My Fitness Journey – Week 2

Hope you’ve read The Beginning already

My Weekly Challenge Report

Day 1 : 35 sec – 25 sec

Day 2 : 30 sec – 20 sec – 15 sec

Day 3 : 20 sec

Day 4 : 1 min 03 sec 

Day 5 : 1 min 33 sec

Day 6 : 1 min 38 sec

Day 7 : 1 min 30 sec

Kudos to y’all who participated in the challenge and pushed yourselves towards a goal!👏 Congratulations! You are stronger than last week! I’d love to have your company for the next challenge as well, more details to follow, please read on.

My Experience 
15 seconds into plank on the first day, my legs start trembling like a plane in turbulence. More than the core muscles, it is my ego taking a hit. Three years back, I could sustain a plank for 1.5 – 2 mins. How can I not do a minute now?

When my body gave up in 35 seconds, I pushed myself for another stretch of 25 seconds to complete the minute. Day 2 seemed worse and I managed to hit the mark in 3 small sets. Day 3 was my rest day. After a very exhausting day, it struck me in the evening post dinner that I can’t skip planking as the challenge is only for a week. How can I miss a day there? So, I went on all fours only to be hugging the mat 20 seconds later. Every ounce of my energy had been drained already.

Next morning, I amazed myself by surpassing the 60 seconds mark. For the first time in life, the stopwatch ticked faster than my mental timer. 😃 And it only kept getting better thereafter as you can see in the above report.

Wondering how? Without any further adieu, let me disclose my 3 secret discoveries so far.

1. The efforts made towards fitness never go waste( akin to what Swamiji says about Sadhana never going waste. Ain’t that cool!)Your body remembers more than you think. While it may take some time to overcome the inertia when you resume a routine after a long gap, it does spring back to form rapidly.
2. Do not ignore the signals your body is sending you. In my case, the continuous crackling of knees with a shooting pain when I attempted squats and situps was a loud warning. While I had been advised to take calcium and B12 supplements due to hypothyroidism and vitamin deficiency, I wasn’t taking them regularly. I started taking my supplements religiously since Day 4 and can feel the difference already during my workouts.
3. The state of mind has a direct impact on physical energy levels. 
   Some conflicting emotions had been weighing me down since the past few days. Finally, I decided to let go of the guilt knowing that the fault was not mine and whatever had happened only catapulted things to a better state.Next day, my body felt light as a feather and energetic like never before. And when that excessive weight was lifted,no doubt I could hold the plank for so many seconds more!🙃

Updates from the Last Week

I successfully ticked off my goals for all 6 days consisting of 3 rounds of Surya Namaskar, at least 10 minutes of yoga and a walk to remember, err the river! 

Sundays deserve a break from the tough manual labour, don’t you agree?

The one area where I slacked this time was hitting the yoga mat at 5 in the morning. Hey, blame it on the freezing temperatures, not me please! 🫣 Most days,my morning routine started around 8 am with the sun peeping over the peaks gently warming my yoga mat. So, technically yes, I was doing Surya Namaskar at sunrise, and my God,what an experience it was! Addictive!

The Plan Ahead

• I shall continue with 3 rounds of Surya Namaskar 
• I shall add 90 secs planks to my routine to strengthen my core
• Now, coming to the most exciting part  Next week’s challenge – 30 jumping jacks in one go

Are you in for the challenge my dear Jacks and Jills?🙂 Please do suggest new ideas for next weeks’ challenges, I am looking forward to them. 

I sincerely hope you too are having fun with your workouts, whatever it is. Let’s keep going, one day at a time! If you have something interesting, please do not hesitate to share. Remember your fitness journey will inspire those around you!

If you haven’t started already my dear friend, what are you waiting for? I know Santa🎅 is coming but then you don’t have to look like him to receive the gifts. Come on, get on the floor, shake up your body, jump, jump, jump….

⭐⭐⭐ 🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄⭐⭐⭐

PC