What’s the next stretch of my fitness journey look like? Well, we all know Sumner bodies are made in winter, right? I’m going to spend the rest of my Fall getting a head start on that, buuuut with a hefty dose of self care.

The big news, however, is that I’m going to make a shift that I’ve been planning on making for, years, really. I’m going to shift the core focus of my workouts from HIIT to yoga. If the time I’ve been in therapy and listening more actively to God’s voice in my day to day has taught me one major thing, it’s to stop striving to do and just be. There is no perfection or arrival in this life. It’s a journey, and the things we do to better ourselves should be things that feed us and celebrate the gifts God has given us. I love my Jillian, and she will continue to be part of my journey, just not the focus most of the time-I am playing with the idea of a run through BodyShred at some point in the spring or summer maybe, depending on where I am and what my goals are then. That’s a long way off though.

For now, lots of yoga and working up to 60 minutes on the bike are the cornerstones.

November is going to be yoga shred month, continuing with what I’ve been working on this week with the paid version of Sadie’s classes on DOYOUYOGA. It should be an average of 40-45 minutes a day total.

December and January are going to be my first round of Yoga Foundations, in which I really start to deepen my practice for about an hour three times a week, and on the alternate days, about 30 minutes, with a 30 minute Jillian workout alongside.

After that I’ll explore more yoga, but I don’t have a concrete plan for that yet. There are tons of modules on Doyouyoga, but I may alternate a month of Shred with a month of Foundations for awhile, to pursue the goal of being ready to start teacher training.

I’m also going to continue walking 5-6 days a week, and on days weather does not permit, I’ll crank out a 30 minute Jillian Michaels app Cardio session. How the walking fits into my day is going to be kind of evolving, because the kids (mostly Lexi) are getting a bit burnt out on my hour long four mile walks. Ultimately I’d like to be doing it before they are up or at least before Scott leaves, but right now I’m just wrapping up the first week of getting up at seven, let alone six, so that’s gonna be a few more weeks to a month, at best.

For now I’m ok with doing my cycle class during naptime a couple times a week, but part of me would love to get that done early too, so it’s less of a burden hanging over me when I’m tired. If I do that though, it would mean skipping the early morning walk on those days. Maybe that would be okay, maybe I don’t need a sixty minute spin class *and* a four mile walk? These are questions I wrestle with. I don’t want to overtrain, but I also don’t want to feel super limited as far as food. I like to have room for the occasional splurge-more on the food stuff later.

Cycle: (Tuesday, Thursday, short class Saturday)

• Week 1: 20 min intervals arms
• Week 2: 30 min intervals/arms
• Week 3: 30 min any class
• Stay here until fully ready to move forward, at least 2-3 weeks.
• When ready, 45m intervals/arms.
• 2 weeks, then 45m classes
• Again, stay here at least 3 weeks, then start looking at 60 min classes on T/TR, and then from there on, choose among 45-60m classes on T/TR, mixing up types, and 20-30m on Saturday.

This should put me starting 60 minute classes by early January at the soonest.

It’s gonna get too cold to be walking at 6am at some point, and I’m not sure what I’ll do for light cardio on non cycle days then, maybe hook up the XBox 360 in the garage and play a Kinect game? Do we have room for that? Tag with Lexi in the backyard? Stay tuned…haha!

Even as I write this, I’m very aware of the fine line between healthy activity and overtraining, and I want to work smart, not hard. I look back at two times in my life when I felt the best, holistically, mentally, physically, spiritually, and this is what I was doing:

Fall 2011

• 60 min weight training (4x/week)
• 60 min spin class (3x/week)
• 60 min yoga class (4x/week)
• 60 min swim (once a week)
• 60 min walk (4x/week)
• 60 min Pilates (once a week)

Fall/Winter/Spring 2013/2014

• 60 min spin class (twice a week)
• 35 min HIIT (4x/week)
• 45-60 min walk (or Zumba game) (5-6x a week)

The first time, I was just discovering what my body could do and felt amazing. I was eating well, but not really tracking food, and got good results. The second time I got into the best shape of my life, and it was for a longer period, with continued tweaking and tracking of food, though as I look at my app, not as consistently as I remember, especially in that last few months, which is a shame because I’d really like to know how that last 20 lbs came off…

So what’s the breakdown of this new plan?

• 30 min HIIT (twice a week)
• 30-60 min yoga (5x/week)
• 30-60 min cycle (3x/week)
• 30-60 min walk or some other cardio (5x)

It’s basically the same as last time, but with the addition of Yoga. Yoga isn’t going to put a lot of strain on my body, so I’m not going to burn out that way, but I wonder if I still need the walk or other cardio on days I ride, with the yoga. I just enjoy all these forms of exercise, and I want it allll without overtraining or spending my whole life exercising. In 2013/2014 I really felt like I had that balance down. Walking was my podcast listening, head clearing time. This merits more thought. 🤔🤔🤔

As far as Food goes, I’ve got quality and prep nailed down pretty well, and the only thing I’m still not certain I’ve dialed in is calorie amount. I have my MFP app set at trying to lose 1.5 lbs a week (a 750 calorie a day deficit) and most days I don’t eat my allotment when you factor in exercise, and I’m not sure if I need to eat more back or not eat them back or what. I second guess my counts and burns a lot and I feel like if I was doing this correctly I’d have lost a lot of weight by now. But, I’ve also been under tremendous stress so, I need to be patient while I undo that. What I think I’ll do for now is keep my goal set where it is in the app, and try to leave no more than 250 calories on the table most days, thus keeping my deficit at no more than 1000, which has always been my rule. Note: this would all be easier if MFP still displayed “net Calories”, but for whatever reason they changed that at some point.

What am I trying to get out of this? What are my goal for this season of my health and fitness journey?

1. Continue to pursue whole self health, good food, supplements, self care, devotions, meditation, less negative input (more on this point in a future post)
2. Deepen and develop my yoga practice with the goal of starting my RYT 200 maybe next fall.
3. Regain my ability to thrive in a 60 minute spin class and reap the endorphin and energy rewards/increased spoons.
4. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still looking for my #ropesngunsnabs. But I think my view and the pressure has and is evolving. It’s less about how I look, more how I feel. I want the belly out of my way, when working out, and in life, I want to feel less self conscious when wearing jeans and having my picture taken. I want to be rid of the distraction again and feel more free. I’m sure as this evolves I’ll be able to share more.

Anyway, this is what’s ahead, and I could not be more excited! Thanks for joining me!