FITNESS

STARTED: 8th August 2022

FINISHED: 20th November 2022

 

Set yourself a target number of days per week you wish to exercise - for example 3, 4 or 5. Multiply this number by 12. Over a three month period, complete that number of days of exercise - don’t panic if you have a bad week or two, you can always catch up later. Depending on your current level of fitness, an exercise session might be a 30 or 60 minute walk, a bike ride, 30 laps of a swimming pool, a 5K run, a spin class, or an aerobics class. Be honest with yourself, and try to challenge yourself a bit. Use this three months to try some new classes or activities. Remember - any fitness activity counts is another day ticked off!

I'm not a fit person. Exercise scares me. I go through phases of doing exercisey type things but can't seem to carry them on. I mainly don't have a lot of time to do things. I work a lot and by the time I've got home and done my chores and all the boring adulty things, I really don't have the energy to do anything more than sit in front of a film.

So I set myself the challenge to exercise 3 times per week. It could never be the same 3 days each week because of my work pattern, but as long as I exercised 3 times per week, I was happy.

I bought one of these hoops ...

... after seeing a video on YouTube or TikTok. I thought this would be a doable bit of exercise. The video suggested hooping for 30 minutes per day, but I chose to do 15 minutes so as not to stress myself out too much, worrying about completing a full half an hour of this. I started with 19 segments to the hoop. When you lose inches around your tummy, you can remove a segment.

To start with it was difficult to get used to the movement. I could go anticlockwise without too many problems, but clockwise just didn't work for me. I also couldn't keep it going non-stop. But I persevered and it got easier.

After 5 days I was able to remove one of the clips, which was exciting.

And then 13 days later I took out another clip.

And then tragedy struck! My hoop weight thing broke!

So while I was waiting for the delivery of my new hoop (which took forever because of the postal strike), I decided to try some planking because I've heard that's a good way of working out all of the muscles! 

I tried three different types of planks - extended arm plank, forearm plank, knee plank.

I started off dreadfully, only being able to hold each one for a few seconds each. I started doing this on 18th September and finished on 7th October. My hold times certainly increased and I could feel myself pushing my stamina.

When my new hoop arrived, I was a little bit annoyed because the weight came without anything in it. The original hoop was weighted, but this one was just a shell. I filled it with rice (because, frustratingly, I threw the broken one away - I never throw anything away in case I need it in the future, but this one went straight in the bin, when I definitely needed it in the future!), but the weight wasn't as heavy as it had originally been. 

Now, I know the whole fitness thing was about being fitter and not necessarily losing weight, but that will obviously be a byproduct of the process. I started this journey weighing 192.6lb and have finished at 188.6lb. This is a loss of 4lb. However, my weight as fluctuated between 194.8lb and 186lb, depending hon what I've been eating! Regardless of anything, I have lost a bit of weight, which can always be a good thing.

And even better, I've lost some size around my chest, waist, and hips which has resulted in being able to fit into clothes that didn't fit me. When I started my measurements were 103cm (chest), 96cm (waist), 109cm (waist) and it's now 101cm (chest), 88.5cm (waist), 106cm (hips).

Alongside the hooping and planking, I also made sure I did at least 50 squats, which were part of the Good Habits badge. Square are horrible and difficult and make your legs hurt, but the more I did them, the easier they got.

Frustratingly, I did have covid during this period, which meant I couldn't do any exercise for about 2 weeks as I was so unwell. But as soon as I was fit, I got straight back into it.

Over the past 100 days or so, I have done some sort of fitness activity (either hooping or planking) on 37 of the days. I would like to do more exercise, and will try to continue incorporating it into my life.