How do you stay fit?

The short answer was in the past, I beat myself up at the gym and hoped that good genes would take care of the rest. But after injuries, surgeries, and digestive issues, I just stopped. I gave up. It was too hard…

That’s the truth. For the last 7 years, I couldn’t stick to anything, and to be completely honest, my size and weight skyrocketed. It was depressing. It was easy for me to just ‘whip’ myself into shape through my twenties and thirties. I went from a size 4-6 to a size 14-16. I stopped buying clothes. I stopped wearing jeans. I stopped going out in public.

I hid behind a screen and wrote because I could be vicariously fit and beautiful through my stories. But a thing niggled at me through this. The allure of traveling, hiking in beautiful places, and learning new things to write about is summoning me.

After a shoulder and neck injury, from sitting at my desk and writing 100,000 words in a week which also cost me 3 months of physical therapy. I decided to make a change. I started doing light workouts, mainly yoga to work on my shoulders and neck, and I started taking my dogs out for short walks across my property.

Slowly that has been evolving to days of yoga mixed with modified HIIT workouts. Now that the weather and snow are beginning to clear up, I’ve added walking a mile to the regime as well. I know this is the first step in a long process.

Here is what my workout looks like now

Monday: walk a mile, modified HIIT upper body

Tuesday: walk a mile, yoga stretch upper body

Wednesday: walk a mile, modified HIIT lower body

Thursday: walk a mile, Yoga stretch for lower body

Friday: Walk a mile, modified HIIT for upper body

Saturday walk a mile, modified HIIT for lower body

Sunday: walk a mile, Yoga total body stretch

This summer, my goal is to take on some of the more accessible hiking trails at Baxter State Park. This is only the first step of many hikes to come.