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January 17: Bad weather + no motivation = 15 minutes again

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Beautiful snow and the desire to be lazy kept us indoors today. I printed a handful of pictures for the hanging photo mobile Christmas present from Gabby, read a little bit and watched some episodes of Inspector Montalbano and Grand Designs.

This morning’s meditation was a bit different – because the office was noisy (with whirring computers doing updates), I sat on the bed near the window. After about five minutes, it was impossible to keep my eyes closed, knowing how wonderful it looked outside. So I sat in contemplation, wide-eyed, listening to the music, watching the flakes float steadily down. It was pretty heavenly.

It’s okay to change it up, don’t you think, when something so mesmerising and calming is happening around you?

But yet again, this lazy phase means it’s after 11pm and I still haven’t done my 15 minutes. I need to form a weekend habit to exercise before noon. This is becoming a bit silly.

So excuse me again, while I get stuck into some sit ups and so on …

…

Well, I think that’s going to hurt tomorrow! I thought I’d try for 15 minutes of sit ups … after two minutes of full sit ups, holding the tins, I checked the stopwatch. Then again at three minutes. So I called it quits after five minutes. Then I did eight minutes of leg exercises (four different exercises, for one minute each, lying on my right, then left, side), one minute of bent knee push ups, then one minute of arm exercises with the tins.

I promise I’ll mix it up a bit more in the next few days, for your (and my) sanity!

Speaking of mixing it up, I thought you might like to read some articles I found interesting this past week from a variety of sources – friends posting things on social media, websites I read and so on.

1. Aussie scientists may have a new fat-burning solution

2. Why exercise doesn’t always help you lose weight

3. Optimistic people have healthier hearts

4. Otters derailing conversations – something humorous to break up these health stories!

5. Zero Waste Home’s one year of waste – I read this blog regularly. Bea is an amazing, focussed woman!

Wishing you all a wonderful remainder of the weekend.

January 14: Weather turns the day upside down

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Pastora, Iva, Jaime and I planned to do a five-hour walk today along the winding Aare river, from Wohlen bei Bern into the city. The rain gods decided to have a hoedown, or maybe it was a rave, at 5am, and that was the end of that idea.

It rained all morning – the ground was mush, the wind was high, the seas were rough … I made that last one up.

So we turned a day of activity into a day of inactivity. We ate too much, drank a little, talked non-stop and played a board game Iva brought along. Importantly, we laughed a lot. We may not have that satisfied kind of exhaustion we were hoping to have from a long walk, but we achieved it in another form from solid rainy-day fun.

Hence, I’ve just completed 15 minutes of strength exercises before going to bed. My arms and shoulders certainly feel yesterday’s yoga efforts, so I thought I’d try five minutes of stomach crunches (arms behind the ears and elbows out of sight), five minutes of upside down cycling (lying on my back, legs in the air, peddling fast) and then five minutes of squat variations holding my trusty chick pea tins.

Not sure if the cycling achieved as much as the other exercises, other than noticing my noisy knees, but it was good to do something new.

Speaking of new, a friend, Jac, suggested my next exercise challenge should be to dance like no one is watching, and tomorrow I’m going to do just that. I might even tell you my play list.

Wishing you a wonderful day.