Last night, the Dr and I re-evaluated our workout plan. Last week, we decided to try to restart Insanity at week 3, and we only ended up doing it once last week. And I ran once. I worked out a total of two times last week. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t sedentary most of that time. In fact, on Friday, I kind of wished I had used my heart rate/calorie burn watch to see how many calories I burned spending my entire day cleaning and redecorating my entire house. I was sore afterwards!
The reality is our current situation is making it difficult for us to do Insanity together.
Anyway, here are the circumstances:
- Dr Hub’s phd is (hopefully) nearing its completion. He hopes to be defending early next month. Which means he has been putting in ALOT of long, long, late hours.
- He generally leaves by 830 am, which means we have to get up at 530-6 to work out.
- He generally gets home between 7 or 8 pm. We eat dinner most times between 8-9 (which is bad, I know!) but that’s the only time we can eat dinner together, given our current situation. I tend to E’s night-time routine (or the Dr will do it if he’s home and Ill cook), get him to bed, then start dinner, which results in the late dinner.
- In order to workout in the wee morning hours, we have to go to bed at 10, and that results in only having 2 hours together in the evening. We really want to see more than 10 hours of each other during the week. We generally go to bed at 1130 or midnight (remember how I am not a morning person? I much rather stay up late), so that we can have time to spend together. And if we get up at the crack of dawn to workout, then we are only going to get 5-6 hours of sleep, and we both need more than that to function!
So we have to sacrifice something. Either time together, or our hardcore workout program. And we decided to sacrifice doing Insanity right now. We really want to complete the Insanity program together. So the plan is for us to do our own workout thing until the Phd is completed. Once that Phd is done, the hubs schedule will free up IMMENSELY. He will be teaching this summer, but his schedule will still be about 110% more predictable once that dissertation is done and defended.
So we have new exercise goals.
Stephanie: Workout 4-5 times a week doing a variety of Turbofire and running (in prep of that Color Run!)
Cory: Workout 3 times a week
I realize that working out is something you have to MAKE happen, and there are no excuses. We are not trying to make excuses. We are keepin’ it real here. We have to do what’s best for our family. And we are not completely giving up exercising. We just have to switch it up a little bit right now. It is more convenient for us to do our exercising on our own time, so that we can have more time together. We both strongly believe that a husband and wife should have quality time with each other, and often. We want to just have time to cuddle on the couch watching something on the dvr, time to play a game, time to visit and talk, time to do our bible studies together… We want to be able to continue to draw closer to one another, and if we hardly ever see each other, that becomes a more difficult task!
So please don’t think we are being wishy-washy, or making excuses.
We are still going to stick to the Ready for Summer Challenge, just with new goals in mind. I had great success with my previous challenge, the Spring Chick Challenge. But we have to prioritize. And we are making the necessary adjustments that are best for our family. Hopefully come summer, we can start Insanity back up (cuz we sure do like posting embarrassing videos of ourselves!)
Seeing as I just finished my PhD I can totally relate to how much that takes a toll on one's schedule, not just the student but also the partner. I tried to squeeze everything in but ended up just burning out. It's especially tough towards the end of the program when the finish line is so so close. I was definitely flexible with myself for the few weeks before submitting and before my defense. I didn't slack off, I was just sensible. I think you guys are doing the right thing by prioritizing and playing it by ear. Good luck to you both 🙂
Thanks for the encouragement! He is so so so close and he just wants to be done. I'm just so ready for him to be done!!
Ugh! I hear ya on the Insanity workouts. Those were way too intense for me. Working out it s chore for me and the only way I had e been able to stick with it is by using a trainer.
Ya! They are super super hard! And its something my husband and I want to say we completed together. So that's why we are putting it on pause. It is such a good workout though!!