I'm regularly having people ask me where I find the energy and time to fit 7 workouts in during my week (Monday to Friday, I jog intervals on the treadmill for 48 mins, then twice a week I attend 1 hour bootcamp classes in the evenings with Devin).

Over the years, I've made countless attempts to stick to a fitness routine, but each time before now I failed. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out a schedule that I could stick to, once I made exercising part of my daily routine, it stopped feeling like a task. It wasn't that I physically couldn't keep up with the fitness routine... it was that mentally I didn't want to stick to it.

This time, I had to assess what stopped me from working out in the past and I realized it was taking too many recovery days. I know your body needs to rest and sometimes Devin is worried about me overdoing it, but I know what keeps me on track… it's being very regimented Monday to Friday! Personally, I think you are better to have less recovery days, if it means you will stick to your schedule and not fall off the wagon. In the past, every time I took days off mid week (ex: only worked out Mon, Wed, Fri), I was more likely to not workout the day after my recovery day (my brain just didn't want to ge back into the grove of exercising - I don't know why - but it's the truth). It took me a very long time to figure this out, now I take the weekends to recover, enjoy those two days off and no matter what my work-week looks like, Monday to Friday, my day always starts with a workout.

Six months in, my workout is now part of my daily routine just like brushing my teeth. The last two days, I've felt a bit under the weather, but I wasn't sick enough to stop working out. Yesterday, at 46 minutes into my workout, I actually had to stop the treadmill to take a 30 second break, I didn't think I could finish the last 2 minutes. This is the first time in the last 6 months that I had to stop my workout and regroup. When I stopped the treadmill, this is literally what I said to myself “you could either stop right now or finish what you started… you can do it, 2 minutes is nothing you've already done 46 minutes… you know that you will be disappointed with yourself all day if you don't finish these 2 minutes”… I had to talk myself through this weak moment, I caught my breath, regained my composure pressed start and ran those last 2 minutes knowing I was doing the right thing. If I hadn't taken those 30 seconds to regroup, I seriously think I may have thrown up, but the last 2 minutes did go by quickly and I felt better knowing that I did the right thing for my body, taking a quick break and then finishing what I set out to do.

You do need to understand your body and know the difference between being lazy or if you really need a break. There have been days over the last six months where I took a day off during the week because I've hurt my shins or knees etc. But yesterday, I was just tired and I knew that 2 more minutes wasn't going to kill me. With that being said, last night I was supposed to go to heat yoga with two friends, but I knew from my morning workout, that it probably wasn't a good idea. So instead of pushing myself too far by having a second workout, I went to bed at 8:30pm and got 10 hours sleep. I woke up today, still a bit under the weather but was able to complete my 48 minutes at a high intensity and know I'm on the mend.

The biggest obstacle in working out is remembering your body will do anything your mind tells it to! Once you've changed your frame of mind about exercise and think about all the benefits to your day because you physically pushed yourself, then you'll want to do it because it feels great (even on the hard days)!