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. In September, I made arrangements to work with a trainer, as my last ditch attempt to incorporate this into my fitness regimen.
- Saturday: Evening walk with my husband, 36 minutes.
- Sunday: Another evening walk, 35 minutes.
- Monday: Work lasted a really long time, no walking today.
- Tuesday: Several patients no-showed and I finished work in a timely fashion. I walked part-way home for 27 minutes.
- Wednesday: I had hoped to work with the trainer today, but scheduling didn’t work out. Instead I walked around the hospital complex more than usual, and then walked part-way home, for a total of 39 minutes of walking.
- Thursday: Work ran late, no walking today.
- Friday: Walked part-way home. I knew I had to walk more than 13 minutes to make it to the 150 minute goal for the week. I was relieved to see the walk had lasted 23 minutes. I still took a victory lap around the neighborhood (not counted).
Total: 160 minutes walking. Verdict: Feeling good. Looking forward to working with the trainer next week.