My Exercise Regime

As much as I have struggled with my diet in the past, exercise is something I have always loved from the age of about 14.  I trained and qualified as a fitness instructor in 1998 and taught group fitness classes for about 8 years before I gave up due to boredom.  I couldn’t afford to keep my training up to date and couldn’t afford to go to the conventions to get new ideas so my classes, to me, became stale and I eventually disliked having to teach.

However, that is something I plan to rectify as I have decided to train as a Zumba instructor!  I have never been to a class so have no idea what to expect but I am a good mover, can shake my ass pretty well and am most definitely not shy to bust out a move or two.  My aerobics classes were always more of a dance style aerobics anyway and I used to use a lot of latin inspired moves so I have no doubt that it is something I would be good at!

My exercise routine throughout my weight loss journey was heavy weight training 3 times per week with one body attack class per week.  Occasionally, I might have thrown in a HIIT session either done on the cycle or by sprinting outdoors but it wasn’t something I did often enough to say it had an impact on my weight loss.

Now, I still train with heavy weights 3 times per week and am currently training for a half marathon so I am running 1-2 times per week to try and increase my mileage in time for my run on July 3rd.  Running is something I started when I quit smoking in July 2005 as a way to get fit and try and keep myself from going back on the cigs.  However, because of my love of weight training and the DOMS I get as a consequence, I have never had as much time to dedicate to running as I would have liked.  As a result, I had never been able to increase my mileage past 4 miles until recently.

I am currently doing split routine with weights so only train my legs once per week – that way it doesn’t interfere with my training for the half marathon but I atill get to work them pretty intensely.

A good diet and exercise are now part of my everyday life and though I still have moments when I lose my mojo and don’t feel like dragging my arse out to train, I eventually get back into it as I can’t imagine my life without it.