I wanted to give a quick workout update before I bury myself in homework for the night. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting my workouts in the last few months, which has been super frustrating to me. I think the biggest issue for me is that I don’t belong to a gym. That probably sounds counter-intuitive, because working out at home should make it easier to squeeze in with Baby Boy around, but for some reason the reality has been the opposite. After working all day, I come home and smother Baby Boy with love (I have a huge guilt complex about leaving him with a babysitter all day), make dinner, and then get started on my homework. I’ll pause to put Baby Boy down around 8:30, and then rush to get my homework done before 10–that’s kind of my cutoff bedtime for feeling human the next day. I hate making excuses, but I have really been having trouble finding the time to squeeze in even a 20-30 minute workout. I’ve been trying to get up early, but to be on time for work I need to leave at 6am, and still feed the baby and get us both ready before that–getting up at 3:30 is a serious challenge. I might be guilty of snoozing the alarm all the way to 5:30 a few times…

That being said, I’m hoping today is a big turnaround for that. Between the two sessions of Conference I had a healthy breakfast, wrote a blog post, and finished the T25 Total Body Circuit workout. For those of you not familiar with T25, it’s a series of workouts created by the same guy that created Insanity. His name is Shaun T, and he is THE DEVIL. Before I got married, I used to do Insanity before work with my sister in law, and we both agreed that we need to send that guy some serious hate mail. Those workouts are absolutely nuts, and we loved/hated every second of them.

Of course, Insanity workouts are 40-60 minutes long, and I have a lot of trouble finding that much time in one block. When I heard of T25, I had to give it a try. I’ve only done the Alpha workouts so far, and I definitely haven’t been following the structure of the program–I just do the workouts when I have time. Although that’s not the best way to do it, I was an NASM certified trainer so I trust myself to pick the right workouts at the right times. I’ve really only been managing one workout a week on average though, and that is not nearly enough to get back in shape and healthy again.

To give myself more options, I’ve also started looking at another (but free) workout program that a friend of mine just finished with great results. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s called the Bikini Body Mommy 90 Day Challenge. In general I’m not a huge fan of this kind of workout program (Insanity is really the only “workout program” I’ve ever taken seriously). I’m a gym rat, and I prefer lifting heavy and hitting the treadmill, not Zumba or workout classes. Of course, I don’t belong to a gym now, so my options are  a bit more limited, and the weight equipment in my garage isn’t completely put together yet. I figure I can just mute this girl’s voice and go with it. The other, more convenient aspect of this workout plan is that I don’t actually have to watch the video if I don’t want to, because she outlines each workout in the post attached to the video. I know how many reps/sets of what exercises, and when I’m supposed to rest. This also lets me throw in my own modifiers, because after a few weeks I doubt this will be hard enough for me. It’s just been a long time since I’ve designed anyone’s workouts, even my own, so it’s great to have something to work from. It’s also motivating to have a specific 90 day countdown–so by July I should be bikini ready! (Not really–I doubt I can lose 40 pounds in 3 months and stay healthy, but I should be a heck of a lot closer).

So tonight, while I was cooking dinner, I did Day 1 of this workout. I love that I had time for morning and evening workouts today! I’m hoping that this will get me motivated enough to NOT snooze tomorrow morning! Also, because I don’t need the TV for this workout, I can do it downstairs while I’m making breakfast and not worry about burning my eggs. 🙂

What are your favorite workouts? How do you keep yourself motivated when life gets crazy?