Originally posted here with The Demoiselles

This first proper week of living in my new routine has been a Big Adjustment. I tried to prepare myself mentally, and I tried to remind myself that it takes a lot of work to get out of old habits and into new ones but the shock of waking up at 6:00 AM to do yoga is a little more rough than I anticipated. Even when I kind of mime my way though it! You would think that would at least make it easier.

I’ve been trying to work my goals into a weekly routine so I can monitor them more easily, and so far this is what I’ve come up with…

My Weekly Routine/Regime:

The Getting Active & Healthy Stuff!

• Walk the puppies for 20 mins in the morning five days a week
• 40 reps of sit ups with weights & 40 reps of back strengthening seven days a week
• 30 mins of cardio twice a week
• Take a multivitamin every day

Results:

This week I stayed right on top of this!! I busted my butt so I could have at least one week where I did 90% of everything I set out to. I missed a multivitamin one day, but other than than I did everything! I even walked the dogs when it was cold and I had no interest in waking up what so ever. My husband is a little shell shocked, believe me.

The Dealing With Chronic Back Pain Stuff!

• Yoga at 6 AM five days a week
• Take no pain killers so I can actually feel my body
• Take a hot bath/use a heat pack on my back seven days a week

Results

I did everything, and I feel really awful. My pain is definitely worse than it has been in a few months, but I think it’s because I’m actually doing something about it and that stirs things up. How is that for a folksy rationalization? I am trying to push through, but I had to take Tylenol once this week. I’m waking up five or six times a night at a minimum, and I’m getting kind of sleep deprived and cranky.

To answer a couple of questions & suggestions: before now I have tried massage, yoga, chiropractic, physiotherapy and acupuncture. Massage has been wonderful for my pain reduction, but I can’t afford regular treatments & I really want to find something that I can do for myself to help. I’m totally up for using these as interventions….but I do that every year in bursts of expensive treatments that stop helping when I stop paying. I want to know that I’m helping myself in a concrete way, on an ongoing basis. This can’t all be in other people’s hands, can it?

However the up side to my At Home Wellness Plan is that I may or may not be using my back pain as an excuse to have hot therapeutic (bubble!!!) baths before work when I have an extra 10 minutes. I don’t know what it’s doing for my pain levels, but I think I’m really onto something with this.

Me this week…along with my puppies Ash & Mal. They’re a little needy.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, this week has been hard. I have had a tough time getting motivated, and while I built some fun stuff in as incentives (I can read the new Dan Brown book in one sitting….after cardio!) it felt less like I was starting a routine and more like I was starting a regime change. It’s a little exhausting!

Question:

How do you make Those Fitness Items You Have To Do something you look forward to?

Anyone who is intrinsically motivated/addicted to their own endorphins, feel free to speak up, just know it’s like you’re speaking another language. But I really want to believe you about how good it all feels & isn’t at all boring, I swear!

Next week I’ll be finished my final paper of this semester, so I’ll have a lot less stress in my life and I know that I’m hoping that next week feels more manageable. Next week I’ll be talking about how I’m doing cardio & yoga at home, and I’ll be hunting down the Miracle Balls that My Little Becky suggested! I have very high hopes for these!