A while back I wrote a post about block scheduling. I schedule quite literally every moment of my day. There is very little white space during waking hours. Hell, even my afternoons or *gasps* full days off are color coded purple for Personal Time. Having be given this information it probably won’t come as a shock to you that I plan out my workout schedule. I don’t do this because I am some fitness Nazi; but  because if there is no pink block on that day, I won’t move my body.

I consider each block in my day an appointment.

Now, most of my “appointments” are flexible; I can move them around as long as they do get completed on that day. This discipline and determination comes from years of being self-employed — if I don’t do it no one else is going to either.

I know that moving my body for at least 30 minutes a day is going to not only serve me, but serve others. It is my time to celebrate me. I won’t lie to you and tell you that I go pedal to the metal 6 days a week. In fact, I usually only do crazy intense workouts once or twice a week. I do move my body every day though, be it a Turbo Kick workout, walking, yoga, or lifting weights. My goal isn’t to kill myself, my goal is to get my blood pumping and my body moving.

I used to strictly follow workout schedules formulated by someone else but as soon as I missed one of the workouts I would just throw the whole thing out the window and feel like I failed and beat myself up about it. Super healthy for me, yeah?

You see, I have this problem with rules; they were made to be broken. It took me a really long time to realize that it is okay to skip a workout and just because I missed it, doesn’t mean I can’t just scootch everything back a day or hey, maybe just not do that workout at all. It’s novel!

Now that you understand the why; let’s move on to how I go about the workout schedule.

I have created a recurring event each Wednesday & Friday morning; this is when Turbo Kick is. I try to make at least one class per week. Sometimes my sub schedule doesn’t allow it, but usually 1 class per week is not an issue.

At the beginning of the month I go through my schedule and add my workouts in. Remember I said I used to follow these programs made by others? I still use them loosely as a template. I make a tentative schedule of what I want to do, usually it involves lifting weights a couple of days, one or two days include cardio (turbo kick), with walking distributed throughout. And then at the beginning of the week I will evaluate how I feel and refine the schedule.

I have become pretty in-tune with what my body wants and needs.

I’m not going to force her to do something she doesn’t feel she can because that is what is on the calendar that day. I refuse to feel bad about switching a lifting day to yoga or walking.

Now, there is a difference between want and ability. If I didn’t get a workout completed in the morning by the evening I might not want to do it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.

A while back I suffered from adrenal fatigue; I quite literally could not walk for more than 20 or 30 minutes without being utterly exhausted. During that time I had to really listen to what my body needed. Trying to go to a Turbo Kick class or lifting would have done more harm than good. I took care of her, healed her, and was able to return to regular activity.

If you’ve been reading my blog posts regularly you might notice my affinity for mentioning self care. It has either thoroughly annoyed you or you’ve started to realize that maybe it’s as important as I make it sound.

I’m hoping for the latter.

It is so very important to take care of you above all else. The way I practice isn’t going to be the same as the way you practice. We’re all different. I just hope that you get some ideas to incorporate into your life!