Munting Monday

munting ~ vertical framing piece between door panels

Last week I pretty much focused on finishing the final read-through of Lucky Dog. However, while I may not have settled back into a routine, I did remain aware of certain patterns of how my day goes and what kinds of blocks of time I have to work with.

I did manage to get to the gym a couple of times, but I'm finding with the cold and (finally!) snowy weather out there I'm lacking incentive to do so. It's not just a matter of getting out of bed, it's having to get dressed and leave the house before the sun is even up. But I think I've found the solution.

I've always said I prefer to start my day with a work out, just to get it out of the way, and that's still true. However, when you think about it, I'm not just working out once a day, I'm working out twice a day - once at the gym and once riding the bike. But who says I have to do them in that order?

Doesn't it make more sense to get up and ride the bike to start my day? It's a little more strenuous and theoretically it'll do a better job of waking me up. It'll also take the pressure off if I need a little extra sleep - I don't have as far to go to get to the bike, so it's no big deal if I want to steal an extra fifteen minutes.

But what about the gym, you ask?

Ah. That's the other good thing about this plan.

The way things work out right now: I go to the gym, come home for breakfast, have anywhere between 1 and 1 1/2 hours before I have to drop the hubby off to work, have another 45 minutes to an hour before I go babysitting, come home, have between 1 and two hours to recuperate/work before riding the bike, then it's time to make supper. My day is so chopped up it just doesn't have any flow to it.

However, if I ride the bike when I get up, I don't have to leave the house right away and I'll get a little earlier start to getting down to business. I can take my workout clothes with me when I go to the daughter's to babysit and change while I'm there, stopping at the gym on the way home.

The bonus here is that once I change back into my work clothes I'll be more inclined to "work" instead of "recuperate from babysitting".

It all sounds good in theory, and it's easy to see the flow to my day on paper, but the proof will be in the pudding, as they say. I'll give it a try this week and see how it goes. I figure at the very least it solves the problem getting enough sleep.

Before Christmas I was having an issue with not getting enough sleep, so during my holiday I tried to acquire better sleeping habits. This meant trying to get to bed a little earlier, and sleeping in a little later.

The problem is, the sleeping thing worked okay during the holidays but now I'm finding it really hard to get myself motivated into getting up in time to go to the gym. I end up being short on time and I either shorten the length of my workout or skip it altogether, and then I feel guilty, which just adds an extra layer of stress to my day. And who needs that?

So this week I'll give the morning and afternoon workouts a switch and we'll see what happens. I've nothing to lose but more weight, right? ;-)