The start of this week’s workouts comes a little late. I was planning to start it on Weds, but life happened and I got hella busy. However, we’re here now! I’m still excited to continue this challenge. I’m thankful that it’s helping me get active again.
Also, having an active kitten is helping me get little bursts of exercise throughout the day as well. We originally thought we wouldn’t need to play with her much – almost all sources online say 2 sessions per day of 10-15mins each – but our kitten will go for an hour each time. I will probably play with her for about 30mins each time before I’m pooped or just don’t have time to continue.
She’s worth it though. We’re now harness training her, and she went outside the front door (albeit briefly) for the first time ever today! I’m looking forward to the day we’ll be able to walk her to help her burn off some energy so I don’t have to be running around the house.
Anyway, all that is to say, I’ve been doing a little bit of exercise every day because of her, and thanks to Chloe I’m getting some good workouts in as well. I wonder how long it’ll take me to finish up this challenge haha. Right now I’m progressing at half the speed, so I anticipate I’ll be done with it in Feb.
Already I have noticed some changes in my body despite my super poor diet so that’s quite exciting. I sort of wish I took a before photo, but since we already established that that’s not what doing this challenge is about for me, I don’t wish to perpetuate the goal of doing it for looks.
Week Two
1/16 – Day 8: Completed 20:31.
Videos completed: Arms & Core, Flat Stomach Abs.
Videos skipped: 12min HIIT.
I was just not about to do that HIIT video today. I’m way too tired unfortunately. It seems that every time our kitten sleeps with us I can’t sleep too well as I get woken up by her multiple times throughout the night. I also have to worry about not crushing her as I toss and turn. So, rather than skipping the day entirely, I decided I still wanted to workout but just skipped the HIIT video.
1/19 – Day 9: Completed 18:42.
Videos completed: Legs & Booty, Full Body No Jumping (Sets 1 & 2).
I did about 25mins’ worth of workouts today. That’s probably enough for me. It looks like I’m good between 20-30mins, anything over that and I start to tap out mentally. There’s something to be said about pushing myself, but I feel like I’ve pushed myself a fair bit today already… I got the old resistance band back out!
I haven’t used bands or weights in such a long time. It felt good to get a band back out. I used my OG Chloe Ting light resistance band for the booty workout apart from for the leg circles because they were a bit more awkward to do with the bands. I need to get some of Chloe’s new fitness equipment range and get some of her ankle weights. They’re super cute.
I enjoyed the booty workout – it felt challenging yet doable, and I was able to push myself that little bit harder today, which I’m really happy about. Following it up with the No Jumping video where it pretty much starts with lower body for the first two sets was kind of tough though, but I feel like I got a great lower body workout done today.
I tapped out after 2 sets. I was thinking I want to be able to do these 2 sets really well so I gave it all I had. Man, it was painful! I wanted to really push myself for as much as I could, rather than try to conserve energy and half-heartedly get through it all. So that was my strategy for today, and I’m glad. My legs are s-o-r-e right now haha. But I’m loving it!
2/8 – Day 10: Completed 11:33.
Videos completed: 5min Warm Up, 15min HIIT, Arms & Core, Flat Stomach Abs, 5min Cooldown.
The fact that I managed to complete everything is nothing short of a miracle. Or maybe a result of a very long break ehhem.
I tried out MadFit’s new warm up and cooldown today. Technically they aren’t new, but they are quite new to me. I loved the warm up, it was actually perfect for me – the moves were ideal and I was feeling perfectly warm but not out of breath afterwards. The cooldown focused on lower body stretches so wasn’t the most suitable for me today, but I think it’ll be good for Day 12. I ended up substituting some moves and doing my own stretches instead.
I wasn’t expecting to like the HIIT workout as much as I did, but I think the combination of these 3 videos was actually perfect. There were very few repeated moves and they were all challenging yet doable, which I appreciated a lot.
I made sure to take some extra breaks during the HIIT and changed to low impact moves whenever my HR was getting over 165bpm to ensure I don’t feel sick after not exercising for so long. I know my absolute limit is about 175bpm when I’m in a fitter state, so after not exercising for almost a month I wanted to go easier on my body to rebuild my strength and stamina.
After the first HIIT video, for most of the plank exercises, I simply did my best to hold a plank in the best form I could, or substituted for a crunch variation when my wrists began to ache. I felt great afterwards. I worked hard on my form today and just loved it. The perfect workout combination to get me back into exercise.
Finally, I love that I was able to complete my workout in the morning today. I’m used to doing it in the afternoon, but due to our kitten’s schedule it’s really hard for me to be motivated to exercise in the afternoon anymore. I used to think I couldn’t exercise properly if I hadn’t eaten, but today proved that I can totally still workout with just a latte in my system. In fact, getting it done early in the morning encourages me to be more productive for the rest of the day, so I am definitely going to try to continue this moving forward.
2/9 – Day 12: Completed 17:21.
Videos completed: 5min Warm Up, 12min HIIT (partial), Legs & Booty, Round Butt/Side Booty, 5min Cooldown.
Day 11 was a rest day so there isn’t much point in documenting it. Plus I just took almost a month worth of rest days, I don’t need another right now! I realise it’s been way over a month since I started the challenge and I’m barely half way through! But slow progress is still progress.
I had fully intended to exercise this morning but I ended up with too many errands to run – trips to the UPS store then Costco, then doing some adulting with tax payments (oh don’t worry, they are no where near over), re-arranging the lights on my balcony and clicker training then feeding my cat… before I knew it, it was already 4:30pm.
Today’s warm up was great again, but I got about 5min through the HIIT and decided I absolutely did not want to continue. Man, looks like it’s just not the best idea for me to exercise in the afternoon. I barely had any motivation, despite not even having the excuse of a sore body. I mean, my body was a little sore, but nothing too bad at all.
I decided to just go ahead and do the second video and call it quits… only to end up having the best time and finishing both videos without a hitch!
I used 5lb dumbbells and 4lb ankle weights (not all at the same time!) for the Legs & Booty workout today. I worked hard and enjoyed a shower in my own sweat but it felt amazing. Who knew going back to using equipment could be so motivating?
I won’t go into detail about how I used the equipment, but I do recall that one time I tried to go to the gym, my friend said I could try squatting with weights… and I couldn’t even stand under the weight of an empty barbell. So today I took both of my 5lb dumbbells and rested them on my shoulders like a barbell as I did the squatting moves. It was fantastic.
I realised I was compensating with other body parts for some of the exercises when I was using the weights though, so I decided to drop all equipment for the second video. Hats off to Chloe, she picked a great combination. I was mildly dreading two booty videos in a row in case the exercises were too similar, but almost all the movements were unique, I had such a great time doing today’s workout.
MadFit’s cooldown was pretty good to end, and I had a protein bar after. All the sitting around lately has changed my body composition. Let’s see if I can grow a bit of a booty back.
2/10 – Day 13: Completed 11:37.
Videos completed: 5min Warm Up, Arms & Core, Defined Abs Workout, Upper Body & Core, 5min Cooldown.
Yesss! Third day in a row of exercising. I’m so proud of myself, and I’m so happy to be getting back into a rhythm and routine. Well, getting into a routine, more like. Having a cat has been hammering home how chaotic and disorganised my life truly is these days; I don’t like that my routine-less energy is feeding into her.
It’s early days yet (and we all know how bad I am at continuing something I start) but the fun of waking up to coffee & Bible reading in the morning followed by a workout, shower, blog then lunch, is something I am thoroughly enjoying. Hopefully it’ll improve my self-discipline as I am very much aware that I am sorely lacking in that department.
Part of me didn’t want to exercise this morning, but since I’d decided that it was my scheduled workout time, I went ahead and did it anyway. I don’t think I gave it my all-all, but I’m pleased that I still got it done.
After my usual warm up, I tried my best at first two videos. I held planks and substituted some lower impact moves where necessary so that I could keep my form, but overall I actually felt a bit stronger for the arms video. I really enjoyed the abs workout – this is the first time I’ve done it and I was impressed at the variety of exercises, as well as pleasantly surprised at how many of the moves were new to me.
By the time the final video rolled along, I was more or less done with most of the planking moves and began to mentally check out, so there were a lot more movement substitutions. That said, I was impressed by my push ups and can already see an improvement in my form for many of the exercises.
Despite not really feeling motivated, I think I did a great job and am proud of myself for today, woo!
And that’s it! That’s actually Week 2 done and dusted, woo! Day 14 is a rest day and again I’ve had a long enough rest before all this, so I won’t be noting down my rest days. I also plan to exercise tomorrow as well and then rest at the weekend. I like having this workout schedule during the week to keep myself productive and have some sort of week day routine, so I’ll stick to that for as long as I can.
For the rest of this challenge, I wonder if it makes sense to just update my blog daily with my workout progress. It almost feels like I haven’t been updating when I’ve actually been updating every day haha. I’ll have to see how it goes because I’ll need to change up some of my blog layout in that case. Maybe I’ll do it for my next challenge.
For now, I’ll continue as is.
Muchos love,
