I an earlier post about my fitness I wrote about my personal fitness and that I was doing regular exercises. I also wondered if I could keep this exercise schedule up in the winter. The winter in The Netherlands is usually dark, cold and depressing. That kind of weather will greatly influence my motivation to do my exercises and keep fit. We had a lousy summer this year with some good days (even three heatwaves), but mostly the temperatures were way below the long year average. I hardly had any opportunity to ride my motorcycle turning it into a very expensive hobby. And now it is over and fall just kicked in. How am I doing with my exercises, so far? Am I still doing them and eating somewhat healthy? Or did I fail miserably? Even more importantly, am I ready for the winter?
The first time I noticed I was skipping some exercises was when I was busy doing work around the house. I had recently bought laminate flooring to replace my old carpet. The old carpet was getting a bit dirty and worn out and I thought replacing it with laminate flooring seemed like the best option, because it creates a less dusty environment. It should hopefully improve my living conditions in respect to my allergies and it looks much cleaner and nicer too. Because, I live in a small house I have no extra space to put my furniture. This meant that the furniture was in the room in which I was placing the new laminate floor.
So I had to improvise when placing the new laminate floor. What I did was I moved all my furniture to one side of the room so I could start removing the first bit of old carpet and start placing the new laminate floor. Then I gradually started moving the furniture onto the new laminate floor, subsequently freeing more space so I could remove more old carpet and put in more new laminate. This proved to be a lot of hard, back-breaking work. Working from front to back I anticipated that it would take me about a day to finish the job. However, It did not turn out that way. I ended up spending the whole weekend putting in my new laminate floor together with my girlfriend. After that I had severe muscle pains for about a week. Especially in the legs. It was hard labour so I skipped my exercises. I simply could not do them because of the pain and I figured that all the work I did over the weekend simply replaced my exercises, so I kind of did my exercises anyway.
Apart from a new floor I have also been doing some sanding and painting giving my house a fresh new look. I'm not done yet, but it keeps me busy. Because I do a lot of work in the house I'm doing less exercises. It's not that I'm not motivated, I just don't have any time left in the day.
But, I also notice that a lot of times I'm just to tired after a long day (week) of work at the office. It's not that I'm lazy or I don't want to do my exercises, I'm simply to tired. I lack the time and energy to spend on fitness. This new insight means I need to change my plan. I need to free up more time a day to do my exercises and I need plenty of sleep and rest for more energy. Making a new plan will probably help me stay fit through the coming winter. It wont be easy, but I will manage.
Apparently, when the weather goes bad, so does my energy level, but I secretly already knew that.
In September I have also been away for a week. Just relaxing on the island of Crete in Greece. Enjoying the food and drinks, so no exercising and definitely not eating healthy. I did come across an interesting item when visiting the botanical gardens. They have an actual money tree! People always told me money does not grow on trees, yet they have such a tree on the island of Crete. It must have been off season, though, because it was not in bloom at the time.
My money has been growing steadily over the last period even though the markets recently had a big crash (Trump said something stupid again). I'm still not at my goal yet, but I'm closing in. I can almost see it! The need for work is getting smaller and I can finally start looking for fun options in the near future. I usually don't plan to far ahead, because things change so fast that it would render my plans useless or obsolete. So, think or dream about the distant future, but only make actual plans for the near future. That's my motto.
Hopefully the day I become financially free will come soon, so I can schedule my life around fun, fitness and good healthy food, rather than work at the office.
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