I Can Do 30 Minutes a Day

Let me start by saying I love when I can take my HIIT classes at the gym and when I can run at least three days a week.  In fact, I love when I can exercise for about an hour a day.  Running in my neighborhood is pretty easy to fit into my schedule, even if it's busy, but taking classes is not always feasible.  

Like now for example.  

My teen daughters are currently in sports, my son found out he needs a new ACL and is having surgery tomorrow for that, he will then continue with physical therapy afterwards, my husband has a fractured foot and only drives as little as absolutely necessary and I've begun making gifts and baking because....the holidays are coming.  

Whee!!!

With all this going on I am reminded that one thing I've really learned about living a healthier life is things change.  There have been seasons where I had time to train for a half marathon and seasons where I was happy if I got three days of exercise in a week.

The more I thought about it I decided one thing I don't want to change with these seasons is the fact that I do exercise regularly, even if I "only" do 30 minutes a day or if I "only walk".

Those "only"s are key for me. 

"I can only exercise 30 minutes a day." or "I'm only going to walk today." can sometimes sound like excuses not to exercise more.  It's kind of sad if you think about it, because when I weighed 232 pounds I didn't make time for intentional exercise at all, so getting 30 minutes a day done was a huge step in the right direction.  And I only began with 30 minutes of walking 3 days a week.

My observation is the more I find myself capable of the more I critique myself if I feel I'm not living up to those capabilities.

This is helpful in preventing me from getting lazy, but can also be detrimental if it turns into self condemnation and leads to me not doing anything because I can "only" do x, y or z.

Right now I don't have time for hour-long classes at the gym multiple days a week, but I do have 30 minutes I can dedicate to intentional exercise and I've decided to commit to doing at least 30 minutes a day of some sort of exercise.

In fact, (probably because I was running on an endorphin high) I even made a public commitment to keep my exercise habits through this busy season of my life by posting this to my Instagram account:  

To help keep me accountable I'm going to update my progress on my Friday posts.  I also try and input my workouts on my account at Daily Mile, which updates the widget on the right side of my blog.  -->

I know some of you are very faithful to your exercise, but if you need some motivation please feel free to join me.  You can come back every Friday and check in by leaving a comment on my Friday post.  

Maybe I'll even start a "Motivational Monday" series with updates on everyone who has decided to join me in this little challenge.  :) 

Have a good one and happy moving!

Note:  I was "writing" this little poem while I ran and then repeating it over and over for about a block so I wouldn't forget it when I stopped and could actually record myself.  lol  And I can write another post about how many times I went back and forth about whether to post my first video on here...without makeup.  I only go out without it to exercise, and that only started happening a few years ago.  I decided to keep it really real today.  =)