When Life Gets in the Way ...

I set my alarm for p.m. instead of a.m. AGAIN! What is wrong with me? ‘Luckily’ I woke up early anyway because once again I had a very restless night (still tense about my parents’ flight plus my brother kindly phoned me up at 3:30 a.m. to tell me that there was still no news regarding if/when their flight would take off – I’ll get him for that!)

Everything today seemed to be rushed or delayed, and it was around 11 a.m. that I realized I wouldn’t be able to go to the gym today. Well, that’s not true, I probably could have made it – but at the sacrifice of studying and with the burden of tension on my shoulders. I think I was smart enough to realize that it would be better to just skip the gym and get on with other things that I needed to get done instead of worrying and stressing over scheduling, timing, etc. etc. and ending up having a rushed and unsatisfying workout.

I’ve been confronted with quite a few days like today this past year and I’m proud to say that I’ve come a long way from having a major anxiety attack when things didn’t go according to my schedule. Especially since I’ve learned how to do little things throughout the day to ensure that a few extra calories are being burned and make up for some missed gym time.

For example, today my extra movements all involved my grocery-shopping trip:

1) Parked far away from the entrance of the grocery store
2) Left the cart near the supermarket and carried the groceries to the car (that was tough – there were a ton!)
3) Made two trips from the car to the apartment to unload the groceries
4) Exaggerated movements when putting the groceries away – hyper-stretches and deep squats combined with ab twists
5) Watched my posture at all times – sitting at my desk, in my car, at the dining table – sat straight and kept my abs tight

(I also threw in 100 jumping jacks for a bit of extra cardio.)

It’s not much – but it’s better than nothing!