For some, quarantine was a time to reflect on things and learn new skills. For others it was a time of worry and stress, others still lost track of time, ate and drank too much and became surgically attached to the sofa, wondering if things would ever find some sense of ‘normality’ again! We weren’t all in the same boat, but we were all in the same storm, weathering our own very personal situations as best we could. There’s many mental health issues associated with all of those things, but this blog post is about the physical aspect of coming out of quarantine.

In a short time we will all be emerging from various states and severity of quarantine, venturing back into the world at large. So now is a good time to take a few minutes to assess your health and fitness. Did you use lockdown to spend some time getting fitter or did you, like so many of us, eat your feelings (no judgement here, we all did what we needed to do to cope with the physical restrictions and emotional fallout!) and gain weight, lose cardio fitness and generally let things slide? Nothing wrong with that, we all have coping mechanisms and during an historic event, the likes of which none of us have ever seen before, we each revert to our places of safety, of comfort, but these, much as many other coping strategies, aren’t sustainable. It’s time to assess your fitness levels and get yourself on the healthy track again.

I’m not into body shaming and I don’t like judging or being judged by the world, my concerns are more about health. To me it’s more about a healthy lifestyle and decreasing your likelihood of life changing diseases than whether you have a flat stomach, big biceps or glutes to die for!

So what can we do to get ourselves back on track? We don’t have to spend days on a treadmill or survive on celery for weeks, that’s not sustainable either and can actually do more harm than good. What we can do is create some new healthier habits, a whole lifestyle change, not just a ‘diet’. Diets come and go, fads and crazes and most are destined to fail as they are effective short term but practically impossible to maintain for longer periods of time. I don’t deny myself anything, I eat whatever I feel like eating with a few modifications and everything in moderation. It’s not always easy and of course there are ‘cheat’ days which aren’t actually cheat days, but ‘slid off the rails’ days, but pick yourself up, dust it off and get back on it. I say these things have to be whole lifestyle changes as that will make them viable for the long term, not just a few pounds over a few weeks. Slightly smaller portions, lower in some fats, less processed foods full of sugars, more vegetables and fruits and a couple of bits of chocolate instead of finishing the whole bar (yes I’ve done that plenty!) I’ve coupled this with some gentle exercising. I go for gentle walks ( I sometimes run too, but that’s my personal choice) to get around six thousand steps a day in. I do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) three times a week. Sounds scary I know, but it’s literally ten or fifteen minutes of intermittent hard exercise and a few seconds rest, which I’ve personally found to be VERY effective, not only for cardio, but also for weight loss. Coupled with this I also do a half hour yoga session three times a week at beginners level. It helps with flexibility, strength and focus and is really gentle and relaxing. None of these things have to be expensive, they can be done at home with little or no equipment and following tutorials on YouTube in the comfort of your own space.

A combination of these things has, for me, proved invaluable and I’ve lost over three stone (around 50lbs!) since Sept last year and gained muscle mass and vastly improved my cardio and overall fitness levels. I’ve had a little help and guidance but most of it has been self taught and self motivated and the results have been undeniable and relatively easy to sustain over a longer period than ‘just’ a diet.

If you’d like to try some of these things, feel free to message me for some ideas or why not try https://fiverr.com/upbeatoutlook/write-a-personalised-health-and-fitness-plan-for-you for a pretty cheap and effective way to get started on your road to a happier healthier future.

I’m not feeling great today if I’m honest. I’ve got my set of morning rituals to get myself going, to motivate and energise me; journaling, goal setting and working out, but today is still difficult.

Every day it feels like the reset button is pushed and it all goes back to zero. Each morning I wake up and I use Mel Robbins ‘five second rule’ to start the battle and actually get out of bed. A battle to get going, a battle with my mind knowing that I cannot let the negativity draw me back in, that I MUST live for today and not start my new day dwelling on everything that has already happened, carrying that forward from the past and into my future. I force myself to find my gratitude and something to be positive about. This morning I ache and I’m tired, it all adds to the battle, making the task harder. I put my morning habits in place to drive me forward, but it’s genuinely like being a recovering alcoholic. The siren song of the known and comfortable negativity is overwhelming sometimes. I must resist, always resist, don’t slip back into self destructive thought patterns and habits. The self flagellation, the self doubt, the stress, the fear, the anger, the self loathing and feeling sorry for myself. I know that place, I know it only too well, for too long and I know I don’t want or need to go back there. It’s like a magnet and it takes enormous effort and will power EVERY…SINGLE…DAY to maintain, let alone move forward. Some days I manage to boost myself to a point where I feel good, even great. I feel positive and upbeat and hopeful and I know that life is good. That fire burns, sometimes it rages all day, but over night, the fire dies and every morning I’m blowing on the near dead embers, trying to coax a flicker of a flame again, to warm me through another day. Sometimes just the sadness of remembering the good days makes another good day seem improbable if not impossible. It’s tiring, it takes time and effort every day to NOT slide back, to NOT give in, to NOT allow myself a ‘it’s OK to not be OK’ day, but occasionally it wins and I have a lazy, feeling crappy kind of day. When I slide THAT low again, I know it really IS OK and I know it happens, but I also know that the climb back up is that much harder to get back to any kind of acceptable level, that it will take me days of consistent, persistent effort to lift myself out of the doldrums again, rather than sip from the devils cup of negativity and wallow back in the dark. So every day is a choice. A choice to carry on forward with hope, with faith in…something of a future, each day a new step, each day renewed efforts but ultimately that choice has to be made every morning or there’d be no more mornings worth anything. So I wake up, I make my choices and I find my attitude of gratitude and I smile. Sometimes my smile barely veils the pain inside, other days it beams from the heart. Those days we celebrate, the other days we tolerate, but every day is a battle we must win.

Well here’s the first post. In brief I’ll be posting about things that fascinate me concerning Physical health and fitness, mental health and fitness, positivity and general upbeat news and ways of improving yourself in any way. Welcome to the blog, I hope you enjoy your visit and find the content as interesting as I do 🙂

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.