Challenges keep me sharp

We made it public yesterday. My sister, María Elena Martínez, and I decided to do a "30 for 30" challenge. We made a personal and public commitment of exercising at least 30 minutes per day for the next 30 days. No excuses, no "ifs or buts." We will be checking on each other every other day to assess progress, and give encouragement. And I told her that I would be blogging about it too, as another way to increase our accountability. The stage has been set.

Day 1
I had not worked out for about a week, and I was a bit intimidated by going back to it. As I was putting on my workout clothes, though, I was happy to see that they fit loosely (well, let me not exaggerate...not loosely, but not as tight as before). So that gave me a boost of confidence to get going. Plus I had downloaded a couple of routines from Shape magazine to work on "problem areas" (read, the whole body at this point). I spent a good amount of time looking at the videos and was pretty comfortable and confident that I could do them. Ha! Was I in for a surprise!

I started with what is called the "Plié Squat with a Leg Sweep". It looked easy enough, and the trainer did not seem to have a lot of trouble doing it. I, on the other hand, had a lot of trouble doing it, particularly in the "Leg Sweep" part, because, as it turns out, I have no balance (difficult to understand, if you have seen the heels I walk in). The minute I raised my leg to sweep it, it felt like an earthquake had hit me and I had to put my arms out to regain balance. I was much more careful with the rest of the set and managed to do it without falling on my butt.

This is how I feel, like I am trapped in a body that is not mine.
I can't wait until I break out of it!

Then I jumped on the elliptical machine. By then, Andrew had already finished his cardio, so it was my turn to hop on. I turned on the TV to El Gordo y la Flaca. The chisme show keeps me entertained and makes time go by faster...generally, but not today. After a week without working out, I was huffing and puffing mid-way through my 40 minutes, especially during the time that I would raise the speed to pump up my heart rate. I could not wait until the time was over, but every time I looked at the clock, it seemed like it was stuck on the same time as 20 minutes earlier. Well, at least the calorie counter was moving and I ended up with 340 calories burned.

Next I moved to my next exercise routine, the "10-Minute Arms and Abs Workout"...and that is when all hell broke loose. Like I said before, I have no balance, which I had discovered recently while attempting to do a right-side spin in my salsa class at Latin Rhythms Dance Academy. I can do the spin, but when Maricza, the instructor, tells us that we have to stop in the "7" count (is it the 7?) and find our balance, I always end up loosing my footing, which is very annoying because when I am being led I can do the spin without any problems. But I digress...back to my arms and abs workout.

The very first exercise made me want to quit. I kept loosing my balance and had to reposition myself time and again. And I was doing the "modified" version, which is way easier. And yet, I could not keep my balance. It was quite a challenge, but I kept on going. The second exercise was sort of like a break, but come the third one, my arms were shaking, and I was only able to do 25 seconds per combination instead of the suggested 30 seconds. Somehow, however, by the end of the routine, I was elated by my having tried this new routines, and I promised myself that I would be getting better and better as I continued training. And I was also absolutely sure that the third routine, the one for the abs, was going to have to wait until tomorrow. No way was I going to survive it today.

I'm very satisfied with today. I am glad I tried something new and that I did not stop because it was too hard. I know it will get better as I keep doing it, and then it will be time to try something more challenging. But for today, my Challenge Day 1 has concluded.