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. We were meeting weekly, until a medical issue this week.
- Saturday: Walked part-way home from work, twice. You gotta love weekend coverage. 50 minutes total.
- Sunday: Walked part-way home from work, 27 minutes.
- Monday: I had to see a doctor today (yes, the doctor sees a doctor!) and I was asked not to work out with weights until our follow up visit. Trainer session canceled. No walking home today either. Somehow, my Fitbit registered 9 minutes of walking though (maybe going to and from the appointment?).
- Tuesday: It was dark when I finished work, I didn’t feel good about walking home from work.
- Wednesday: It was again dark when I finished work, but I was so antsy to go for a walk, I dragged my husband to go out with me. We walked for 44 glorious minutes.
- Thursday: Long day at work, no exercise.
- Friday: Long day at work again, no exercise.
Total: 121 minutes walking, no weight training per doctor’s orders. Verdict: Missed the target. I suspect if I hadn’t had to cancel my weight training session, I might have squeaked by. I’m hoping next week I can hit the mark.