I’m really thrilled with my new year’s workouts so far! So far I have hit 100% of my planned strength workouts (have completed 13 so far this month) and I’m especially proud of my CARDIO efforts! I’ve completed 9, but best of all, it feels like it’s finally becoming more of a routine habit.
As you might remember, my 2025 goal is to do 200 strength workouts, 150 cardio workouts and 50 yoga workouts this year. This breaks down to the same routine I’ve been aiming for over the past couple years, which is :
- 4x/ strength
- 3x/ cardio
- 1x/ yoga/ stretching
each week.
I’ve shared though that while yes, I’d say overall I have been someone who “exercises consistently”, my record this last year or two was just way off what I’d prefer, and way down from my peak some years back. Little by little, after years of being a hard-core, routine exerciser, I morphed into someone who was missing at least a couple (or more…) workouts most weeks. Which is technically fine! It’s actually NOT that big of a deal. I am busy, I’m still active, the overall net sum is still positive.
But it was really starting to bother me, because it wasn’t always a case of not having time. Too often I was just being flat out lazy. Or not scheduling my time well, or simply not prioritizing it. There were too many days when I had it on my plan, I technically had time to do it, and then… I just…. didn’t.
THAT I’m not really on board with. It was beginning to feel like I was forming a new type of identity for myself. Like instead of being someone who really values daily movement and exercise, I was becoming someone who just exercised sometimes. And instead of being someone disciplined, with integrity, who does what she says she would, I was becoming a wishy-washy, fair-weather exerciser. Someone who was okay with just shrugging off her own plans, often for no great reason.
I also had noticed this past year that I was becoming more and more sluggish on the rebound after missing a day or time off. Sometimes a day off would stretch into 5 days off. If I got off my “schedule”, sometimes I’d say, “Eh, well, it’s Friday. There’s no way to get all 4 of my strength sessions in at this point, so I’ll just restart with a new week on Monday.”
It’s like a single missed day then somehow became a free pass to just take a big break.
No! No! That is NOT how you’re supposed to operate with this stuff. I KNOW this. The key is to keep the momentum going. Doing something is better than nothing. Every time you do the habit, you’re casting a vote for the type of person you want to be, and vice versa.
(*Note: There definitely are times that it’s perfectly fine to skip workouts! Just to be clear. In fact, it’s okay to skip workouts just because you’re tired and would rather take a nap. Or you have a busy week. Or you’re stressed. Or whatever. I also usually don’t exercise on vacation, and I’m perfectly fine with this.)
But I was sort of abusing the policy, I think. I personally feel, and obviously I know myself the best, that I truly was just becoming lazier and more undisciplined. It was easier to not work out, so, I didn’t. (And I’m someone who typically does like to exercise! So, if you’re struggling with this too, it’s okay.)
Anyway, I was not happy with the overall trajectory of this, so that was a main focus of my health/fitness goal for this year.
I am currently re-reading Atomic Habits (if you haven’t read this, seriously, it’s SO good and warrants an occasional re-read; I actually started re-reading it last summer, but then set it aside and am now finishing it).
This section I read this morning really hits the nail on the head about the importance of at least just showing up. (Read between the green arrows):
And on the next page, about “being the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts” (top section):
A few pages earlier was also this quote, which I’ve heard before, but I really love and think about often:
“The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”
I feel like I have really strong momentum going right now, and I’m excited to keep it going.
The hard thing with exercise is that it takes a while before you reap the benefits of it! And that’s why many people fall of the wagon before they get to that point. As James Clear also points out, after a single gym session, you aren’t going to lose a single pound or gain ANY muscle at all. But you will maybe feel sore, and tired. Haha. Obviously, humans are motivated by RESULTS….but with exercise, the benefits can be more subtle, and slower to come. It’s not like I can exactly see my arteries staying unclogged by me doing more cardio! It can takes weeks, months or even years before some of the benefits become evident (if at all! Some are sort of just invisible…).
Alternatively, skipping a single gym session doesn’t make me gain weight, either. Or eating a huge pizza won’t instantly make me fat…. But those things both give me some immediate payoff/ pleasure. 😉 This is why diet and exercise are so hard for most people! You have to be willing to play the long game.
Anyway, I’m feeling really satisfied right now with how I’m doing. I know January is typically a slower month for me, so I know it will get harder when life is busier, but I’m feeling optimistic. 🙂 Oh, and I’m also on track to meet my goal to “go to 25 fitness classes!” I’ve been to TWO already this month! The Les Mills Core class is perfect. Only 30 minutes, so effective, perfectly complements my other lifting/cardio and, I like it! Scheduling in advance is a major plus, too. If I’m signed up, I have to go, right? 😉
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that it’s not going to be below zero anymore this week!! Hating not being able to walk Charlie at all.
GRATEFUL KAE 
I feel the same way about food. The bad really adds up while the good doesn’t quite make up the same amount, if that makes sense. Like, I can eat healthy all week and then I open a bag of chips and devour it and emotionally I don’t remember the well behaved eater of the week, I just remember the last bad thing I did, and it is not that ALL is lost, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth (figuratively). As far as workouts go, it is so easy to get out of shape and so hard to get in shape, that when you do get in shape, it is a lot better to STAY there, or else you are back to square one(ish) pretty dang fast. Nice work on staying consistent!
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I enjoy the occasional indulgence, but yeah, I often feel a little “bad” afterwards and that helps me make it really an exception and not the norm!
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Yes, food is even harder, I think… it’s just so much easier to consume a ton of calories or “unhealthy stuff” because it so often comes in little tiny, dense packaging! Like one little cupcake can totally blow a big salad out of the water. Which is annoying! I think for me, I definitely “prefer” exercise over “healthy eating” (hahaha… I feel like I’m not alone in this). I also think I’m not alone in wishing that exercise would be enough. Like if I can just exercise daily, then I can eat whatever I want and that’s sufficient. But that’s not the case… healthy eating is even MORE important, I think, overall than exercise. Though obviously they’re both important!
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Congrats on such a strong start to the month of January! I bet that feels so good and you are feeling more like the old Kae!! it is so easy to make excuses for ourselves. I have a hard time during the line between allowing my body to rest, and pushing my body to work out. I felt like having a goal of working out four times a week was a good happy medium for the stage of life. I’m definitely not achieving that right now, but I’m giving myself a pass during this prolonged recovery period!!! But hopefully the second half of the year will be more normal in terms of my goal for working out. I’m going to have the most challenging time doing strength training with my restrictions from surgery, but hopefully by the second half of the year, I’ll be back to normalish activity.
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You are also in a really different stage of life than I am right now! I truly hope that you DO NOT put excessive pressure on yourself to exercise a certain number of times etc. Between the little kids and big job and all the travel and your RA…. honestly it’s a miracle to me that you work out at all. Seriously! I hope you never take posts of mine like this to imply that you should be more “disciplined” or anything like that. I actually think you should give yourself plenty of leeway and that it’s totally reasonable for you to set a pretty low bar for exercise right now! You’re active with the boys, you walk… I think that alone is pretty darn good. I know you like to exercise though, so I do get it. I just hope you don’t put undue pressure on yourself, either, because you’re in a tough phase with everything you have going on! ❤️
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Thanks, Kae! I need to be reminded to give myself a bit of grace. I wasn’t encouraged when the anesthesiologist said to me that I must be quite active because my pulse was so low when he was doing my nerve block. Maybe he was just being nice to distract me from what he was doing, but I do have a resting pulse in the 50s which shows that I am in good shape or at least decent shape for now. I’m also just gonna work focus on taking walks. When I saw the OT this week, she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me running outdoors in the winter while in the splint. If we get a nice warm up at some point in the sidewalks are truly clear I could try a little bit of running, but I think it’s safe as to just focus on walks at this point I got out for a nice 45 minute one this morning since it was a balmy 24° outside!! I wish we had a treadmill though but we just don’t have room for one and I typically would not use one when I’m fully healthy! But I will take advantage of having access to one when I’m traveling and staying in hotels!
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Congratulations, and there are so many good points here! Consistency has been my issue as well. In 2024, I decided to do yoga for 30 days of January, and found that doing even a bit of yoga every day felt a lot better for me than doing it 3 or 4 days a week. (And yes, sometimes missing a day would turn into missing 5 or 6 days or a month or a year….) So I kept it up, and I did yoga for 365 days in 2024 (It was a leap year, but I didn’t do yoga on Jan 1st).
I also started a 30 day strength challenge in Jan of 24, where you increased the amount of 4 exercises you did a bit each day. Push ups, crunches, squats, and lunges. I completed the 30 days but found it REALLY BORING, and I didn’t really feel much in the way of results. I decided to do that 3 days a week instead, but I didn’t specify WHICH three days, and eventually everything fell apart on that one.
In mid November, I decided that enough was enough, clearly I do well with STRUCTURE, since I was doing so well with my yoga, so I looked up some Caroline Girvan workouts, and found the schedule for her Iron series, that looked doable to me. You alternate workouts 5 days a week, and have 2 rest days. So now my schedule is Sunday and Tuesday are arms/shoulders, Monday and Wednesday are legs/glutes, Friday is a whole body workout, and Thursday and Saturday are rest days. I still do yoga and take a walk on Thursdays and Saturdays. I don’t really enjoy it ever, but if I am tempted to take a day off, I just think, “I have a rest day on Thursday” or whatever. I did miss a few days in December when I had a cold. You know what? It’s working great for me. It’s been about 8 weeks now, and I’m starting to feel a difference in my arms at least. When I was 30 I think I would have seen a difference much faster, but I’m almost 60. Building muscle is more difficult at my age, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
And Kyria is right about the food too. Sigh.
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Ooh, this is all so interesting! And I LOVE hearing about people who are a little older than I am who are first really getting into strength training and finding success and benefits with it. I think it’s great for you to spread that message! I do think some older people sort of think “that ship has sailed” if they didn’t start strength training in their 20s. But I really don’t think that’s true! It’s still possible to achieve gains from it and tons of health benefits. It is true though that it takes a while to really really see the results, but with time and consistency, I think they do come!
Oh, and the structure piece is key for me, too. I definitely like having a routine or plan!
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I loved Atomic Habits and I refer to it often. I love the concept of habits being the compounding interest of self-improvement. Good for you for getting back into that mindset!!
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That’s right, I thought I remembered you talking about Atomic Habits before! It’s so good!! 🙂
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Ooh… great post. I love both quotes from Atomic Habits- the idea that just doing something, even if it’s a “bad” workout, will keep you from losing the gains you accrued. I need to re-read that book.
Great job keeping up with your workouts so far. I’ve been doing strength at home- which is better than what I did in December- but I really need to get myself back to the gym. Your post is inspiring me!
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One of the things that really stuck out to me in Atomic Habits is that when you’re trying to create a new habit, make it as SIMPLE as possible. Want to go for a daily walk? Just put your shoes on and you made your goal. Obviously once the shoes are on, you’re much more likely to GO for the walk but it doesn’t have to be a big, audacious goal and is probably BETTER if the goal starts out super super super small that you can add on to over time. I struggle with this – making the goal one that feels like it has to COUNT (aka, I must do 15 minutes of stretching first thing every morning). But if I end up doing a 3 minute stretch in the middle of the day, THAT COUNTS TOO.
Anyway, way to start off January strong! I am working my way up to a 5 day a week workout habit. I’ve been doing 4 days a week for a few months now and I think I’m ready to add on another day!
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