Just because I am a doctor, and encourage patients every day to exercise, doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own issues with getting sufficient exercise. Long hours, tiring days, family obligations, illness: they are all stumbling blocks, no matter what your occupation.
I have been recording my exercise weekly, mostly to keep myself accountable for reaching my goal (sometimes this works, sometimes I miss). If anyone reads this, I hope they will take this as encouragement to keep going, acknowledgement that it isn’t always easy.
As a reminder, my goal is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen).
I had wanted to work on strength training, but that fell by the wayside after several attempts to do this on my own. Two weeks ago, I made an appointment to work with a trainer; I met her this week. Hopefully I will continue to work on building strength, in addition to my aerobic exercise.
- Saturday: I attended my first yoga class in several months. Exercise time: 90 minutes. I was exhausted afterwards.
- Sunday: It was a beautiful morning, so I went for a walk before breakfast: 42 minutes.
- Monday: Work ran too long to walk home. But, we parked a few streets from home, and walked part of our usual route before actually getting home for dinner. 31 minutes.
- Tuesday: Walked part-way home from work. 24 minutes.
- Wednesday: I met with a personal trainer for an initial assessment. I would guess there were about 22 minutes of exercise there. Then I walked home, 25 minutes. This felt like a very good day.
- Thursday: Work ran long again. No exercise.
- Friday: Walked part-way home, and then we went out. Lots of walking downtown. The total: 56 minutes of walking.
Total: 178 minutes walking, 90 minutes of yoga, 22 minutes of strength training. Verdict: A Very Good Week.