Today was tough. I didn’t want to get out of bed, and had no inspiration at all … ridiculously lazy … waa waa waa. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky! What more do you want, slacker?!

Maybe my threshold for something new is one week? I’ve read it takes 21 days to form a habit. It’s day seven and I could feel myself returning to my old ways of thinking – What’s the point? Enjoy life as you are! Who wants to be an exercise junkie? I’m happy with the way I am. You need extra fat in winter and so on and so on … Some days really are a mental challenge.

So what if I have absolutely no upper body strength and everything creaks and cracks when I exercise? Who cares about the clothes that don’t fit, the spare tyre and those wobbly bits? Well, actually I’m not so worried about the wobbly bits. I’m worried a sedentary lifestyle is going to be hard to change the older I get, and that my body will set into a premature rigor mortis. I don’t want simple things like tying up my shoelaces to become a massive issue. I don’t want to be old before my time. I used to pride myself on how flexible I was, doing the splits etc, and kinda thought it would always be that way.

Ahh, wrong. Now I strain to touch my toes with straight legs and have issues with my left wrist (weird bone in the joint, no strength for years), left shoulder (skiing fall in 2012, crunches when raised), left knee (snapped cruciate ligament skiing in 1996, which still aches in cold weather) and right foot (yay, finally something on the right! A fractured bone in 1999). All these things still cause problems, and I feel them when I exercise like I did today.

I did a Jillian Michaels workout for just under 30 minutes. It’s the Level 1 class of her 30-Day Shred series. Click here if you want to see the video. I’d never done this ‘class’ before (I did some of her yoga videos on YouTube last year) and there were push ups *gasp* and squats with weighted arm raises *groan*. Everything that makes my left side go ouch. To top it off, I twinged something in my left ankle doing the skipping on the concrete terrace a few days ago. What a sorry sack I am – can you grasp my mood today?!

Ok, time to lift it a bit. The video was fun, I raised a sweat just doing the beginner-level exercises, and I feel great. I laughed about hitting my hands on the ceiling when doing the star jumps, and before I knew it, we were doing the warm down. How did that time just go so fast?

If you don’t feel like exercising, think about the habit you’re trying to form. Every day for a minimum of 15 minutes. The class really did fly by – I was done before I could stop whining and I’m happy I didn’t give in. Keep at it! Every little bit counts. Why not look up some other exercise videos on YouTube to have ready for a rainy day?

As a giggle, I’d like to show you our lounge room, so you can see how low the ceiling is. I have to do star jumps with my hands either side of the centre beam and there’s no chance of ever doing a clap at the top!

Wishing you a great day.

This is my hand stretched out in front. If I hold it straight up, I can lay it flat on the white ceiling while flat footed.

I push the coffee table into the dining area (where I’m standing), lay out my yoga mat (or a towel) and use tins of chick peas as my weights.