Well that was quick...

...sort of.

So I know I just wrote about this on Saturday and that I was mulling at the time, but I had been mulling silently for a few weeks and then said it out loud to Brent in the middle of the week last week and then to you all on Saturday and then I found a journal like what I talked about needing that was for, yep, 6 months and a few motivating words from friends and decided...why the heck not?

So I am going to set out on my latest challenge. Treat my workouts like a job. So what this means for you is that you can skip every Monday blog if you have no urge to hear about my goals for the week and my reflection on the past week. Starting now. Go ahead, back out now, I will pretend you weren't even here.

Okay, Week One Day One! Here we go. Setting up the ground rules first off and then moving forward.

For the next six months I will be treating getting in shape like it's part of my job. I have the time and right now I have the motivation so let's see where this takes me. So where did I start?

I bought a workout journal so I can actually track my progress. It had a spot for starting stats which I did yesterday. I am a mish mash of fitness. My resting heart rate is good. My push-ups are average. My sit-ups are average. My squats are excellent and my flexibility is poor. These things were not really surprises. I've been doing cardio with C all summer so heart rate is good. They let me do the lady push-ups so in those I am pretty average. My goal is to get to good/excellent in numbers with the full on push-up. Sit-ups were a little lower than I normally am, but it was a timed test and I probably just didn't crank as hard as I should have. The squats I finally stopped doing since you were supposed to do them to fatigue and I was already in the excellent range and could have kept going. I have very strong legs. And as far as flexibility goes I have never been able to touch my toes. Not when I was a kid and definitely not now.

I also took measurements and before pictures. There is a space once a month to update these so I will have a continuing motivational boost built in. There is also a space for weekly recaps which is where I will be using this instead of the book. See, it's all pre-done questions and I tend to find those things to be less than helpful. You can answer everything put in front of you and still not see where you need work, or focus, or less focus because though your answers were great, you were asking the wrong questions. In this format I am free to ponder and write and then look and see what issues are recurring, what problems I am facing.

As far as weight goes I want to lose 10 pounds and rearrange 5 more. My challenge is that the skinny bitch who lives in my head is screaming at me to lose 25, even though I know I don't like the way I look at that weight, it's one of her favorite numbers to work towards. So part of my 6 month job is to keep in mind that I am working towards being the best and most fit me I can get to in that amount of time all while telling the skinny bitch to hush and eat something already.

And as this is a job I am treating it like I would any job. I have a ramp up period. This first week will be working out every day. Next week will be working out twice a day. The third week I will add in the nutrition aspect. Then from there on out I will be tweaking what works and what doesn't and pushing the workouts forward towards more and more challenge. For those of you keeping track at home you just saw what I did there, yes, I put off the food part until after my birthday and after C leaves for school. I'm no amateur...

As far as schedules go, the everyday thing is the work week. Monday-Friday is once a day for this week then twice a day starting next week. The weekends will be a recuperation time. One workout for the weekend. Either Saturday or Sunday depending on what we are doing that weekend with one day completely off to rest. It will be a mix of cardio and weights and yoga. Let's see how close I can get to my toes by the end of this thing.

What do I want to accomplish? I don't know. I don't really have a vision of what I look like at the end of six months. That's kind of the point. I would love to get some muscle definition back in my legs. Find my six pack again, though honestly it's always been a four pack, my lower abs don't pop like that. Keep up the progress on my arms. I'd like to be that girl that you go..."Whoah, check out her guns" when you see me reach for something. Can I do all of that in six months? Don't know. Will I want to stick with it? Hmmm...we will see. That's the other part of it being like a job right? If I truly hate it I can always change careers. It's not like I am lacking in experience in that area.

But as Brent and I always say, I can do anything for 6 months. Thank you US Navy.

So today was the start. First set of challenges, the new DVD player in the basement won't work. I will have to go down and work on it after I post this blog. I bought it at the beginning of the summer and then C and I got a Groupon to a local gym and used that and some printed weighted workouts instead. So this morning when I went to do my workout....nothing. I fussed with it for about 15 minutes getting more and more frustrated before giving up and coming upstairs to use the machine in the living room...which wouldn't work either. Now, this is the point where I give up or at least push it a day but instead I thought, well I guess I will put on my shoes and go for a long walk. Not the workout I was thinking of but it will work. One last try with a new set of batteries though and we were off and running with the DVD.

So challenges for this week:
1. Do the daily workout. No excuses.
2. Keep an eye on my shoulder. The rehab was great for internal and external rotation but there was a little muscle tweakiness on the circumduction movements. This might need some trigger point therapy, either self or from someone else.
3. Start thinking about what work outs I want to do next week.
4. Start thinking about the food part.
5. Positive thoughts!

Happy Monday, everyone! Six months starts...now!