I had another one of those days today where I was just not motivated to work out. Correction: I wasn't unmotivated, I just plain wasn't in the mood! I barely made it through my morning cardio and begrudgingly finished my leg workout. I can barely remember my afternoon cardio, except that I couldn't wait for it to end.
Instead of finishing my workout with my regular stretching, I decided to do a little mental check-in. I went to the yoga room in the gym, shut the lights, and layed on the cool, bare floor (there's a heat wave going through Ottawa right now and lemme tell ya, that floor felt divine!). I did a full-body scan:
Am I tired? No, I slept 8 hours last night.
Am I exhausted from the workout? No, the leg workout was actually pretty awesome!
Am I hungry? Trick question.
Am I achy? Only in my arms, but that shouldn't have affected this workout.
Am I dizzy, nauseous, gassy, or dehydrated? No, no, no, and no. Ok, with that out of the way, I turned inwards:
Am I sad? No.
Feeling weak? No.
Self-conscious? Definitely no.... I'm lookin' gooooood these days!!
Am I stressed? YES! There it is! But why?
I accidentally slept in a whole hour this morning, and I had alot to get done today. I watched the clock through my entire AM cardio, knowing I was running late. I rushed through my breakfast (the meal I generally eat very slowly on account of me loving breakfast soooo much!), shot out a couple emails, ate again, then went straight to the gym. I generally like to take at least 5 hours between workouts (enough time for 3 meals and a shower), and today I only got about 3 (I was meeting a friend later on, which is why the time crunch). Not only is that alot of activity to fit into a couple hours, but I also HATE being rushed; I get antsy and frustrated, and once I'm in that mood it all seems to go even more downhill. Time pressure has a weird way of messing with my head.
I realized that I've been feeling like that alot lately, which is surprising because I'm currently unemployed!! I like to get up late, but I also like to hit the gym early, before the 4pm rush hits. So what to do?
I'm going to try and start waking up several hours earlier. My body's natural rhythm is to go to sleep at 1am and wake up at 10am. 9 hours of sleep, to the minute, no fail. However, having worked at a government job for the last few years, I'd also gotten used to waking up as early as 4:30am. With that in mind, I'm going to aim to rise at 6am for the next little while. That'll give me plenty of time between workouts, will allow me to get to the gym early, and will even mean I can catch part of the sunrise :) We'll see if this solves the problem of the stress.
It's nearing 10pm so I guess I should turn in. The only thing that sucks about waking up early, is going to bed early.... it may be a rough morning tomorrow :S