After hitting 44 years of age, I have realized that I need to become finally serious about my fitness. Fitness and diet control were things that I didn’t need to pay attention to earlier on, as I have always been naturally waifish and thin.

But my early 40s have brought on a host of health issues. I am pre-menopausal, which means that I am putting on weight that isn’t getting shed like it used to in my youth. In addition, I was getting tired and stressed very easily. My sleep cycle was really messed up. I would get up late and sleep late.

Secondly, my work involves working long hours in front of my PC, without breaks. With tons of household work and raising and taking care of a family, I barely get much time for myself. The day starts and the urgencies of the day sort of take over. The day ends, yet the tasks, to-dos, the deadlines are never over.

So, once I resumed my fitness routine (yet again), I decided to make a few changes to the way I was doing things when re-starting fitness program. These are the things I started doing differently:

Resetting My Sleep Cycle

Sleep is fuel our body direly needs to repair itself, just like food and water. I realized that until and unless I mend my sleep, my fitness routine wouldn’t work.

So, I started putting in a serious effort to mend my bad sleep habits. This meant seriously overhauling my entire routine. These are the changes I made:

• I stopped taking caffeine after 6 p.m.
•  I started winding up most of my tasks by 9 p.m. This meant shutting down the PC earlier.
• This got only possible because I started waking up earlier and hitting work earlier.

Exercising the First Thing in the Morning

When I used to workout earlier on, I would do it when I would get time, usually in the middle of the day or in the evening after getting the tasks and chores out of the way.

What would happen was that I would end up sacrificing my workout for any urgent task that would come up. I realized that that my fitness goals would never be met if I didn’t make them a priority in life.

So, the first thing I started doing after waking up and coming back from the washroom was to put a fitness video on SmartTV. My body’s resistance and slackness would be low at that point in time. Before the mind and body would get chance to protest, the dopamine and serotonin levels would start rising, making me feel good and thus motivated.

Choosing the Diet and Fitness Routine that Would Work for Me

I have personally chosen Leslie Walk, as it is a gentle on my middle aged knees and really effective. I combine the workout with dumb bells sometimes, and this all I need to stay in shape. Some of my friends are going to the gym and have been doing some aggressive workouts. While their choices are working well for them, they don’t work for me. Same is the case with dieting. Some of my friends are doing intermittent fasting and others are following keto diet, I am sticking to clean eating. As busy working-from-home mom and caregiver, I need my energy and a system that works for me. Working out early also means that once I am done, I am more motivated towards eating a low carb, protein filled breakfast rather than resorting to a pack of biscuits and a cup of coffee.

It is always tempting to do go for those fad, fast and furious fitness workouts like HIIT, SHREDS, squats and what not. However, your fitness routine is, ultimately, a matter of what works for you and is sustainable.

The Give Aways

Our health and bodies wear out due to the natural aging process and our own bad habits. Thus, we pay more attention to fitness, diet and healthy habits once we age. Personally, making changes to my sleep routine, early morning workouts and choosing the right exercise type and diet have been a game changer for me. I am at my healthiest self right now.

Conclusively, good habits grounded in a healthy routine help us reach our fitness goals more easily.