Oops, I missed posting last week, but I DIDN’T miss any of my scheduled workouts!

My issue isn’t in missing the scheduled workouts, it’s missing the ones I do on my own, outside of the Riverplex Xtreme! I’m struggling to make workouts outside of ones where trainers are expecting me, which isn’t great when I have a half marathon coming up in April and my mileage isn’t very high, yet. I’m feeling a little more discouraged about myself than I have in past programs, so I sat down last week and talked honestly with Justin about it.

One thing we noticed is how hard I was being on myself. The week before I was SO mad at myself. I didn’t make it to work out on Friday morning, but I made it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday… out of the 5 scheduled workouts, I missed ONE. Which is four more workouts than I was doing per week just a few weeks ago. This is kind of a bad habit I have throughout life. I hold myself to an impossibly high standard, and when I fail to meet it, I feel like a failure. Peeking behind the happy, bright, on air personality Kristin to the REAL Kristin, I feel like a failure a LOT. We also talked about how some days, I am really tired from other workouts and every day life, and it’s OKAY if I don’t make it to the gym. Justin suggested that I print out some Pintrest workouts, and have small, backup workouts that I can do at home, so that if I’m pressed for time, I can still do something, which is better than doing NOTHING! He also had me start scheduling to come to his Tuesday morning 6:30am workouts, as an extra day to be accountable to someone at the gym. Finally, he told me to make at least ten promises to myself. I had to hand-write them, and tape them to my mirror. I’ll look at them every morning to reset the day, and every evening to go through and check off that I did them. If not, not the end of the world, I’ll just try to do better tomorrow! Here they are:

1. I promise to do some physical activity every single day, whether it’s a scheduled gym workout, a quick workout in the apartment gym or at home, or a walk around the block.
2. I promise that anytime I start negatively self-talking, to immediately stop, tell myself I’m awesome, and come up with 3 examples WHY I’m awesome.
3. I promise to log my food in My Fitness Pal every day, even if I completely fell off the wagon that day
4. I promise that when someone makes me annoyed or upset, I’ll let myself feel it for ten seconds, I’ll take a deep breath, and I’ll move on with my day.
5. I promise to stand up for myself when it’s warranted by practicing step four, but then calmly and rationally thinking out a plan, and then putting it into action.
6. I promise to eat at least 1500 calories per day.
7. I promise to actually take a lunch break, even if it’s just ten minutes. I will focus on the food I am eating and NOT think about work during my break.
8. I promise to drink at least 100oz of water per day.
9. I promise that every time I look in the mirror, I’ll think “I am strong.”
10. I promise to realize that every day is a new start, and if I was not successful yesterday, today I worry ONLY about making today successful.

You’ll see in my ten, that negative self-talk is also a big thing with me. Again, behind the radio personality “Kristin,” I’m a little different. A little more insecure. I’ve talked about my depression on air when I was talking about LifePlus MD, but it’s actually true. I have a bad habit of thinking the worst about myself. Literally this morning, as I was driving into work, I was thinking about a coworker who is kind of a bad-ass, and how even though I admired her bad-ass-ness, I could NEVER be that cool because I had nothing to be confident about. And then, as my promises state above, I had to stop that thought process in its tracks and come up with three reasons why I was awesome. I came up with that I’m smart, I’m passionate, and I’m compassionate. With depression, it’s all about re-routing the neural pathways, so that when situation X happens instead of brain thought Y (Y being something negative), it goes to brain thought Z (Z being something positive) instead. The more I keep that promise to myself, the healthier my brain will function.

So last week I made it to 3 workouts in the morning, but due to some incredibly busy days where I was helping our sister stations in Bloomington on Thursday and Friday, literally every minute from the time I woke up to the time my head hit the pillow  was accounted for. A Monday and Wednesday workout in the morning, and Tuesday’s I did after work. Also, after my Wednesday morning gym workout, I did another run workout, so four workouts in three days is still better than the zero I was doing a couple weeks ago. And I’ve decided I’m okay with how last week went.

This week, so far, I went to my morning workout yesterday at 5:30, but when I showed up for my new Tuesday workout with Justin, it had been cancelled. Not to worry, since I was already at the gym, I did a run workout, and then that bad-ass coworker I mentioned earlier, she was there too, and she put my legs through a hard workout. She’s a runner, too, so she did some great leg and core stabilizing workouts, and watched me to make sure I was doing them right. See? Bad-ass coworker.

Let me also talk for a minute about how one of the businesses that dropped off Teddy Bears for our drive last week also dropped off full-sized Snickers bars, and I’ve eaten more than I’m proud of since they SOMEHOW ended up in my office? It’s okay, moving on.

If you’re struggling to get on the workout/healthy eating train and you need a bit of guidance, seriously consider the Riverplex Xtreme! There’s another session starting up March 29th! It’ll be the best decision you make for yourself this year, seriously!