Changing the game

After my totally lame, whining and borderline pity party of a post I wrote yesterday about yoga, I decided NO MORE. I have two options regarding yoga: I can give up, or I can make it my focus.

Guess which one I chose?

I won't lie - I'm in a rut. And sadly, I've been in this rut since the last week of September. I was so dedicated and focused to running my first 5K that it consumed me and once my 5K was over and I accomplished my goal, I started slacking. I stopped running as much and I really just lost focus of what I'm doing because I had no more BIG goals. I started spinning again, and while I LOVE spinning it's just not something that you can really focus solely on like you can with running. So I spin and I run and that's really all I've been doing the past 5-6 weeks. That also means my weight loss has like halted. It was going pretty slow regardless, but I mean I've been up and down that same 3-5 pounds for weeks. I'm done with it!

The next big step in my running career (other than improving my 5K time, which I'm doing without much effort) is to run a 10K. I'm just not quite ready to do that right now. I've been feeling frustrated with running lately because I want to go longer and farther but it just doesn't seem as interesting to me right now. I'm loving the 2.5-3 mile hilly routes I'm doing in my neighborhood and anything more just seems "blah". So clearly, it's time to focus on something other than running.

My new focus involves yoga (how'd you guess?!), but it's not solely yoga. In order to become better at yoga, I really need to improve my entire core and my muscles all over my body. Strength HAS to become my next focus. And to be honest, I'm really really scared and not excited about this. I love ridiculously hard, heart throbbing cardio. That's my thing. Strength is so NOT my thing. Strength hurts and makes me sore and makes me feel discouraged and I feel like I'm just bulking myself up. I KNOW that I'm not bulking up, it just feels that way. I feel like I have too much weight to lose still to focus on toning and building muscle. Don't worry, I know all the arguments about how muscle burns more calories than fat and building muscle will boost my BMR. I just have been choosing to ignore those facts, I guess until now :)

I reached out to my spark friends yesterday about tips for yoga and how I can get better and I had SO many great responses! I decided to do a little yoga each day (Sun salutations seemed to be the most recommended) and still attend the 1 hour yoga class Wednesday nights. There is also a 1 hour yoga class at my gym Monday nights, so I can always bump it up to two nights a week if I want. It also was suggested I try a body "pump" or "works" or what have you on the name, type class that involves strength training to music. My gym has one tonight that I'm going to attend and try. I am SO nervous, but I have serious issues with working out at home so I need to do some of this in the gym so I'll actually go! Unlike Caitlin, who recently admitted she relishes being the inexperienced newbie, I detest that feeling. It makes me anxious and I feel like everyone will stare at me because I'll be so lost and pathetic, but I'm going to push those fears aside tonight and just GO.

New Plan: I will make strength/core work my priority over the next 2 months. I am still working out the kinks to my new plan, but I believe it will look like this:

Sunday: Long run/strength (3-4 miles)

Monday: Spin

Tuesday: Short run (2 to 2.5 miles)

Wednesday: Strength/yoga

Thursday: Spin

Friday: Body works (or a run if I need it)

Saturday: Off/rec volleyball

I bought the book, Lift like a man look like a goddess, a month ago based on the excellent recommendation of Stef. It's just been waiting for me to read it, so I'm going to start reading that soon. My goal is to have this book read and start doing their strength plans by Thanksgiving. Until then, I'll just focus on some core work at home on the days I should be doing strength.

I also have been informed of the wonderful Oh she glow's Whittle my Middle challenge. This is probably the perfect thing for me right now with my new concentration, it's just a matter of doing it. I have a stability ball, but don't really want to inflate it and use it (it takes up SO much space when it's not being used), so I'm actually going to use Heather's modified plan of exercises. They look like they are more on my skill level, and frankly I'm too lazy to make my own plan! This is great too because I can track all these exercises on spark too since she gave us the spark demonstrations!

I'm super nervous about this plan but I'm also excited. I NEED this change. I just hope it can help me feel better and feel like I'm going somewhere again!

I'm also doing some revisions to my nutrition, but I'll save those for another post!