So what is a day in my life like these days? I still haven’t started going to work, I am still “quarantined” at home. I have lost the count of the number of the days under lock-down. Nothing really changes when you spend everyday at home doing almost nothing. But I try to not stay idle either. I spent my weekend doing all sorts of self-care activities. I put on a hair mask, got a face mask, got my face steamed and cleaned myself up. I also spent an hour working out like crazy. I loved it. The periods were over, so I was feeling like myself, so much so that I actually started writing this post too. The thing I had been procrastinating on for some time now.

You could call me a couch potato, because I am one these days. I am not really a morning person, and I cannot function without my coffee. I can write an entire essay about the magical effect a cup of black coffee has on my body. Two of my favorite times of the day are when I am cooking in the kitchen, and when I finally get myself a black coffee and get to working out. These are two times when I am absolutely active.

In the past, I have shared some things about my fitness journey. That was one of the things, that got me starting this blog. I want to share my workout routine during these lock-down days here.

I love that during the lock-down, we have been challenged to experiment with different things in our lives. During the first two years of my fitness journey, I had always been a cardio girl. I was subconsciously doing 30 to 45 minutes of cardio exercises 5 times a week. What followed was my weight loss. I had become lean and slim, so it was all good (or at least that was what I thought). Having a generous amount of leisure time during the lock-down, I wanted to try out different types of workouts rather than just the regular cardio exercises that I usually did. This led me to delve into training the core muscles of my body. My approach to core training was to start with ab workouts. My impulsive self started with the most intense versions of ab workouts. Could I do it? Not really. In the beginning, I was self-assured and thought that I could conveniently do it. But in reality what happened was I struggled to properly do each and every form of the ab workout. The mind-muscles technique, consciously sucking in the belly-button, the breathing techniques—I failed at all of them miserably. On top of the failures my neck was doing the most of the lifting during the workout. I was cursing the instructor in the video for not giving any breaks, or maybe it was because she was doing it with such ease while I was struggling. It left me enraged and distressed.

Weirdly enough, the desire to excel at this stayed with me for weeks. I started doing very basic versions of the muscle training workouts which were doable for me. I also started switching my workout types to give my muscles enough time to recover. Some days were for my abs, some days for my upper body and some days for my lower body. Switching the workouts made my quarantine much easier to bear. These days, I always look forward to trying out new workouts and I enjoy each one of them. Its almost therapeutic. In the beginning my muscles felt sore but once my body got into the routine, I began to feel much better. The workouts left me feeling refreshed and energetic. After a few weeks my muscles began to take shape. My muscle mass was increasing.

I had always been fascinated with the idea of becoming skinny. But with time, I have come to realize that having muscles are actually attractive and sexy. It has made me feel stronger. The biggest realization I have recently come to is that its not about the numbers on the scale, but about how you feel. I’d say that although cardio is a downright necessary part of a workout routine, for me strength training is the way to go. Although I’m a bit late to training my muscles, I’m satisfied with my results and excited about the future of my journey.