute of – my body ached, my lungs burned and I felt like it was an uphill struggle. Now, while I wouldn’t put running on a par with eating chips on the sofa, it is now enjoyable in its own way. I am about ready to start turning one of my runs into a longer run – I’d like to build up to 10K over the next 6 months or so.

But my Houston Bayou run is pretty beautiful

I am also zumba-ing once a week, and lifting weights twice a week. I am not sure if twice a week weight lifting will make much difference, but it is good to feel strong and do something a little different to cardio.

Most boring food picture in the world?!?

My diet *is* better. It’s not amazing, but it is better. At least 1/2 of the week I am not having a McDonalds for breakfast. The green smoothies started to make me really queasy (my body really revolts against green things), but I have managed to have a banana and greek yogurt, or oatmeal with pumpkin some of the time – that’s a step up. I have a healthy BMI, so I wasn’t looking to particularly cut things from my diet (hello vanilla goldfish), but I was looking to get healthy things in – I am having more salads, and each day I have 1 serving of carrots and 1 of cherry tomatoes as snacks. I am almost at my 5 a day!! It doesn’t sound like much, but when you are allergic to almost all fruit (except the occasional banana) and most vegetables make you hurl (see the green smoothie issue) it’s an achievement.

I am actually also quite proud that I have managed to keep things sane as well. I have never entered any kind of lifestyle change without setting crazy intense goals for myself. Last time I tried sport, I was running a Tough Mudder (all of it! No skipping obstacles!) within 8 months. When I tried a healthy eating plan, I got myself visible abs in 12 weeks (which as I started at the same weight as when I was 24 weeks pregnant with Sam was quite a hard won achievement). It’s very weird for me just to do ‘healthy behaviors’ for the sake of doing healthy behaviors, and to press ahead of them without hope of some clear short term reward. It makes it easy to think ‘oh, I won’t bother with a run today, I’ll do it another time’, but I have soldiered on so far. I keep telling myself that having things in moderation IS a healthy behavior, and I think of all these cheesy motivational quotes like:

“You can choose to make just today [or this meal] healthier”. Or “You are still lapping everyone on the couch”.