My Workout Update

Note: My workout update contains affiliate links and is done in part with Adidas. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Something Good.

Back in September, I shared with all of you that I was switching up my workout routine. Some changes had been going on in my life and it felt like one of the things that really needed to change. Well now that it’s been a few months (and the beginning of a new year), I thought it’d be the perfect time to check in and share my workout update with you and how it’s been going. Plus, I’ll share with you some of the goals I have in mind for this new year.

Strength Training

I got into strength training because of my boyfriend (he swears by it) and I have to say, I really love it! It’s a shorter workout that I can easily squeeze in either by myself or go to the gym with my boyfriend when he works outs. I also love being able to see my progress during every workout. Just being able to increase my weight during each workout feels so satisfying.

Orange Theory Fitness

I tried Orange Theory for about a month. While I enjoyed it, at the end of the day I decided it just wasn’t for me. I liked some of the workouts and the fact that I could adjust everything. But I was talking to some of my friends who have been going to an OTF that’s been open longer and they were telling me about some of the workouts that were to come. What I heard sounded like not my cup of tea. It was very much a “good for you, not for me” situation. Knowing this, and that there were other workouts I enjoyed more, I decided to leave it behind.

Classpass

Around the same time that my time with Orange Theory was ending, I got an invite from a friend for an incredibly discounted month of Classpass. I’ll be completely honest with you for a minute: I’ve been aware of Classpass (and I’ve tried it) since it first started. I know about all of their iterations and the company has really bothered me. But, I heard about all of the changes that they made and when I looked into how the program is currently run, I decided I really liked it. (PS if you click on this link, you can get the same deal that I did.)

Instead of buying a monthly pack of classes, you buy a monthly pack of credits. You can then use these credits to book classes at studios all over the city, each class being worth a different amount of credits. If you run out of credits before the end of the month, you can buy more. Since thanks to the promotion from a friend, I would get 35 credits for $5, it seemed like a no brainer to try it.

Solidcore

God, this is like my journey through trendy classes. Anyways, after signing up for Classpass and browsing through their class options, I noticed that the Solidcore near my apartment offered a beginner class. You see, I had tried a Solidcore about 6 months earlier and it nearly killed me. I also had no idea what was going on. BUT, I knew it was a good workout and I had some friends who swore by it at that point. So I figured that maybe it was best to try out a beginner class and get my bearings first.

Oh my gosh, what a difference a beginner class makes! The teacher was amazing and broke down EVERYTHING. I finally understood what was going on in the class and how to properly use the machine. I even enjoyed class, as difficult as it was.

While I can’t really afford the classes on my own (they’re a little pricey), thanks to Classpass, I’ve been able to go about once a week. Combine with my other exercise, once a week has been perfect.

Barre3

Around the beginning of December, I realized that my body was really starting to miss barre classes. The break was great, but I wanted to bring it back into my life. Fate seemed to hear me, because a Barre3 studio had opened up near one of my friends and was offering a free class to anyone who was interested! I went with my friend Dawn and loved it! It was different from other barre classes I had taken, but I knew it was what I was missing. Even better, there was another Barre3 studio already open near my apartment.

Thanks to classpass, I was able to test out that studio and I’ve quickly fallen in love with it. Thanks to their January challenge, I was able to get a month unlimited for $99 and I’ve been taking full advantage of it. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do post-January, but I’m taking full advantage now.Y

Fitbit

I can’t forget about the fitbit! I won’t lie to you, my steps weren’t great last year. Thanks to some metro mess ups, I ubered to work more than normal and didn’t walk around that much. But, walking around Paris so much for vacation was so satisfying that I wanted to keep it up when I came back to the US! Of course, three days after I got back, I got terribly sick and got an average of 100 steps for like 4 days. But since then, I’ve been working hard to hit at least 10,000 steps every day. Yes, it’s an arbitrary number, but it’s also a number I know I can’t hit if I’m being lazy. So if anything, it forces me to get up and move around more than I would otherwise. It also gives me a lot more time to listen to my audiobooks.

So that’s my workout update. But now we have something else we need to tackle.

My (Realistic) Goals for This New Year

Uhhhh, that was a lot for my workout update. So where am I going with this? Or rather where do I want to be when I share my workout update next time?

Exercise

Well, right now I’m focusing on Barre3, Solidcore (through Classpass), strength training, and walking. My goal is to do some form of strength training twice a week, one solidcore class (I’ve slacked on this in the last month), and then barre fills out the rest. Is this going to happen every week? Hopefully! Giving myself a layout like this helps give me something to adhere to and more of a chance to actually doing it.

Walking

I’m still aiming for my daily goal of 10,000. Yes, I could try to increase it, but I’m trying to be realistic here people! 10,000 is an amount that seems do-able to me, but as I mentioned before, not easy.

Eating

I feel like I had to mention this. I am not a dieter. Great to those who are, but again, “good for you, not for me.” Instead, I’m going to continue to focus on my goal of continuing to try to put things into my body that are healthy. What does this mean for me? Including a side of vegetables with my meal has been a big one. Also, making sure I have my own snacks has been really important.

Finally, the other thing I want to make sure I’m doing is eating when I’m actually hungry and stopping when I’m full. It seems like such a simple concept, but I can’t be the only one finding myself reaching for something to snack on when I’m bored. Right? Hopefully I can’t start to slow down that behavior this year, if not put a full stop to it.

I think those all feel like realistic goals, right? What really helps me is that I’m not doing any of them in pursuit of losing weight. I’m doing all of this because I want to feel good. I want to feel in shape and stay that way. Losing weight can be a good thing to strive for, but for me, just feeling great about myself is the ultimate goal.