Just so no one accuses me of being boom and bust, it’s official, I have lost 7.2 kilos since starting my health kick… Despite a few wobbly moments/weeks.

So it’s update time. And this one is about exercise.

I am FULL of exercise mental blocks:

• As SOON as I step foot on a treadmill, I’m convinced I’m too tired to go on
• I then mistake boredom for tiredness, which leads me to watching the clock like a hawk – I’m talking 30 second updates here (’39.5 minutes to go… puff puff… 39 minutes to go… puff puff…’ etc etc) and assuming that at some stage I will be too tired to go on, and that stage is probably NOW.
• I believe that I am a slow runner and I will NEVER get any faster
• I believe that EVERY ONE in the world is faster than me, which then makes me feel like a loser

Exercise is an emotional NIGHTMARE for me. I feel like I’m REALLY bad at it. And even if I manage to run for 40 minutes, I generally finish the run feeling like a loser, because I am too slow, too tired, too bored… And don’t even get me started on the panic attacks I experience when the necessity to run alongside someone else is introduced into the equation… Or (as Im sure alcoholics feel a far worse version of) when I think that I have to do this EVERY DAY for the REST OF MY LIFE. The whole thing breaks me out into a sweat before I even tug on my leggings.

BUT.

This time, I stuck with it. I ran through the pain. I walked a bit when I felt tired. I tried desperately to stop judging myself and to start feeling proud of myself for simply getting my butt to the gym.

And eventually… And for me, it took MONTHS, I started to get exercise highs, and I IMPROVED.

Case in point. One hungover, rainy Sunday, it was decided that a small group of us would go to the gym for a run then spa.

I stepped on the treadmill with trepidation. Then I started running

5 minutes in, I was feeling uber energetic, and not AT ALL puffed. I felt like I could run forever. I upped the treadmill speed more and more over the 40 minutes, until I had knocked over 30 seconds off the time it normally takes me to run a kilometer….

And when the clock ticked over 40 minutes (another mental block)… I kept running.

And for the third time in my life, I ran 10kms. The whole way, I was on fire, I was loving it… and I did it in just over 58 minutes… which is about 4-5 minutes faster than the other times.

Now, about 20% of the time, I still hate running
60% of the time, I work on gradually improving my time
and 20% of the time, I am like a spring chicken.

That is some drastically improved statistics from the days I limped along feeling like my lungs were about to burst, and my legs fall off… 100% of the time.

So in conclusion, I now believe that a good exercise routine is nothing to do with your fitness, it’s all to do with your head and overcoming mental barriers and not being afraid to be TERRIBLE. I can honestly say that after you get your brain into gear, your body (eventually) follows. And it IS worth it.