This week was hard. After having the energy of a young gazelle in week 2, I got hit with a throat infection over the weekend and

This week was hard. After having the energy of a young gazelle in week 2, I got hit with a throat infection over the weekend and found that my energy had been dramatically depleted and by Tuesday was pretty much gone. Even after getting a course of antibiotics, I was feeling shocking all week and really struggled to push through each of my training sessions. My body felt sluggish and heavy, and trying to exert any energy during workouts was a serious effort (more than usual).

More than anything, I felt really frustrated this week that my body wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do and that my week wasn’t going the way I had planned it.

To give you a bit of an idea of what each week is like for me during this challenge, I’ve been doing around 12x 1 hour sessions a week, made up of a mix of cardio, strength training and High Intensity Interval Training. I really wanted to make the most of these 12 weeks so I’ve tried to fit as much into every waking moment outside of work hours that I could. Needless to say, there are some sessions that I look forward to more than others and some days where I feel so tired coming back from work that it’s hard to get in the mood for more exercise (I tend to get that feeling of just wanting to go straight home and curl up on the lounge) but I always seem to get my second wind when I’m there and really do enjoy myself. Now when I get that feeling of just wanting to go home, I remind myself that I’m going to have fun and I’m going to feel good afterwards – it’s just mind over matter! It’s taken a little bit of trial and error to get my weekly schedule running smoothly, I found that some times were not working for me (early in the morning at the end of the week) so I moved a few things around to make sure I maximised my time. It’s got to be doable.

Things I have learnt this week:

• Some weeks aren’t going to run smoothly and there’s nothing you can do to control all of it, you just have to make the most of a difficult situation.
• It’s really easy to psych yourself out when presented with something new and difficult (I do that almost on a daily basis!). Sure, it’s scary trying new things (especially when it’s completely uncharted territory for you), but it’s important not to let your fears take control and stop you from trying. How many things do you miss out on doing because you talk yourself out of them before you’ve even given it a go? I leave you with this quote from the great Amy Poehler:

“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it… Doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that – that is what life is. You might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s really special and if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself.”

Kylie x