I wanted to start a brand new blog site dedicated to excuses I come up every day when is time to exercise. It would be call 365 reasons to not exercise and it would be one per day so you would have an excuse for each day of the year! But I figured why spend all that energy that goes into creating a new site/blog and instead sit and blog about why I choose to be lazy instead when I can actually put that energy into the exercise itself.

One of my biggest problems is that I need motivation and discipline and/or consequences if I don’t exercise. For example, when I was paying for a gym membership I was going at least three days a week and taking the classes offered to get my money’s worth. That motivated me to go and workout because it would be lost money from my bank account making some corporation rich!  

So on the Blue Moon I decided I was going to sign up for a bunch of classes to get me going again. I signed up for a weight lifting class and Anusara yoga class. I was also planning to take Belly Dance classes again, but found that my favorite teacher had moved and was unable to find another class that would fit into my new tight schedule. The weight lifting class was two days a week, yoga was two days a week as well, and that left me with only Friday night free. My weekends are pretty busy as it is with all the socializing I do at the farmer’s markets and raw foodist hang-outs so weekend classes were out of the question.

The first week of classes everything went great. I was feeling great and both classes seem to be working in sync with each other. Almost as if both instructors had called up each other and agreed on what they were going to be teacher me. I was flying and very happy! My yoga practice (after 8 years) was improving and I was getting strong enough to do hand stands. My arms and my breathing in weight lifting improved so much that my coach was very proud that in such a short time he could see great progress.

At the start of the 4th week, I began feeling the pressure. I was getting stressed out by my busy exercise schedule. So I started skipping class and coming up with all sort of new excuses. I debated and concluded I had gotten my money’s worth for both classes and that I needed more time to concentrate in work and my blog. And I quit both classes and stopped exercising completely.

After about a month, my size 4 jeans were not fitting anymore. I knew it was not the food because I was not eating differently. That motivated me to begin exercising again and I signed for iyengar yoga and even began an online 100 pushup challenge.

Once I got back on the horse, or better yet, on the yoga mat again, I felt so much better. Even though I’m not using financial reasons to get me motivated this time around, the size 4 jeans are. I also decided to keep my weights around my very small living room so that while I take breaks from my busy “online life“, I can workout. In fact, Denis and I made a pact, if we want to watch TV (which is one of my worst addictions), then we will workout while we watch TV.

I’m loving it now, but I know eventually (probably once the challange is completed) I will be bored again and will have to find a new way to motivate myself to get back to exercising. But for now I won’t stress about it and keep going.

Photo by cowbite