What I Have Learned in 100 Workouts

To be honest, it took me a long time to start working out. I had walked on the treadmill in college a  few times, but that was as far as my Fitness went. Even when my severe mental illness was diagnosed, and I heard all of you, you just have some movement in your day; you will feel a lot better. Over the years, I would see how true that is; a bit back then, I was like, ahh, I will just stay in my bed and wait for the end times. I was also on an anti-psychotic, and let me tell you, they will blow you up and people end up gaining  100 pounds or more. I gained 150 pounds until I was put on Abilify. If you want to see it for yourself, here is an old pic of before and after in a reverse way.

When I saw the number on the scale at the Dr office (which I am not ready to share yet)I finally started working out… I was going to the Gym, but  I moved back to southeastern KY and the nearest gym is 25 mins away AND only open a few hours. Back In Cleveland the Gym was open 24 hours and since I like to work out first thing at 5 am that was perfect. Sadly that option was not available here. I researched workout programs you can do at home and I found one I loved, so I bought a subscription to Tone it Up. And I feel that these are the workouts that I will stay with for a very long time.

[bctt tweet=”It was not easy to cultivate the mindset need to make a drastic change, but here I am!!  I have learned a LOT of lessons over 100 days of workouts” username=”purplemoonmyst”]

Abs are made in the kitchen.

This was a harsh lesson for me to learn. No matter how hard you work out, if you don’t also change your eating habits, you will not make much progress regarding your weight loss goals.

It took me a while to figure that out… To be honest with you, when I saw the scale at one of my one million DR appts, I told the Dr that I was working out, but the scale refused to budge. When the doctor asked how my nutrition was going.. told the doctor that that had not changed. And once I corrected my eating habits, I started losing weight again!

There is no end to your fitness journey

Now that I type it out, it looks like a common sense thing to think, but back then, I thought that once you reached all of the original goals, you just keep finding new ways to push a little more. While the body DOES have limitations, I don’t think anyone has figured out what exactly is as far as a body can go. That makes sense in that no matter what, Fitness is not a destination; it is a journey.

Just like you have bad days, sometimes you will also ha bad workout days.

This was also a hard lesson to learn. I remember the first workout that I did not kill it and I was really hard on myself.. Then I was thinking well you know that is life some days you kill it and some u just hunker down with Halo Tops.

Nutrition is vital if you want to keep progressing.

I noticed that I was getting frustrated because I kept getting more robust but not any leaner then; I felt like I had hit the wall and was about to give up. I had to go to my DR anyway for something else, and when the DR asked how my workout and nutrition were going? I  was like, you mean even if you work out, you still have to go on a diet?

Luckily my mentality is changing to HAVE TO and WANT TO. It is better than before, but I still have a long way to go. Anyway, I now tell myself, YAYA, YOU GET TO WORKOUT TODAY, AND YOU LOVE IT!! I am also convinced that affirmation is legit now. But that is a story for another post.

You and your body needs rest for max results

I will be the first to admit that before I got “sick,” I would constantly be pushing through more and more things until I fell apart from exhaustion. Around that time, “The Sleep Revolution”: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time came out and it hit me sooo hard that I needed to slow down..

When I was at a hospital to see if my then-only cochlear Implant impacted my balance before putting another one in my head, if one Implant made me too off-kilter, I couldn’t get the second one.  What ended up happening was that my ass couldn’t stay awake for half of the test. I had an inkling that I was pushing myself to the edge. I mean, my workouts were already suffering. I told myself, just get through the test to test my balance, and you can rest. I finally made it back to my apartment and ended up sleeping for three days. I have finally realized that I cant keep that much stress around me if I wanted to achieve good mental health. So I revamped my whole life to make sure that I am as healthy as possible.

I almost fell into doing a  HIIT workout everyday trap, but I caught myself before I fell apart again. I know my tools work. Now I just have to follow them.