When Life Gets in the Way

Throughout the years, so many of us have set fitness related goals for ourselves, ranging from simple New Year's resolutions, to shedding a few pounds to impress that special someone, to even being told by a doctor you need to lose weight for your health. But what do we do when life happens to get in the way of these goals?

Recently, my in-laws came down to visit for a few weeks, and because my wife and I don't get to see them very often, we naturally spent much of our time with them. This, of course, makes it somewhat difficult to keep a good workout schedule going.

In between hiding and trying to accomplish some real work, I was left with the task this week of mowing the lawn, weeding, and spreading mulch around my property. This may seem menial to some, but when you live on just over half an acre and you're John Deere is out of commission, it can take up more time than you'd think.

Luckily for me, my father-in-law happens to love gardening, so after enlisting his help, we were able to tackle  the yard work and even plant a few bushes while we were at it. But back to the point at hand; how I managed to workout with so much going on this week.

First of all, I'd like to re-iterate that it's important to remember it's not the end of the world if you miss a workout, so don't get down on yourself if it happens. Second, the purpose of this experiment has been to prove that you can do a full body workout in under 20 minutes, so hopefully you have some time away from your in-laws in the mornings when you wake up or at night before you go to bed (unless you live in a Studio Apartment...)

So with that being said, I spent most of my mornings this week working out before I was rushed off to The Home Depot. And despite what you may think, it actually invigorated me throughout the rest of the day!

On a quick note, I added two new exercises this week to liven up the workouts. I've begun doing Burpee Jacks (combo of Burpees and Jumping Jacks) as well as One-Legged Burpees, and my results from the week are listed below.

Date	Workout	Sets	Total Time	Beak Time Per Set	Total Burpees
4/2/2012	One-Leg	4	4 min  35 sec	40 sec	40
4/3/2012	Ladder	15	19 min 50 sec	60 sec	120
4/4/2012	Pull-up	6	9 min 28 sec	50 sec	60
4/5/2012	REST
4/6/2012	Jacks	6	5 min 39 sec	30 sec	60
4/7/2012	Mix	7	11 min 19 sec	60 sec	70
4/8/2012	REST

I'll leave you today with a great quote from a great leader, Sir Winston Churchill:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

L&R,

Drew