How did exercise June go? (or: I am a massive dork)

Here’s the chart I made at the beginning of the month. I thought the chart would help when I realised how inspiring I found the progress markers on the Wii. And it really did. Any days I didn’t fancy exercising, I did it anyway because I didn’t want to disrupt the chart. I highlighted each day immediately after exercising (and found I’d actually be looking forward to updating the chart during the exercising). (And today, I told myself I could have a rest day, but I couldn’t face the idea of finishing on a rest day and missing one last Kettlebell, so I got my butt in gear and did it.)

Deciding to do yoga on alternate days definitely helped me stick with it. It didn’t really feel like I was exercising every day because I enjoy the yoga, it’s relatively quick and easy (and unsweaty) and I could also do it in the evening if I didn’t have time in the morning. In fact some days I’d realise just before bed that I hadn’t done the yoga, but I could do a ‘yoga for bedtime’ routine, which I loved.

Another thing that helped was the variety. I didn’t get bored and I didn’t wake up and think “Oh god, not Zumba (or whatever) again”. I allowed myself to switch it up a bit – a couple of days ago, for instance, I was supposed to do Kettlebell (according to the chart), but I was still aching from the Mel B legs workout and I couldn’t face it. So I did Zumba instead and that was fine.

I don’t think I’ve lost any weight – I hadn’t as of last week, anyway – and I haven’t noticed any physically changes yet, but I definitely feel more energetic. The main change for me is that I’ve been inspired to exercise every day. Given that before June I’d probably exercised about five times all year, this has been a huge improvement.

Am I going to keep it up? Part of me sighs at the thought of exercising every day for, like, ever, but I think if I decide to “allow” myself to cut back I’ll end up backsliding completely. So I think I’ll keep going for now.

And I’m totally going to see if the chart works in other areas of my life too.