07 Apr 30 Day Challenge

Take a look what 30 days can do…

Great results and she didn’t lose one pound. Gained muscle.

We all get into a rut.

It happens to the best of us, even someone like me whose profession is all about staying F-I-T. Try as I might, there are those moments when I falter from exercise. Usually it’s something out of my control, like a sick child home from school, running all day and having no time for me but most of the time it gets done.  The problem is that I sometimes find I don’t challenge myself enough in my workouts.  I don’t push the limits.  I tell myself that I’m working out for 60 minutes and sometimes I convince myself that that is good enough…  And really it is good. It’s great in fact that 90 % of the time I can work out 45-60 minutes a day.

Early morning workout, not easy but very rewarding

But I fall into the same routine after a while.  I needed to shake things up.

So, I decide to give myself a challenge. I decided that I would increase my intensity and level of difficulty. I was going to try new routines and workouts, challenge myself!!   I planned to workout for 30 days at 6:00 AM.  Why 6:00 AM??  Other than just not waking up with my alarm clock, there is really no reason why I can’t be training at 6:00 AM, I never start work before 7:30 or 8:00, the kids are still sleeping, my phone, email, texts certainly aren’t chiming at the crack of dawn.  There are no good excuses to NOT workout at  this time (other than sleeping of course).  Now I am a morning person in general, but being chipper in the morning and wanting to train hard and sweat first thing are two different things.  So I started to psych myself up for this challenge, I started talking about it to a few people.

Then came a twist, my son’s tutor, Anna, heard of my challenge and asked if she could join me.

(Btw, she is a 21 year old with a great body but even a great body needs to be fit). She was heading to a beach destination in a month and thought this challenge would be great for her to look her best in a bikini.  I was convinced that she would not show up but, to my surprise there she was at my door in her workout gear ready to tone her body.  Having Anna along for the ride added the ACCOUNTABILITY my workouts needed.

So Day One came at 4:30AM, get all the kids’ stuff done, organize myself for the day, eat breakfast then start training.  I planned a circuit training program. We worked several muscle groups a day with weights, kettle bells, TRX and body weight,  with lots of bursts of cardio intervals.  Many mountain climbers, step ups, lots of skipping and sprints.  I tried to make everything a little harder as we progressed; regular squats changed to  jump squats.  Lunges were changed to switch lunges. I consider myself in good shape but I did my fair share of groaning within that hour and at the same time I was impressed how well Anna kept up (mind you, she is 21!)

She had a great body before, she toned up and gained muscle. Didn’t lose one pound.

Anna’s goal was to feel better and get in shape.

She started to eat better and cleaner but a poutine and few beers snuck into her diet on the weekends.

For the most part, she was definitely eating healthier. She truly surprised me as she kept up to her end of the challenge and stuck to her 30 days minus one morning she slept in. Her muscles are toned and she feels great overall.

I needed to give myself a little extra push from the daily humdrum. It was a great burst of new energy. Waking up that early was not easy but it felt rewarding to commit and follow through to something which was good for ME. .