five minutes – The91Rewind

As you read last week, I have a modified goal of trying to follow our old 5 minutes may change your mind challenge. I have routinely struggled with making exercise a priority. I work full-time, I am the mom of a toddler and a four year old, I have a side hustle, and I’m on the go A LOT for work. Can I do this challenge? I’m not sure, but five minutes may be changing my mind…

Day One:

I was determined to start the month off the right way. My kids wanted to get outside, so who was I to say no? We set out on a walk, knowing we would get at least 5 minutes in. To make the job harder on myself I had both kids get in the stroller, which meant I was pushing at least 60 pounds of “kid”. Then my oldest decided she needed to get out of the stroller about seven minutes in. With her walking in jelly sandals I knew this wasn’t going to last long so we began to head back. We made it a total of fourteen minutes. I’ll call this a success!

Day Two:

This day was destined to be a sh*tshow. I had four separate appointments for work, along with an evening event as well. In between the normal workday and the evening event, I needed to pick up my friends daughter from preschool. Afterwards, I needed to pick up my daughters and trade off of kids and vehicles with the Hubs. Turns out he had his work car, which meant there was no room for an extra kiddos…This also meant I wasn’t going to make my evening event. I stayed at dance with all three girls, wearing the toddler on my back in the Ergo carrier. I walked all over the studio, trying to keep all of them entertained while we waited on pictures to happen. Needless to say I did not intentionally exercise, but I’ll count the frantic running everywhere and babywearing as a workout. At least, it felt like one!

Day Three:

I managed to squeeze in a short walk outside in between things at work. Was it much of a walk? No, but it was better than day two.

Day Four:

At 5:33 am I received a text from a friend asking if I wanted to meet up before dinner to squeeze in a walk. She knew about this challenge and wanted to help me stay on track before our dinner with friends. I arrived early for dinner, got the toddler all wrapped on my back, and had the four year old ready to head out with us. Next thing I know everyone starts showing up and beergaritas are getting passed out. I kept the heavy toddler on my back for at least a half hour then, and again for 45 minutes later. I failed to get my walk in, but i’m counting this toddler hauling as my workout.

Day Five:

Today was a FULL day. I had breakfast with my family, met up with some Richmond area moms to dream about Mama Tribe RVA. After that I was off to Bloom, which was hosted by the Richmond Moms Blog. As one of their new contributors and social media manager, I was there the whole time walking around and helping with clean up. For over four hours, I was here, there, and everywhere. All this walking and lifting and clean was absolutely a workout. After it was done, all I wanted was rest and time with my babies.

Day Six:

I don’t know what happened. Church, restless kids, a little housework and an evening meal later…Suddenly, it was 9pm! Day six came and went without a workout, but I found myself missing it. I knew I didn’t get it in and was frustrated. That’s something, right?

Day Seven:

It is the final day of week one, and I got a solid twenty minute walk in. This may be my best day of the challenge thus far. I kept both kids in the stroller, which meant I was walking and pushing that almost 60 pounds. I actually looked forward to AND enjoyed my workout today. so I’m calling this a win.

Recap…

So, did I complete my 5 minute workout streak for the first week of May? No, I had one day that was barely passable and another where I didn’t complete my workout at all. Technically this may have been a fail, BUT it was a learning experience. I’ve realized that I enjoy taking time each day to get up and be active, BUT it’s hard to make this a priority. The good news is that I’m going to stick with it and see if I can’t make week 2 a little better. Am I going to beat myself up over how week one went? Hell NO! Am I aiming to do better during week two? HELLS YES! Stay tuned!

Time is everything; it’s money, it’s irreplaceable, it’s of the essence. It’s free, but priceless. You can make it, spend it, but you can’t own it. Time is one resource that is rarely in abundance, so we have to manage it wisely.Many people tell me that they don’t work out because they don’t have time. Well, I’m here this month to dispel that myth. We do have time, I promise! We just might have to get creative in our quest to find it. For the month of May, I invite you to try something new with me. I believe that 5 minutes each day MAY just change your mind about exercise and results.

Take five little minutes each day to focus on you, to give back to yourself, to start progressing towards your healthy and happy future. No fancy equipment required, no gym memberships needed, no running, no burpees. It’s simple: five exercises, 1 minute each, once a day for a month. Ready join me?

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Let’s do this! Here are the exercises:

Roll Ups – lay down on your back with your legs out straight and arms extended overhead. Take a deep breath in. As you breath out use your abdominal muscles to roll yourself off the floor into a seated position. Try to lift one vertebrae off the floor at a time without arching your low back. If you dont get all the way up, stop where you get stuck. Roll back down and repeat for 1 minute

Goddess Squat – standing with your feet apart. Make sure they are just outside shoulder width distance and your toes are pointed forward. Bend your knees as far as you can without lifting your heels up. Return to standing while squeezing your quads and booty on the way up. Repeat for 1 minute.

Arm circles – start standing with feet slightly apart. Raise your straight arms up to the sides so your hands are even with your shoulders. Keeping your arms straight, make circles forward and backward. Size doesn’t matter, make them big or small, make them big and small, just keep moving those straight arms for 1 minute.

Crossover toe touch – start standing with feet wide (slightly wider than goddess squat) and arms out to the sides like in the arm circles. Keeping legs and arms straight, reach your right arm towards your left leg by bending slightly at the waist and twisting your torso. If you can make contact with your knee, shin, or ankle GREAT! If not, just reach as far as you can. Return to standing and repeat on the other side, again taking care to keep legs and arms extended straight. Repeat on each side as many times as you can for 1 minute.

Plank – start laying on the ground. Place your hands (with fingers pointed forward) directly underneath your shoulders and flex your feet so the balls of your feet are in contact with the floor. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, lift your body off the floor by pushing into the floor with hands and feet and straightening your arms. Maintain the body alignment by squeezing your thighs, booty, and core.Hold as long as you can, lower carefully back down with control. If you can’t straighten your arms and come all the way up, that’s okay! Try to push yourself up while keeping your knees on the ground. Again, make sure to squeeze your legs, booty, and core to keep the back nice and straight. You don’t have to hold plank for a full minute, just hold as long as you can and repeat as many times as you can in that 1 minute.

That’s it! While this will not transform you into a body builder in a single month, these are total body exercises that will challenge you. As you work through the month you should find that it gets easier to complete these moves. You should see an increase in the number of reps you can complete in each 1-minute round. All of this is progress – a sweet affirmation that your effort and time are well spent.

Now that you have the moves, the plan is totally up to you. You can do these moves pretty much anywhere and adapt the schedule to fit your lifestyle. Let’s say that you have a hectic day and forget your workout one day. Fear not, just double up the next day. Maybe you’re going out of town for the weekend and know you won’t have the time. Feel free to work ahead! Let’s say you’re like me and you sit at a desk all day, why not use the 1-minute rounds to take a break from being seated? Just so you know, I’ve been caught doing squats or planks in an empty conference room many times…If they ask, I just tell people I was getting tired and needed to wake up – they buy it EVERY time!

There will be good days and bad days, but they are all important. There will be days that we don’t get our workout in, despite our best efforts. Keep at it anyway. It will be hard – that’s why it’s called a challenge! Starting small, dedicating roughly 5 minutes a day, we can develop great habits that will stay with us in the long run. This challenge will prove that dedication and consistency, even in small doses, can bring us closer to our goals.

Will you join me this May in the 5-minute challenge? I sure hope so. Think of all the positive feelings you will enjoy after completing it. If you can make progress with 5 minutes a day, imagine what you can do by giving just a little more.

Best of luck to you my fierce fabulous femmes!

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