I’ve Been Doing a Light Workout 4 Days a Week- Here is What I’ve Noticed

I have been working out and eating healthy for the past month or so, and I have not felt this good in a long time.  Here is what I have felt change that has kept me motivated and wanting to workout:

1. I am less tired.  At least one of these four days I get up at 5:30 and go for a run.  Even a 20-minute run wakes me up and I feel the energy all day.  On the days I am not running in the morning, I feel sluggish and tired all day.
2. I am sleeping better.  My muscles are so tired that my body and mind are exhausted after a run in the morning, a 10-hour workday, and then errands and cooking in the afternoon.  Now that school has started, I have added in my classes, two jobs, and on-campus research.  So as soon as I am able to, I go to sleep and unless my schedule is thrown off, I fall asleep quickly.
3. I drink way more water than I used to.  I started drinking 96 fl oz a day at the start of July.  Water makes me feel more awake and helps me not overindulge when I am eating.  So not only am I energized and hydrated, but I am eating less and therefore losing weight.  At the beginning, drinking this much water was difficult for me.  I have now come to the point where I am craving water and have cranked my intake to a little over a gallon a day!
4. I lost body fat.  I don’t weigh myself typically, but I have been recently to see what running will do to my body.  I have discovered that I have lost weight, but more importantly, I have lost body fat.  I am not one to track my calories and body fat percentage, so I did not do this.  But I have noticed that my jeans are not quite as tight on my stomach and thighs.  I wore a dress this week that I would not have before I started this routine.
5. I feel empowered and confident.  I have always considered myself a pretty confident woman.  However, up until a couple weeks ago, I have found myself not feeling good about my body.  Not because of the way I look, but because of the way I feel.  I missed feeling strong and capable of intense workouts.  I feel a lot better about myself now that I am working out again and eating healthy because I know that I am taking care of my body the way we all should.
6. It has surprisingly become fun! Every time I stop working out, I forget how much I love it until I start back up again.  I love the ache the next day and the feeling that you know you are challenging your body past what you think it can go.  I love the stress release and the feeling that I can forget all of my worries and just focus on the burn.

On days when I am not doing a quick run, I instead substitute the run for some kind of light workout.  Whether it is 100 squats or a 15-minute intense yoga routine, I am making sure I am feeling a burn but not taking up more than 30 minutes of my day.

It has been amazing to see what tiny little changes in my schedule can do and how great I have felt in doing so.  I wonder how much more I will have lost in another month!

 

What are your healthy habits and workout routines?  How does being a college student/ young adult affect your habits? Share in the comments below!

 

With love,

Mattie

 

 

How To Find Your Workout Groove As A College Student

Why is it so hard for me to work out? What am I doing wrong?

I used to have a REALLY hard time finding the motivation to go workout. No matter how much I wanted to be healthy, I would dread it all day, to the point where my stomach hurt because I was psyching myself out so much.

A couple months after I quit trying to find a good workout pattern, I realized what I was doing wrong. My mindset is what was holding me back.

Instead of going to the gym and thinking of my workout as a fun activity, I was thinking of it as a chore. I vowed I would not gain the freshman 15 and for the most part, I didn’t. However I did lose a lot of self confidence. I felt sluggish, out of shape, and simply not happy with my body.

This is when I realized, working out didn’t need to be scheduled. It didn’t need to have a planned out arms, legs, and cardio day. What I needed was to learn how to have fun working out.

This began with getting used to a new way of working out. I have always been given my workouts. I began playing volleyball at eight years old, so I’ve never needed to think about what I was going to do at my next workout. I knew I had to stay in shape, so I worked out with my team and did what everyone else was doing.

So, my first step was to figure out what I personally like to do. Below are my priorities when looking for ways to get a workout in:

1. Be outside
2. Group workouts
3. Quick
4. Fun
5. Flexible schedule

After doing something and trying different things I came up with the perfect solution.

I found a group of friends that played sand volleyball at least twice a week and I began joining them at least once a week (I plan on playing on an intramural team with this same group this coming fall semester! YAY!). It is crazy how much playing sand ball will make your legs burn. I then began playing court ball with this same group of people once a week at the school gym.

So there was 2 to 3 nights a week of a good, fun workout. To add in two more nights, I started going to the on campus boxing classes.

Those are SO MUCH FUN, one of the biggest stress relievers that I have come across so far, and they are only an hour long!!

Lastly, I would occasionally go on small local hikes on the weekends with friends or jog up to my dorm room (13 floors, yikes!) a couple times.

After a combination of all of these activities, I began to want to eat healthier again and I slowly began to feel like myself again. Sure, there are days where I miss an open gym day or just feel like eating junk food, but I am wayyyyyy healthier than my first semester when I was not working out at all.

No matter what you read online, no matter who you see looking like a model because they are working out 7 days a week, you have to find what works for YOU.

Now go out! Find what works for you and get on it. Don’t let anything hold you back.

Do you crave the reassurance of a scheduled workout or do you like to go with the flow? I would love to hear what your favorite workout is, comment below!

With love,

Mattie