Five Easy Steps to Get You Back into Exercising After a Pandemic, #4 Will Amaze You! (Not Really)

Covid has been hard on all of us, regardless of whether or not we actually contracted the virus. I’ve worked from home for eleven years, so that part of my life wasn’t all that different this past year, but giving up going out, seeing friends, and generally just living a normal life in the city has definitely had its toll. Not to mention being diagnosed with breast cancer a few months into the pandemic. But hey, we can make excuses from now until the next pandemic.

If you’re one of the folks who had the miraculous foresight to buy a Peloton at the beginning of 2020 and actually use it throughout (for what it was intended, not as a clothes line), lucky you. If you got up at the crack of dawn, or decided to forego your lunch break to go for a daily run, congratulations, you win! If you are like my neighbor and you also continued your pilates and weight training on your deck every morning, in full view of your neighbors who felt this was downright rude, well, right on you. All you folks who used your quarantine time wisely to either get or stay fit need to keep scrolling through the other posts, I’m sure you’ll find something worth reading.

I am not one of those people, and I am now sadly out of shape. I am a fit person by nature. I am a runner, and I actually really love it (I do, I really do). I was fairly active at the beginning of the pandemic, but when I got my breast cancer diagnosis, and then underwent three surgeries between July and November, I pretty much cut out exercising completely, partly due to the recovery and the pain, and partly due to a lack of motivation, and a lingering Covid/quarantine/cancer depression. Sure, I still got in my requisite prescribed walks to help with the recovery, but they were slow, and cannot in any sense of the word, be considered “exercise.” Many days just getting out of bed was a challenge. When you have a drain coming out of your armpit with a plastic tube at the end to catch all your leaky fluids, the thought of jumping around jumps right out the window.

I am now eight months post-reconstructive surgery, and I have been cleared for all activities including trampolining and riding horses (apparently those are big no-no’s when you’ve had breast surgery). Now I’m ready to get back into it (not trampolining and riding horses). For many years, I ran five to eight miles a day, at least five days a week. I am hoping to get back to that level, but for now, I’m willing to start slow.

So, what are the five easy steps, you ask?

1. Listen to your body. I am going rather slowly. I am allowing myself to walk if I feel winded, and I am not pushing myself too hard, but I am giving myself a farther target to get to each time I get out there. Right now I can run/sometimes walk two miles without feeling winded. And it’s getting easier. And it will continue to get easier.
2. Buy some fresh new workout clothes. They won’t make you jump higher or run faster, but they will make you feel like you can jump higher and run faster.
3. Do what you like to do. Now that California is opening back up, if you’re a gym rat, head back to that gym. Pools are reopening, if laps are your thing, get on it. If you’re a CrossFit nut, by all means, go back to that cult (#sorrynotsorry). I love running through the city, and though I do have a gym membership, I find that I get vastly bored on the treadmill. Don’t expect to be back at the level you were pre-pandemic for awhile, but eventually you will see progress.
4. If you need a carrot, by all means, get yourself a carrot. I need something to look forward to, a race, a dance class, an event, a trip to a warm locale. We booked a trip to Hawaii for July, and if the thought of getting into a bathing suit isn’t a surefire motivator, I don’t know what is.
5. And last but certainly not least, don’t get down on yourself if you slip. Take it one day at a time. So what if you skip a couple of days, each new day is a chance to get yourself on the right path (this is starting to sound like an AA post). After all, you survived a pandemic/Covid/cancer/crippling depression/2020 in general, give yourself a break.

Brb, heading out for a run/jog/walk.