Making Time...

This week, I have decided to have a theme. And this theme is going to be part of my weekly goals.

This week's theme? Making time. I have always overused the excuse that I don't have time...time for tracking, time for exercise, time for planning, time for cooking, time, time, time.

On Friday with my gym renewal I made the first step towards making time. How did I do this? Well, first I put on my big girl panties and sucked it up. Then I chose the solution that would work best with the very little time that I do actually have.

Monday through Wednesday, I am out of my house from 8:30 am until approximately 9:00 pm. In that time I work roughly 10-12 hours (two different jobs). What I wasn't utilising before was the break in between those jobs. I have at least an hour and a half between my regular job and my freelance job. Not only that, my freelance job is like a 2 minute walk away from my regular job. Why was I waiting until I got home to go to the gym? Under my old plan, that was the only way it would work because I had cancelled my gym membership when I bought my condo. Too expensive. I also started a new job and took a slight pay cut. Add that all up with monthly maintenance fees I pay to my building and I was gonna try and make the gym in my condo work.

It didn't work. Getting home at 9:00 pm and going to work out didn't work. I fooled myself for months thinking that I would do it. Or, if I didn't, that I would wake up early and work out then. Pshaw is all I have to say to that. I know myself, and that was just a farce. I would wake up in the middle of the night and think "oh my god, I am so tired, I can't get up early to work out!" and I'd switch my alarm to my regular one. Well, duh, of course I'm tired...it would be like 3 fricking am in the morning for crying out loud! Then I would argue with myself that well, I could go Thursday and Friday cause I have those nights free. Well, I was either exhausted by that point, or the gym was freaking busy. So in the end, nothing really happened.

Anyway, to get back on track, this whole gym in condo thing wasn't working, and I could no longer fool myself into thinking that it was working. It's not like I was getting smaller (bigger in fact). Also, I have begun to notice that when I am not working out, I pay less attention to what I am eating because it's like I've given up on taking care of myself.

So, to make a short story long, and to get back to my original point, the gym I joined (with a membership that gives me access to any Goodlife in Canada), is a mere block away from my work. I can work out AT LUNCH if I want to! That's huge (there are some cool looking classes that are only 30 minutes long). And since it's so close to my regular and freelance job, I can get something in between the two on Monday and Wednesday. And finally, since it's on the way home, what excuse do I have? None really.

This worked well for me before when I was at Goodlife last year, and my work was on the way. It's motivation, cause it's staring at you in the face on your way home. Hard to ignore that.

This is what I meant by making time. I have the class list. I am going to sit down and plan out at least 2 weeks. Anything more is asking a lot from someone who makes a plan to work out in the morning and wakes up at 3 am to change that plan. I can fit in my run and stretching between regular and freelance jobs, and for the other days, well, it's on the way home, staring me in the face.

This week is learning how to make my schedule work. I don't know how other people with crazy lives do it, but this is the way that I've come up with to do it for me.

I'll check back on Friday to post how it went. More than anything, this is about making the time for me, and what I need to be healthy and happy.