Workout 120220: Repose

Following my 5K, I needed a break so I took one.  Today I returned to the gym with:

20 min Ellpitcal workout (weight loss program)
2 min Rowing Machine
30 sec Rest
1 min Rowing Machine
Hip Abduction (2 sets of 10 reps each leg with 15 sec hold on the 10th lift)
Bridges (15 reps with 5 sec hold; 15 sec hold on the 15th lift)
5 min stretch

When you are visibly physically unfit (read obese), there is a lot of urgency placed on changing you.  What you SHOULD be doing is often offered to you regardless of your opinion or goals or situation.  Doctors do it.  Friends and Family do it.  Co-workers do it.  Even the occasional stranger waiting in line behind you at the grocery store do it.  Television and magazines all offer up ways to make the change happen faster.  The dialog is very urgent and demanding.  It's exhausting.

I worried about taking a week off from my exercise routine.  I've read that it takes 6 weeks to build a habit and 1 week to tear it down.  I've been working on this workout routine for 5 months.  I've taken a 1 week break one other time, over Thanksgiving.  Without deciding my opinion on the damage a week off would do, I took one.

And it was TOTALLY worth it.

I needed a break from goals and disappointments and plans for completing the next thing.  I finished the 5K which was emotionally and physically draining and exhilarating.  Just writing the post about completing it had me crying all over again!  I even took a break from PT on Thursday.  Having new pain spring up a couple of weeks ago in the form of an inflamed coccyx (tailbone) really messed me up more than I thought.

It is frustrating to move 2 steps forward and 1 step back over and over.  Intellectually I know it is progress, but emotionally I want to see the change NOW.  I want to prove to everyone, including myself, that I CAN DO THIS!  I am serious.  I am not just making excuses!

So I took my week.  And today I returned to the gym.  Habit unbroken.  Whew!