fitness

Marching Forth…Okay, Maybe Dancing Forth

Christine Hennebury

You know I love a short challenge so I’m back with a new one!

In March, I am going to stick with the yoga and I will be working my way up to 30 minutes of daily cardio.*

I’ve chosen to dance because while I may get frustrated by other forms of cardio and feel all fumbly, any lack of coordination I feel while dancing just makes me laugh. Laughing while exercising feels like good motivation to me. 🙂

On days that dancing isn’t feasible, I’ll take the dog for a longer walk.

A dog with light brown hair with a few white patches walks happily down a snow-covered road. She is on a harness leash.
This was right after Snowmageddon. Khalee did NOT mind.

Thanks to reading the 100 Day Reclaim, I  have identified some of my obstacles to daily exercise and so I am setting a nice low bar for myself for this month. 

  1. I need to make my choices in advance so I have created a YouTube playlist of 30 minute dance workouts and I will work through them in order. I haven’t arranged them in any particular way but I need to prevent dithering so I am just going to do the next one in the list.
  2. I will schedule each day’s workout the night before. It will always happen before 6pm but the exact timing will depend on my commitments for that day.
  3. The dance workouts will be my default but I can choose to be the person who walks the dog on a given day and that will count as a session.
  4. I will add a tracker in my notebook to note my activity, how much I enjoyed it, and whether I met the requirements for my lightning bolt on my fitbit. I’m already monitoring my blood pressure and my resting heart rate but I don’t expect any changes there in just 30 days.
  5. I’ll post a weekly check-in just to keep myself accountable.
  6. As Nia Shanks advises, when I run into a snag, I am going to go easy on myself. I’ll review this list and see what piece isn’t working and I will recalibrate accordingly.
  7. My storytelling heart hates to have an even numbered list so I am adding this final point to say that you are welcome to join me, if you are so inclined.
a middle-aged white woman wearing a black shirt dances in a green space with trees and a fence in the background.
In warmer times, here I am dancing in my backyard last summer.

*I’m recovering from a very minor surgery. I’m working my way up to 30 minutes so I don’t overdo things.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

2 thoughts on “Marching Forth…Okay, Maybe Dancing Forth”

  1. Best of luck! I only recently discovered the importance of setting an achievable low bar in times of stress or recovery, and it’s made a huge difference. I still second-guess it, though, so thank you so much for sharing your post.

    1. Thanks for reading my post!

      That low bar is so important and so tricky to set, isn’t it?

      Second guessing is so hard on the brain, isn’t it? We have this feeling that we have to be working SO HARD all the time. I wish you ease in dealing with it.

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