rowing - Koritha Mitchell

Performance Over Appearance

April 19, 2015 by Koritha 5 Comments

Last week, I declared that my goal this week would be to prioritize clean eating, yoga, and more cardiovascular exercise. I’m pleased to report that my eating was on target. I want to make yoga part of my daily routine, but that habit is far from formed. (I had substantial yoga sessions on Monday and Saturday and a mini-session today.) I met my weekly goal of 3 workouts, though. I had personal training sessions on Monday and Wednesday, I walked 5.25 miles on Wednesday, and I had a 45-minute walk/run treadmill session today in addition to mowing the lawn.

As I prepare for the coming week, I’m declaring the exact same goals and hoping to hit more of my targets. I want to stay with mostly home-cooked meals composed mostly of vegetables. (I’m about to cook veggies for the week right now.) Eating processed food doesn’t keep me feeling energized, and I am focusing on how I feel and what my body can do. With quality energy from whole foods, I will continue to work toward solidifying my yoga and cardio habits.

To get me in the right frame of mind, I’m revisiting what has become one of my favorite videos of all time. This always puts me in a great mood. Everyone is focusing on what their bodies can do. THAT’S where it’s at, people! I mean, really. Have you ever noticed that everything seems better when you focus on what your body can do, not just how it looks?

Persistence Pays, But…

March 15, 2015 by Koritha Leave a Comment

This week, the weather finally started showing mercy! Just in time for me not to lose it. I am so grateful! I worked out 5 times this week. On Monday, I rowed for 25 minutes; on Wednesday, I walked with the group and then had a personal training session; on Friday, I worked out with my trainer; on Saturday, I walked 4 miles just because it was pretty outside; and today, I rowed for 15 minutes.

This week, I began to appreciate the beauty of combining persistence and moderation.

In the past, I saw persistence in forceful terms, as a clenched-fist sort of determination. I’m now beginning to appreciate it as a form of consistency that goes well with moderation. So, I have continued my commitment to moderation in all things. I want to exercise at least 3 times per week but I don’t put big goals on what each workout needs to look like. I give myself credit for 15 minutes of movement, just as I do for a tough session with my trainer.

This is also helping me think about my eating differently. I’ve resisted the temptation to adopt a drastically different way of eating for a specified amount of time in order to see quick physical changes. As a result, I’m finding myself feeling regret less and less about food choices. Of course, cooking on Sundays for the week helps (as discussed last week), but I’m also finding unexpected benefits to refusing to view certain foods as off-limits. Perhaps more powerfully, I’ve been working on not seeing certain foods as a “treat.” So, rather than setting myself up to celebrate how long I resisted “cheating” by eating some “treat,” I can focus on giving myself credit for making healthy decisions consistently. It’s not about resisting and fighting urges so much as it’s about actively choosing what’s healthy. For me, this is a big shift because I’ve often fallen into the kind of logic that is encouraged by the diet industry. You know the unavoidable message: Prove you’re worth something and deserve x, y, and z by being willing to deprive yourself of a, b, and c.

Yes, consistency and moderation are working well together. And wouldn’t you know it, consistency and moderation work well together for writing, too!

I’m not sure if this description of persistence seems different from your understanding of that concept or not, but I certainly hope it’s helpful somehow. Have a great week!!!

Square One? Never!

February 8, 2015 by Koritha 6 Comments

Well, this has been quite a week. I made my goal of three workouts this week but also ended up facing something I was apparently avoiding. I got things started with a 4-mile run on Wednesday with the group. On Friday, I had my first personal training session. That was mostly resistance training, which I’ve finally admitted to myself that I simply won’t do on my own, but I also had him watch my form on the WaterRower. So, I finally had a confident workout on my WaterRower today. I lasted for 20 Minutes.

The unexpected issues emerged on Wednesday afternoon. Basically, I’m working to address some muscle weaknesses and am not supposed to run until I’m cleared. That reality hit me pretty hard because I was reminded of this restriction after mentioning that I was still on a high from that morning’s run. As tempting as it is to be hard-headed and run anyway, I’m committing to not doing so. As I’ve always said, I want to run for the rest of my life, so if taking off for a while will make that even more possible, I will cooperate.

I still have plenty of options: I will now power-walk on Wednesdays during our BGR! meet-up, I will continue to build up on the WaterRower, and I will use the elliptical machine. That’s never been a favorite of mine, but I suspect it might become a go-to. Clearly, I have plenty of ways to keep making progress.

I was so pleased with myself for building up slowly since the New Year. I had given myself plenty of time to take it easy before wanting to begin training on February 16th for my April 26th half marathon. With this no-running mandate, that now feels very different. So, I’m needing to shift my thinking a bit. Despite my declarations to the contrary, I was not starting over on January 1st, and I won’t be starting from “square one” whenever I’m cleared to run again. The journey never ended; it has simply taken several forms. Here’s to making every one of those forms count! After all, I know for sure that moving does a lot of good. It helps my body, my mind, my spirit, and my writing. Let’s vow that we’ll never give that up!