During last week’s fail, I alluded to some fitness challenges I’ve run into. This week, my most blatant fail was trying to readjust my daily schedule to switch from 5:30 a.m. workouts to afternoon workouts. This is by no means my first choice–I LOVE completing my workout before others have finished pressing snooze on their alarms. However, I’ve noticed lately that I just haven’t been pushed like I want to, I’m not exerting enough energy so I’m not having the same mental health benefits that my workouts gave me in the past.

It doesn’t help that I managed to injure myself a few weeks ago–tennis elbow. When I’ve asked the trainer for a modification for the exercise, though, often I get an exercise that doesn’t work the same muscle group as what was originally written. Or I’m modifying down, which is surely contributing to me not exerting enough energy.

The trainer that used to work early a.m. still did one class a week in the evenings, and another original trainer had two evenings this week. I thought I’d try to shift.

Total fail!

I’ve been getting a bit more sleep, which is always good. But there is too much that can go on in the early evening that will set me up for a day of no fitness. I’ll always want to choose living & the people I care about over workout goals, no regrets. Which is what happened a couple of times this week. Last night I was so full of energy that I could.not.sleep.all.night.long.. I kept meditating for an hour at a time(!!) before checking the clock and seeing that I still hadn’t managed to sleep. Maybe it was the excitement of having babysat a friend’s kids while she headed off to the hospital for her third daughter to be born, maybe it was the pollution from those Canadian wildfires, maybe it was worrying about the pollution from the Canadian wildfires–all I know is I’m plenty tired for sleep after my usual routine.

Time to pivot

An afternoon workout isn’t the solution, so I’ll head back to the drawing board.