fitness afloat.

I like to work out. Nope, scratch that. I need to work out. Even if I’m not smashing some fitness goal, I need at least a little intense sweating every day. It makes me feel powerful, and more importantly, it makes me happy. Those endorphins are essential to a happy life, in my book. The little bit of exercise I get keeps me from biting everyone’s heads off (mostly…it’s not foolproof because even the best workout can’t always fix my bad mood or help me keep my cool during one of Fozel’s meltdowns) and helps me feel balanced. On land, I was a religious exerciser. Running, biking, and more recently doing HIIT (high intensity interval training). That has been my bread and butter since Fozel arrived on the scene. It was never easy to sneak away to the gym and I knew I needed that release, so I did some searching online and on Instagram and began to build my own workouts. Eventually, I added some equipment to my routines and I had a pretty nice set up going.

Living on the boat has changed all that. My routine became erratic and less than consistent. I’ll grab a run on land if we are in a marina or do one of my workouts on the dock, but when we are underway for more than just a day (across the Great Lakes and the short stint from New York to Cape May, NJ), had to be up with the sun, and when we began to anchor out, I really fell off the wagon. I could feel myself slipping. Not only did my mood plummet but my clothes didn’t fit as well. Yikes! On the boat it isn’t ideal to have to have a “skinny” and “fat” wardrobe, so I gotta get back on track.

As part of my laundry list of New Year’s resolutions, I’ve vowed to get in at least 1 workout a day. I would typically do two (equalling about 35 minutes) but at this point, until we get anchored for more than a night somewhere, I’m happy with that goal. My routines are full of a variety of squats, lunges, push ups and some weights. Unless we are on land, I forgo any jumping exercises, as I don’t feel confident about my balance (like today was pretty choppy and I found myself off balance even just doing lunges). In my bag of tricks of equipment I carry on board: set of 5 lb. hand weights, ankle weights, 15 lb kettlebell (I’d like to add a 25 lb one soon), a set of exercise bands of varying resistance, a trx trainer (suspension trainer) which will be used more once we have the dinghy off the deck, and a jump rope for land based workouts. My routines are made up of 5 different exercises. Each exercise is performed for 50 seconds and then it’s on to the next one until the circuit has been completed 4 times. Some people add in rest time, but when Fozel was little it added 4 more minutes to the workout that he wasn’t going to be happy about, so I just move directly from one to the other with no break. I have a handy free app called “Seconds” that I use to build my workouts. I scour Instagram and Pinterest for new exercises and “like” or “pin” them for later and build new ones every single day. It’s definitely a challenge but I’m in a better mental and physical place when I get that blood pumping and the sweat flowing!