Fixing A Fit Funk

Credit: somegeekintn

I’m afraid I made a rookie mistake. I assumed that all my marathon training of yesteryear would propel me into fitness love this year full force. While the adrenaline from a marathon is pretty strong, there’s not enough energy in the living world that I reckon could have kept me that hyped up. Many of you are saying “Duh, Tish. Really?” right now, but I really, honest–to–FBG thought that I’d carry that marathon momentum right on through 2010. But momentum and assumptions aren’t really friends, I’m afraid.

I realize now I’m a sheep when it comes to working out. I need someone to set up a schedule, and I need to know that if I don’t do said workout, I will perish and be destroyed. My darling health, sadly enough, is not enough to motivate me every day of the darn week. I need some fear on the days where my excuses want to take control.

Now that I’m in the middle-to-end stage of my bona fide fit funk, I feel like I can share the stresses I’ve been dealing with. First, the funk crept up on me slowly. It wasn’t an overnight fog that rolled in and stole my joy. Looking back, it was a mix of factors: my day time job, nothing to train for, lack of money to stay enrolled in workout classes, my period. Excuses, excuses! I started coming up with actual excuses! I had never done that in the past. Correction: I was never allowed to do that in the past with the rigorous training schedule I had to follow.

So as soon as I realized I was starting to make excuses for my funk, I began the process of identifying, planning and implementing. Have I mentioned I’m a Type A personality?

Identification: I realized that the nauseated feeling I was experiencing every time I went down to the gym had to be mental because no one else was experiencing moments of green face. I looked at my workout goals realistically and determined that six days of working out wasn’t gonna happen for me and switched that mess to a more sane four to five workouts a week. I also found that I’ve been doing basically the same thing every week for months. Boredom is a huge friend of funk. Wherever the bored one goes, funk follows.

Planning: Because I needed both structure and fun to keep the bored one away,  I decided to pull back out the gym coach. Each week provides different workouts. I also decided I’d run based on mood and not pressure every other workout day,  and if I felt like being active on the weekend (i.e. hiking, swimming, etc. ) then so be it, but the weekend was reserved for fun and cheap (read: free) activities. I even created a new goal! I vowed to create,  shorten and shrink my goals. Instead of one hefty, ginormous, untouchable goal, I opted for weekly reachable stuff, like doing at least 50 push–ups (the right way) for the week. One week, one goal—that’s it. I think it’ll keep me on my toes while keeping my heart nice and pretty.

Implementation: It’s been a month now since I grabbed my funk by its lovely bits. I’ve carried out the new plan, and I have to say I’m feeling back to my old self. Yes, I still grunt and whine when I’m squeaking out squats, but I’m at the gym because I truly want to be there. Last week my goal was to work out five days. I lifted on some days, I ran on others, I hiked and I did my own little 45–minute session at home on a Saturday using my 8–pound weights and iPod. It felt good to plan but not be tied down to the same boring thing.

This is still a workout in progress, but it’s progressing. That’s the awesome part. Fitness freaks have their moments, too and I swear if I didn’t know that, I would have just given up and assumed I didn’t have what it takes to be a fit bottomed chick at heart. Something changes in you when you decide you want to be fit. Those pull–ups and lunges may never get easier, but the walls that keep you down and out sure will fall.

Think about that the next you’re feeling your own funk looming. It’s not about the funk, it’s about the fight that keeps us fit at heart. —Tish