I don’t know how many times I heard people saying back in January that 2020 was going to be their year. Heck I even said it myself several times at the start, as we sorted out my husband’s first ever Irish Passport, booked flights to India and spent a month on the vast subcontinent introducing our ten month-old boy to his wonderful Indian family and the general colour and chaos.

We arrived home just days before the world suddenly ground to a halt; it seemed to transition from just a few people wearing masks on the flight home to international lock-down. There was little sign in India of the impact of Covid-19 being felt across Europe so it was a shock to the system on our return to Ireland to see life suddenly being flipped upside down.

We thanked our lucky stars for the timing of our trip; one month later and it simply wouldn’t have happened.

As lockdown progressed, I soon realised that if I was to survive being stuck at home with few positive distractions then I was going to have to choose carefully between eating myself into a whole new wardrobe or getting my unfit body back into shape.

Thankfully for my body and my wallet, I chose fitness.

It started off with simple walks up the nearby hills each morning, strolling through fields of daisies and goats and pine trees. The walks were refreshing, got my heart-rate going and made my coffee and breakfast taste better afterwards. Motivated by this, I soon started doing itty-bitty exercises later on in the day, often while playing with Bowie: a few push-ups here, some dumbbell moves there.

The morning routine was setting in motion a desire to move and strengthen my body throughout the whole day and I was well on my way to – hashtag – Active Living.

A week or so into this the weather turned to shite and I decided to try a YouTube work-out, searching through the various hiit options available.

Well!

Luckily I didn’t know what I was getting myself into until fifteen minutes later when I collapsed on the floor, drenched in sweat, my lungs and heart and several muscle groups writhing in agony.

Enter Pamela Reif, a German fitness YouTubing Goddess with several million followers/worshippers (now including a flailing, limp, delighted Cork girl).

I remember pausing a moment during a round of brutal jump squats, unable to bear the knife-like cramping in my quads, hair sticking up, sweat dripping down my bright red face, and staring in fascination at this machine of a woman as she continued the intense session looking as poised and serene as a graceful model.

I mean, she wears make-up in each video, for God’s sake. If I did that, I’d look like a disturbing crazed version of a circus clown after several minutes, while she stands up at the end and blows us a kiss, hair and make-up pristine, apparently not even slightly out of breath. How?

She’s not human. She can’t be.

Or maybe she is and I’m just jealous, after all, this girl has been training intensely for seven years while I have not. Perhaps I shouldn’t compare my beginner attempts with a professional…

As I write this, it’s been over three months since I started working out around five days a week, incorporating both cardio sessions and body-weight strength building. It’s required some discipline to maintain the morning routine for sure, though the regular habit helps a lot.

The biggest thing that’s been keeping me going though is the ridiculously happy feel-good rush I get each day after the workout. Those endorphins rush through the body like a druggy high; I get moments throughout the day where I suddenly feel inexplicably happy and positive, relaxed and content. All thanks to twenty to thirty minutes of Pamela’s brutally fantastic workouts each morning.

Moving and working your body does so much for you that it cannot be stressed enough just how stress-relieving a good workout can be. The human vessel is designed to move yet our current lifestyles tend to encourage just the opposite.

I wonder sometimes if we lived more like our ancestors would the illnesses of anxiety and depression, obesity and heart disease, disappear from both our vocabulary and our minds? There are definitely numerous other elements required for such a transformation, from leading simpler quieter lives to creating deeper more meaningful human relationships to just spending more time outdoors… but I am certain that movement is one of the key routes to a stronger happier mindset.

There is so much to share on my fitness journey so far, from my hatred for jump squats (it’s slowly becoming a grudging acceptance but man they set your quads on fire!) to the mirror that a hard workout can provide to how you deal with life’s challenges (I’m learning as much about my inner world through these workouts as I ever did with meditation or yoga).

Rather than write an entire novel in this one blog-post, however, I’m going to leave you with this little suggestion on keeping fit:

Wake up.

Kick ass.

It’s working for me so far. Peace out lovely humans!

Liz