How to Wake up Fit?

How to Wake up Fit?

Fitness through time

Raise your glass if you woke up fit

Raise your glass if you want to wake up fit

Seems like there are more hands than people here.

I woke up fit and want to wake up fit everyday.

10 years ago I could do an elliptical for an hour everyday and now on an occasional Friday, if I can do the elliptical for an hour, I feel 10 years younger. I feel younger just by listening to the music I heard working out then.

Even though the definition of fit might change from insert your age to the next decade, we still want to be fit. What is fit, fit is whats possible that day.

I have been doing that for years now. And just like that one day I was able to do P90x and kept at it for 6 months now. In the rear mirror of my car, is the crushed second pre-pregnancy weight goal.

I thought I was done but it appeared again and again and again. Wait did I say it 3 times, but this time I know its for final, because I have turned the fan HIGH.

I have 25 years of experience of dealing with gaining weight not by choice and losing weight intentionally.

In the last 4 years, I kept the fan running with showing up loyally everyday at the gym but in work clothes and mommy guiltxcuse that I couldn’t spend too much time on my exercise. My exercise which was 1 hour long when I was single. Even if I had the time, I didn’t have the stamina. But I also wanted to believe that my previous weight loss was not only from exercise but diet too. That I didn’t have to slog for an hour for what could be achieved in half an hour. As a mom of two, time is precious.

Why turn the fan HIGH if you don’t have to.

How I came to strength training is when I was working out in the gym, a lady was working one of the machines I didn’t know how to. Have you seen that body trainer machine, where you stretch your arms out like Atlas?

In that process, she told me that as we age, it is important to do strength training. Around the same time I got a book and started using the book for strength training. With time I could lift more weights.

After the P90x, I was up for more activity and range of motion. I took change of clothes. One time when I could only make it to the later half of the section, I realized I didn’t have to fret if I missed a section, at the end of it, I could always continue with the beginning.

Fix the leaky pipeline – It’s the weekends – Now I exercise on weekends too. I search out a video that I am going to follow at the beginning of the day, so I know that its on the tab. I try to do it in the morning, so I don’t have to deal with the scheduling in the later part of the day. Before I got to that routine, I would exercise even between cooking. If you think working out takes long, cooking will cure you of that.

Make it a habit or plan ahead

One of my favorite exercise in the P90x series deals with kickboxing where I am taken back in time, centuries ago, as a warrior. Choose the right activity for your age.

It takes a fit village to raise a fit child

It is my eighth grade. Summer is just beginning. We are going to get our exam results. I went to my mom’s tailor few days ago. I know that my shiny blue dress will be ready for the day I get my results. I had done well, so I wasn’t worried about it. That night I had a dream, that I became thin.

In life, you have two types of dream, one where you want something that you can work for and another which you can never reach.

In the morning as a family, we would go for walks. On the way, you could find a sugarcane dropped from the bullock carts, another day I found an onion. I even found a 5 Rupee bill and then I learned what it meant – “Early to bed, Early to rise – makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”.

My dad exercised every morning. While we kids walked, he went running. My mom would cook early in the morning, so we could all go walking together. On those walks, many great decisions were made about my future.

He would exercise on the terrace too. I was fortunate enough to be called to join him during the yoga. He taught me to take up jump rope as an exercise.

In my undergrad, It was two things that were the turning point in my life. Two pieces of wisdom from a Readers digest.

You can control your appetite. Walking helps, even though it is slow.

It was hard to not eat rice and switch to chapathi. It was easy to count the chapathis and know my intake. With rice, its hard to measure. I rolled an intern’s cash-strapped life into a fitness opportunity by skipping the auto that would take as much time as walking.

I slowly lost weight like ¾ pound each month. I kept going. Walking to the office, even though a bus ride was available.

I got into so much walking. If the weather felt good, I couldn’t stay indoors. I had to go on long walks. Until then it was always an individual thing.

Behind the fit me, are many people guiding me.

Community

Welcome to My personal health club.

I am not alone in this.

My first exercise instructor happens to be my dad, My mom, who went to the gym and took me along, friends who held my legs so, I could do sit ups.

At ASU Student recreation center, the elliptical machine stranger, but she has played a part in my fitness journey.

I was never alone.

Be it the lady who told me how to work the circuit machine or the exercise buddys who let me join their group even when they didn’t know me.

I was never alone.

I have many instructors, some of them are celebrity trainers.

A friend once made me realise that members of a club have a sense of belonging as they are all connected with a common thread. All the people that I now told you about, belong to my health club. A select club of people who care about the same things as me – health and fitness.

My kid jumps high in the air and asks me if it is a power jump. See how their vocabulary is increasing in the fitness world. Each time I come across a new type of workout, I am increasing my possibility of continuing to workout.

The exercise world can make you go giddy with knowledge and not everyone knows every move. It is not easy to learn a new thing. You need someone who can teach you or show you how to do the complex moves

Help can come in other forms – information, support, appreciation, acknowledgement.

Who is in your health club?

Whose health club are you in?

How to Wake up Fit?

You wake up fit by working out before you go to bed

You wake up fit by taking care of your body with good nutrition and hydration

You wake up fit by getting a good nights sleep

Wash, Rinse, repeat but don’t forget to turn the fan High to dry

You wake up fit with your health club