Ah.. a topic I’ve never really covered before so this is new for me. I was never the gym junkie, the soul cycle, the Keto diet kind of girl. Fitness and working out actually made me quite nervous, especially sports.. there was this one time we had a family friends gathering at a rugby pitch and played a massive game of touch rugby which still haunts me to this day. Back in the day through, I was actually a really fast runner, that was the one thing I had in that department. So despite my lack of fitness, I could still race on sports day, but I would always be physically sick afterwards because my body couldn’t handle that much excursion. But it was nice to be a fast runner for a while. Since school though, I’ve only (well I say only) kept up theatre and dance, which I love. At University, I do not have a gym membership and was worried if I got one, it would put too much pressure on me to go, but at the same time isn’t that kind of the point?
So during these isolation days a sudden wave of worry came clouding over me - a worry of putting on weight. Now, I’ve always struggled with believing I’m fat even though I have never actually been at a dangerous weight at any point in my life. That’s confusing right, knowing you’re not overweight, but still thinking you are?? Big big social issue here, but anyways this fear came over me and I decided that I’ll at least try to put that fear to some use. I started really getting into doing home workout videos, the 45 minute cardio HIIT or 500 calorie zumba burn. I love the energy of the people in the videos and it really kept pushing me through even though my body was literally screaming. And then all of the ‘inside-ness’ and ‘cabin fever’ made me want to take this fitness journey to the outside world. My mum and I started running! Which is shocking for me because I have never had the endurance to run more than about 2 minutes without heaving my lungs out.
The running I have come up with is called the ‘run-walk’, so running for 2 minutes then walking for 2 minutes. Running in intervals like this still keeps your heart rate up (important for calorie burning) but the walking allows me to go along a bit longer because at this point if I ran the entire time I wouldn’t enjoy it and wouldn’t be able to last long at all. This interval running that my mum and I do now has really changed the way I look at working out. It took some time trying different things, like the cardio home workouts I mentioned above, but what I never realised about fitness is that it should be done your own way. I wish I had spent time before figuring out what actually works for me. So many of my friends go to the gym and have their set workout or set of equipment that they use and thats them, but that never really worked for me. So this run-walk is actually quite fun and is a way to push myself whilst also getting out of the house.
Alongside this, Chloe Ting! For those who don’t know her, Chloe is a fitness influencer who specialises in home workout challenges. I am currently doing the 28 days flat tummy challenge, which is pretty difficult but having a daily challenge is really motivating and makes sure that I do have a bit of fitness everyday. I find that getting into a fitness regime actually makes me more awake in the day and makes me excited. I was never really excited to work out, but I realised its because I wasn’t enjoying the workouts I was doing. It sounds so obvious, but taking the time to try new things until you find something that works is really worth it.
But a final note is to not put too much pressure on yourself in seeing results too quickly (1 ab workout in and I’m already checking the mirror seeing if my abs are there yet) because its demoralising and may make you give up faster. Take it at your own speed because there is no rush and you can make it something exciting.
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