Kate: Slaying the Dragons one day at a time

[muffin.pi]

Hey all!

 

I'm Kate. I recently joined NF in an effort to get in some sort of shape other than round. I haven't really worked out since high school where I did ALL THE SPORTS! Once I got to college and lost that organized group activity, it's been a slow decline since. More recently, I stopped working on my feet all day at a coffee shop and got a cushy desk job. While this is good for paying off my student loans, it has not been good for my waistline and body.

 

Despite having been relatively active in sports, I was always the fat kid. I really want to see what it would be like not to be that any more. Therefore, this is my battle log as I fight off the unhealthiness dragons so that maybe some day, I would have the ability to fight them IRL.  

[muffin.pi]

Day One (which was actually Tuesday):

 

I embarked on my fitness journey. I was all set to do the Recruit workout; since I don't have the internet at my apartment, I printed off all of the instructions for the warm-up, workout, and cool down  at work so that I would easily have them to reference. Looking over the workout, I found myself thinking "Gee self, this doesn't look to bad. The warm-up seems easy and the workout itself seems similar to the conditioning I did in high school. Bring it on!"

 

Clearly, my inner self has a higher esteem of my fitness level than reality does. I went with Stacey's warm-up, which nearly did me in. I skipped the jumping jacks because I live on the third floor and it was late. I didn't want to bother my neighbors; also, I had this weird fear that then they would know I'm working out. I'm not sure why that bothers me but much like cleaning, I'm super uncomfortable with other people being around or knowing when I'm doing it (except when I go to the gym because that's why everyone's there, and it's cool). I pushed through the warm-up mostly. I skipped most of the spiderman things as well mostly because of awkwardness. By the end, I felt like I had already done my workout for the night, but I soldiered on.

 

When I got to the workout, I struggled. I know that I'm vastly out of shape so I'm surprised that I fell into the dupe of just-because-it-looks-easy-it-is! It was not easy. The push-ups (modified to knee) were okay. I was at least familiar with the form I was suppose to have, and it felt alright, though by the middle I was slightly out of breath and feeling the workout. The bodyweight squats I could do without modification which surprised and delighted me. It made me feel like I wasn't as out of shape as I thought (don't worry, the lunges proved that wrong later). I struggled with the inverted row mostly because of lack of furniture/ equipment. My apartment doesn't have a table (or a couch or chairs for that matter) and I didn't have any barbells or milk jugs for weight. I tried to do the motions as best as I could, but I'm not sure how much it did for me. I'm hoping that once I get something to hold, at least I'll have the motion down? The body lungs did not go well. I tried the unmodified, and both versions of the modified (assisted split and split). I just felt awkward and like I was doing it wrong the whole time; they were also SUPER HARD. Sadly, I did not complete 20 of them. The plank I pushed through for the fifteen seconds before I collapsed on the floor to catch my breath. Knowing that I still had the cool down to get through (I had already mentally earmarked completing all three quests that night and I would not be stopped), I made the decision not to do two more rounds to finish the complete Recruit workout. I was pooped.

 

The cool down was okay. I found it (thankfully) easier than the warm-up. I'm vaguely familiar with some of the moves so, while I couldn't stretch as far as required, I had, at least, a general idea of what I was doing. Afterwards, it was far past my bedtime so I washed my face and trundled off to sleep.

 

Now, two days later, I am definitely feeling the burn from the work-out, mostly in my quads and shoulder joints. This makes me feel good; I haven't felt this feeling since my days in cheerleading when my coach would have us lift weights and run stairs. It also makes me feel good about my decision to not do the complete cycle. I need to acknowledge that I am not in good physical shape and I need to start slow. It's okay if I can't do everything right away. I am leveling up and working on it. Now I have a new goal: do one round and add a little more each time until I can do the entire cycle!

 

I have an office cocktail party tonight, but I'm hoping to still have the energy to do another round tonight (maybe attempting one round plus a second round of push-ups for growth?). As I was on my hour long train ride to work this morning, I realized that if I'm working out at home and not the gym where I donate money to every month, I could actually workout before getting ready. I think this idea needs more pondering because it definitely has potential.

 

Dragons slayed: 1