The Crazy Ups and Downs of my Health and Fitness Progress

Check my health and fitness progress as I join the Sweat Pink #1MillionMinutes campaign by Fit Approach. Doing yoga and running as I can.

Last week I had the pleasure to announce that I became a Fit Fluential Ambassador. What I realized though is that I never wrote an official post about becoming a SweatPink Ambassador. I mentioned it on my blog about my 39th birthday last year, but that was all.

SweatPink by Fit Approach

For those who may not know it, Fit Approach is a community with the most amazing women who practice various sports. We come together for mutual support and promotion. We use the hashtag #SweatPink to connect with each other through blogging and social media.

Sweat Pink Ambassador

To celebrate their 4th birthday, Fit Approach put together the fantastic project of #1MillionMinutes. Yes, we are collecting minutes of any physical activity for the next weeks to reach the milestone of 1 million minutes in total. While I am writing this blog, I see that 29030 minutes have already been collected on the their website. If you want to follow it up, please visit Fit Approach LINK!!! or check what everyone is sharing through the hashtag #1MillionMinutes.

Stats of Sweat Pink #1MillionMinutes on June 24th, 2015.

Needless to say that I thought it was the ideal opportunity for me to get extra motivation for my fitness comeback. So I decided to join the fun!

I have not had the chance to check everybody’s goal, but I set mine for 1200 minutes until the end of the campaign. I am planning on doing 30 minutes a day, from Monday through Friday. I think it is a realistic goal, in spite of all ups and downs that I have been going through. I want to get fit again and I will. For that I chose a sustainable plan.

[Tweet “I’ve done 85 minutes for #1millionminutes! #sweatpink @fitapproach via @DebbieInShape”]

And guess where I am also tracking my progress? Yes, on Evernote. Why not?!?

I am tracking my progress on the #1MillionMinutes on Evernote.

My plan of action

To accomplish my goal, I am following 2 activities: yoga and Nike+ Coach.

Yoga

Recently I (re)started doing yoga and it is proving to be an excellent choice.

Because of the weeks of absolute total inactivity, my muscles got atrophied. I want to get my flexibility back. I cannot do anything crazy, but along with SMR, yoga is doing me great.

[Tweet “Yoga’s been a great workout for me. #braintumorthursday #health #fitness”]

Even though I do not have aspirations in terms of the philosophy behind it, I really enjoy practicing of yoga. And I generally have my partner with me making things extra enjoyable.

Soubi attentive watching the yoga session on iPad.

Most of my yoga sessions last 15 minutes. When I am not feeling well or sometimes after my “runs”, I do it for 10 minutes. Today I tried a different app and I practiced it for 30 minutes. I will keep on it so this way for non-running days leaving the shorter sessions for post-run.

Nike+ Coach

I logged in my very first run on Nike+ on April 25, 2009. Running is something I always liked doing. In high school, I did some track training, but it was informal. To be sincere, I only chose it twice because I disliked practicing team sports and I could not pick fitness every time. Running was a fun thing to do. I just never had aspirations about it.

In 2007, I started working at a company where physical activities were highly stimulated. Some of my colleagues used to run and I started to join them. I was so out of shape then that I could barely walk a 5k. Slowly I began to make progress and participated in a couple of races.

Now I am back to the drawing board though. I picked the easiest Nike+ Coach plan because I knew my comeback was going to be challenging. For now, the most frustrating part is having patience. I am doing a little bit better every time, but then I feel tempted to go to back where I used to be. Bad choice!

The Crazy Ups and Downs of my Health and Fitness Progress.

In the past 3 weeks, I had more downs than ups. Yesterday I got too excited to be at the gym again that I did too much and I paid for that.

From now on, no more sprint tentatives at least until I finish this training. 8km/h will have to be my max otherwise I will not make it. Spending the rest of the day sick, with headache and feeling pressure in my head is not an option.

The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow. – Image source: WeHeartIt

With that said, despite me having to “run” against turtle speed, I will make it. I will finish this coach plan, I will complete my 1.200 minutes of the #1MillionMinutes and I will run a 5k (virtual) race.

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Remember that before starting any kind of physical activity you should always contact your health care provider.

It is true that I pushing myself to stretch my limits so I can return to my normal activities. It does not always go as expected but both my neurosurgeon and my M.D. are aware of my training. For instance, no matter how much I miss CrossFit, I have not got green light to return to it yet. I am doing what I can for now.

Health comes above all the rest. It would be crazy if I had to stop everything again because of me overdoing during training. Yes, my “running” is more like a walk, but it is what I can do and what is safe for me.

How do you measure your health and fitness progress?

If you want to follow up my daily updates on the #1MillionMinutes campaign, please make sure you follow me on Instagram.

[Tweet “My goal for the #1MillionMinutes #sweatpink is 1200. What’s yours? #health #fitness”]

Keep on rocking!