Don’t let my silence on the subject fool you into thinking I’m not taking that twenty minutes to myself each day. I am. I’ve just been a little embarrassed to mention just how I’m spending those twenty minutes. We’ve had about the mildest winter that I can remember, and we were still experiencing those mild temps and sunny afternoons when I made that pledge to myself. And then it got cold, snowed a bit, and stayed gray and gloomy, meaning the longer days didn’t look any longer and outdoor walking in the early evenings was out. So I instituted Plan B. It actually coincided with my annual physical where I told my doctor that everything was going great but my only complaint is the frequent neck / upper back strain that I have. It’s like I “tweak” my neck or shoulder blade area a lot. I think it’s because I carry a thirty+ pound kid on my left hip a lot, plus the strapping and unstrapping of the carseat in a small sedan, the hoisting of overfilled large canvas bags of groceries from the street to the house, etc, etc… more than exercise I was looking for more balance in my body (and my life). I need a good stretch. And yoga (while I love it), puts me to sleep at night, and night is when I gear up to do a lot of stuff. The other thing that limits me is that once I get home from work I don’t want to leave – my family, my projects, my warm house. Night time gym time just isn’t me.
My doctor mentioned that while yoga and pilates and the like were good things to do, she really felt like doing some type of Zumba exercise would be really good for the stretching / mobility / upper body-shoulder-neck strength and flexibility. Plus it’s essentially one long dance video, and since I’m doing it on the Wii, E’s doing it with me each night. We’re having a blast. And even though I’ve just been doing it for a couple of weeks, I do feel a lot less tension in my upper body. Trust me – you don’t want to watch me do it, but we’re tearing it up every night in the living room around eight.
I’d love to know how you fill your “twenty minutes” a day. Especially if it also involves wearing a game controller on a hip band. I’m rockin’ the look, I tell you.
Miscellaneous stuff: I changed the setting on the blog so that you (and I) can reply to individual comments. Hooray! I try my best to always get back to people in the comments section if there are questions. This might make it a little clearer and you can also talk amongst yourself. Chat it up.
We used last week’s good news as an excuse to buy a new Wii after the last one had issues, so we’re still figuring out which games to have (obviously have the ones from before, deciding what to buy new) – I may have to check out that one to up my at home stretching quotient.
It’s not bad, but it’s fast paced and requires a lot of room to move around. We have to push back the furniture to do it!
Thankfully my work has a shower, so I try to fit in a 3-5 mile run at lunch a few times a week. Although, depending on what’s going on those particular days I run, I often breathe in more than a healthy share of jet fumes. 🙂
We have a shower too, but I’m afraid I’d still look like a red tomato all afternoon if I went for a lunch run!