Daylight Savings Led to Mixed Success

​Well, the experiment of trying to increase the frequency and regularity of my workouts by decreasing 
their intensity, and create for me a whole new set of routine habits, has had mixed results over the last 
two weeks. 

I was able to get nine workouts in a row after my last posting, and then we did the whole 
spring forward Daylight Savings thing. Somehow that extra hour in the morning made it really hard to
get up and I missed a full week of workouts.

Now, over the last two days I have been able to get up fairly comfortably and get in my warm up
run and a decent work out, albeit, as I had planned, with fairly light intensity.

I really did not think it was going to be this difficult to establish a new routine. It has been a struggle,
and I often lay awake in the early morning debating whether I want to get out of bed and work out.
It's just not an automatic got to do it kind of thing yet.

I can tell that my strength and muscle endurance has been decreasing a bit since I retired, but I'm
trying to be gentle with myself as I again, try to establish a whole new set of routines.

One of the saving grace is is that I have been able to be fairly disciplined with my nutrition so I am
not really gaining any weight.

Not sure what the competition schedule will look like this year since I am in the midst of such
change, but I'm not taking everything off the board yet.

I Missed Three Workouts This Week

You absolutely cannot over estimate the power of habit in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and consistent training program. Over the past week I missed three workouts. That's actually more but I missed in the entirety of last year and it's all due to trying to establish new habits

Whereas pre-retirement, I always used to hit the gym immediately after work, I now am trying to get up and get my primary workout in before breakfast. This is just not easy to do and it is not yet an established habit. At the same time, waiting until later in the day to get a workout in, is just not working either. If I wait until later, I always find something else that I would rather do. So, early mornings is the most viable time, but that habit is just not yet established.

My current plan, is to continue to try to get up early, take a brief run to get my core temperature elevated, and then hit the gym. The secret will be to ease back on the intensity until the habit is firmly established. In that way, I think I can get myself out of bed and get to the gym without any feeling of dread or trepidation. If I can maintain that habit for 4 to 6 weeks, I think I can then try to up the intensity.

To date, I've been able to get 2 to 3 weeks of study workouts in before I fall back into wanting to sleep in. But, I think it's because I've upped the intensity too soon and I just can't force myself to get out of bed to face those heavy weights.

I'll report back in a few days and tell you how it's going.