I was once a couch potato. Then I got off the couch, changed my lifestyle and – oh wait, what’s that? Just the sound of life strapping me in for basically an entire month of the most ridiculous rollercoaster ride ever.
Welcome to month three of Couch Potato to Wonder Woman. I am very tired. But I’m still here. And I’m still going.
What did I do?
Well, first of all – a high! I managed to attract the attention of adidas and The Athlete’s Foot, who decided I was an ideal addition to a lineup of legit clean-eating Olympian athlete fitness influencer women for their latest “Running Thoughts” social media campaign. I decked myself out in fancy running gear and ran a total of 10km while talking out loud everything that comes into my head when I drag myself out for a “fast jog” (let’s be real here, I’m still a noob).
Highlights include “My chest is burning, but my feet feel good?” and “I get distracted by cute dogs”. #sponsored #fitnessinfluencer #whatismylife
Now: the big dip. Imagine whole bunch of personal issues leaving me trying to hold myself and those around me together in almost every aspect of my life – and then throw in being proper sick. I thought the three days of being bedridden last month was bad. March was basically mega-flu month for me, and I’m still not better. Plus, you, know – life crumbling and burning to pieces around me while I desperately attempt to keep everything chugging along.
It was not a good month.
Here’s what I did manage to do.
Hiking
After last month’s effort of hiking rain, (almost) hail and shine – I managed to hike once this month. Once. This is nowhere close to my goal of every week. It was lovely, though.
Weights/Yoga/HIIT
I managed a solitary HIIT session incorporating hand weights.
I also managed one single session of yoga. Even my beloved yoga seemed too far out of reach this month. A dog literally chewed up my mat and I somehow used that as an excuse to do no yoga for most of March. Who am I?
Roller Derby
Likewise, roller derby was also thrown into the “too hard” basket. Along with my beloved Axe Throwing. And everything else. Basically March was a period where I was short on health, time and energy, and everything fell to the wayside.
I went along to one training session. One.
Running
Running became my go-to. I’ve discovered its stress relieving properties. I’ve discovered the thrill of trying to beat your own time. And I discovered running while sick is a bad idea.
To be brutally honest – which is something I always promised to do with y’all – this month felt more like a “what didn’t I do” and I’m well aware this is an awful, terrible mindset to have. Every effort should be celebrated. Taking time out to look after yourself while you’re not well is more than fine – it’s necessary. And every day is a new one.
Falling into the trap of “I’ll start fresh next week” is so easy to do. And even when my health returned, the temptation was there. It’s okay to ease back into it. Celebrate the small victories.
What did I eat?
Oh, boy, was this month a disaster as far as food is concerned.
My personal trainer, Thor, would be so disappointed if I confessed to him what I’m about to confess to you all. I’m sure he’s going to read this and cringe. I’m sorry.
(Yes, legit, that’s him.)
But first, a reminder of what I should have been eating – personalised “macros” hitting protein, healthy fats and complex carbs goals which I log in MyFitnessPal. Food like this:
- Fats
- Avocado
- Nuts
- Coconut oil
- Cheese (yes!)
- Flaxseed Oil
- Dark Chocolate
- Protein
- Lean red meat
- Lean poultry
- Fish
- Eggs
- Milk & Cheese
- Carbs
- Rice
- Bread
- Potatoes
- Veggies
- Fruit
- Oats
Instead, I ended up surviving my days on coffee and protein bars to supplement my regular diet of cold and flu medication. Yep. Dinner was whatever I could have delivered to my bed. I still kept it as healthy as I could – fried foods make me feel gross – but I was not a beacon of shining light for the clean-eating brigade this month. Not by a long shot.
To add to the total garbage fire that was my health for the month of March: as a consequence of knowing I wasn’t working out as much as I had been, I panicked and lowered my calorie intake. This gave me less energy. I didn’t have enough drive to workout. The cycle continued. Not good. Not good at all.
So…do you have any results?
Somehow I still managed to lose a kilo, and an additional 2cm off my hips. It was probably my beloved butt muscle. A moment of silence for my lost butt muscle, please. I also went up 0.5 per cent in body fat composition.
Have some “progress” photos.
I’ve now lost 4cm from by bust, 12cm from my waist and an additional 2cm off my hips this week making a total of 6cm.
I feel like a giant failure. I feel like I’ve let you all down.
What’s next?
Welp, here’s how “The Plan” is going:
- Strength (I’ve lost butt. This is not okay)
- Flexibility (A dog ate my yoga mat)
- Endurance (Oh, I see you’re trying to run. Shall I make you throw up, maybe?)
- Eating food that fuels me (Protein bars are not a meal, Rae)
- Killing a man with my bare hands AKA badassery (I may as well throw myself into a zombie horde right now)
We are human. And although my goal is to be a real life Wonder Woman, I am human.
Setbacks are normal. It’s how we deal with it that matters. And a few weeks of not performing at my peak doesn’t mean I’ve failed myself and everyone who is following this project, no matter what my jerk brain tries to tell me.
So I’m starting with forgiving myself. Then I’m showing you all – and me – that you can turn things around. I’ve done it once, I can do it again, and every example is another reason to jump back into it.
I might scale back on the amount and variety of activities I’m doing, and stick with what is accessible and beneficial for a while. I might make a goal of just starting off with Yoga again. I might just aim to continue running, since it seems to be my friend.
I’m discovering how important having something that works for you is – the one thing you feel like is possible even when things around you get tough.
You can follow along, and join in, with #couchpotatotowonderwoman on Instagram – like these amazing humans, who have kept me going this month:
Honestly, when I need some motivation – I check out what these legit Wonder Woman (and men) are up to. It keeps me going. You all keep me going.
Thank you for giving me the confidence to confess my “failures”, as well as my victories. Hopefully you can relate.
As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or there’s extra info you’d like to know – just let me know in the comments below.
Until next month, Lifehacker. Let’s hope it’s a slightly more inspirational one.
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/couch-potato-to-wonder-woman/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/12/DSC9133-410×231.jpg” title=”Couch Potato To Wonder Woman”]
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/02/couch-potato-to-wonder-woman-month-one/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/02/10339272_729655063742681_2462987775689307489_o-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Couch Potato To Wonder Woman: Month One”]
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/03/couch-potato-to-wonder-woman-month-two/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/03/June_-RaeJohnston30-410×231.jpg” title=”Couch Potato To Wonder Woman: Month Two”]
Comments
2 responses to “Couch Potato To Wonder Woman: Month Three”
Getting back up again after a crappy time is winning the battle, great work, keep it up!
Still loving these updates – everyone has runs of poor form, and they’re nothing to be ashamed of!
A great lesson you can bring home from this month of “failure” (which was really just life, lets be honest) – is that you can have a month of complete “failure” and the world won’t fall apart.
Did you slow in progress? Yes. Did you get all the weight back the instant you ate a piece of chocolate more than you were supposed to? No!
The temptation to throw it away can be intense when you have a period of slowing like this – and it will pass. The key is not to rubber-band so much. Choosing to only do what you had energy and interest in is a good way to prevent that.
Just keep doing as much as you want to do. When your energy returns, you might want to pick up all the training again. You might even have more vigour than before! But if running is all you feel like, heck – running is better than nothing. Much better.
Thanks for the updates! I hope the road ahead smooths out for you. 🙂
This seems like a very narcissistic approach to wanting to inform an audience. Blatantly promoting your instagram like this on this guise that it’s to help anyone other than yourself? This site is better than this.