Sowjanya Amirapu

First month of 2019 is done and loved how I finished January. I did accomplish most of my goals for January. Fitness and otherwise. I committed to doing 20 classes this month. However I did 18, which is my personal best to-date.

I feel proud as I really strived to complete 20 and I could have reached 20 but for few reasons. I am sure those reasons will be crushed in Feb. 🙂

When I look at my tracker, I notice that I missed out on the first week a big deal. Had I worked out at least 3 classes in my first week of Jan, I would have crushed the 20 this month. From my past trackers, I never missed Monday’s or Tuesday’s.

But this month we enrolled our elder son in Kumon classes, that happens on Monday’s every week. To top that off, my dear husband is having late evening meetings every Monday. So I ended up losing my workout spot for Monday’s.

This means I have to be even more committed to classes for the rest of the days in a week. More importantly, I cannot slack on any given week with less than 3 days of workout. So I added varied and diverse classes to my schedule.

First, I enrolled in Hot Yoga @ Sunstone Fitness.  I love love love yoga and Hot Yoga is my absolute favorite. Before being an F45 bunny, I was a loyal Yoga fan. I swore by yoga for achieving lean body and overall strength and wellness.

But after my second kid, my fitness priorities changed. I have to strengthen my core and fast. I have to start lifting weights and gradually add more to challenge my strength.

Beyond flexibility, Yoga calms my mind. Helps me dig deeper into my soul, my inner self. Teaches me the practice of being grateful for my body. All of which helped me be more focused when doing any task. Consistent Yoga practice does result in weight loss and lean body but seeing those results will take a longer time.

So after my second delivery, I searched for more challenging hard-core workouts. The workouts I always thought I cannot do. Cannot do as much cardio and cannot lift as much weights. I want to break that thought. I enrolled in F45. I feel like a Titan, a Ninja Warrior lifting the weights. I feel powerful.

Having said that I feel like this workout is still one-sided. I long for my mind-body connection.  A place where I can thank my body and submit myself to. I missed Hot Yoga. So I became a member at Sunstone Yoga in Austin. Now, I am going there during weekends and I am loving it.

Second workout I tried is Spin classes @ Ride. I experimented with spin as it is in the same Mall as my office (yes, my office is in a mall and I do shop or cycle during my lunch break). Never thought indoor cycling can give me such joy. I loved the experience of spinning to the music. I did not feel it to be much of a workout but there is a feel-great-factor to spinning that stuck with me the whole day. But it is too pricey for my budget. I never think twice for spending for quality training. But after shelling a lot for F45 & Hot yoga, I decided to not enroll for Spin classes (I still have 1 more Spin class to attend in Feb)

It was an Intensity and Variety packed January for me. Ready to race for February and hit 20 workouts !!

2019 Is the year of me being Fit and Healthy and Strong and at Peace with myself and my image.

2019 is the year of being Fearless and re-inventing a new ME.

My fitness goals have extended from 2018 with more variety packed for 2019

-Consistently work out for 4-5 days a week.

-Participate in all F45 challenges for 2019.

-Try new workouts like Spinning, Hot Yoga, Kick-boxing, Running, Swimming & Dancing

-Participate in 1 challenge/game outside gym

-Measure, Track and Blog

I continue to do 20 workouts this year too.

One point that has helped me be consistent at my workouts is tracking every week. I am a visual person. Seeing the chart on how many times I worked out. The goal I set to complete. How many are in progress and how many more to achieve has helped me tremendously in sticky to my routine.

Many a times I felt like being at home. Some weeks I am unstoppable. Like, week of 7th Jan, I did 7 workouts- my highest ever to-date. I worked out on the weekends too. I did a double on Wednesday. I felt great. I was motivated and had a great momentum.

Come next week, Monday- I simply did not feel like hitting the gym. This feeling lingered and did not wear-off till Wednesday. During which, I thought a lot about why I feel how I am feeling. Then, I saw my Vision Board & my tracker (Pic below). It spoke to me. If I continue slacking, I will not complete 20 this month again. The first month of the year 2019- which will see me fit & lean.

I made sure to go to the class even if I lift lesser weights & my heart-rate stands at the last on the leaderboard. It did not matter. What matters is being part of the 45 minute class. To see people who are working out.

A guy on a podcast shares a story about how he just drove to the gym, stayed there for 5 mins and then drove back every day for the first 30 days to just develop the habit of going to gym.

It might sound silly to head to the class to work out for 5 mins. But the point here is setting a routine. Telling our minds – I need to drive to the class every day at this time – thereby forming an habit. Once that is achieved, one could build on to stay longer, lift heavier, run faster.

I am training my mind to conquer the ‘Consistency’ hack. Do-20 a month is all about Consistency.

It’s been a while since I posted. I was getting ready for the new year during December and too focused on setting the routine the first week of new year.

Coming back to the ‘DO-20’ December challenge, I managed to do 15 out of 20 workouts planned. 15 classes in a month is my highest since I started on F45 journey-since August 2018.

I was in for a shock when I started checking the number of days I worked out in each month since August. Some months (like October) were just 9 days. 9 out of the 31 days October has.

No wonder my scales did not show much progress.

Yeah ! Lesson learnt. Measuring religiously does not show results. Showing up for more days does.

When we traveled to Dallas from Austin, I packed 2-3 sets of workout wear and was determined to go for a Hot yoga class which is 20 mins from my hotel. But late nights and cozy comforters and sheets at hotel made it harder to kick them off early in the morning.

The challenge proved a point that it takes real focus and planning to do 20 workouts a month. 5 workouts every week. I cannot miss a workout during workdays if I am planning for a leisure weekend. In case I miss on weekdays, I need to compensate during weekends. See, I did not get into those drill downs in my mind in December.

However this high expectation made me workout for at least 15 days and gave me a chance to reflect on my plans for achieving 2019 fitness goals.

unsplash.com

December is a tough month to keep up the momentum and consistency in working out.

With taking vacations, meeting friends and family, celebrations, parties, get-togethers – all happening at the same time, it disrupts the routine.

I love routines. I might sound boring but I do certain activities almost every day at the same time. I hate change in my routine. Change that disrupts reaching my peak performance. Change that brings down the momentum resulting in it not forming a habit. A powerful habit that could change the course of my life. For me, Exercise is a habit that can make or break me. My exercise routine gives me the powers to be great at work, at home and everywhere and everything.

When I took a long-awaited vacation to London in the midst of F45 challenge, at around 6 weeks, I lost the focus and drive to keep up. When I returned, I struggle to go back to my classes. I hated myself for doing it. It took me almost 2 weeks to get my head straight around working-out and get my focus back.

(Will share what all I did to regain my focus in another post)

Blogging my journey and sharing my mind with you all is helping me in finding myself. So I have decided to do a December Challenge. To workout 20 days in the month. No excuse- No misses.

I am damn confident to do 20 workouts in December.

How are you exercising this December? Do share with me. Will follow you on your journey

Here’s how I am tracking: