Something is better than Nothing

Today was another lazy day.
Didn't want to do anything. Just lay on the couch and complain.
So I thought I would make a small effort and go for a walk for a while on the new treadmill.

Now I know steady state cardio at a low heart rate does nothing for you at all. But it has to be better than doing nothing right?

So here's the thing. I get really bored on just walking on the treadmill so I listened to a guided meditation for the first 20 minutes. Obviously I didn't close my eyes and go into my normal definition of a meditation but I somehow turned my walk into one. I walked at an easy pace, breathed deeply and concentrated on the mental imagery [the session was about sculpting the body you want in your mind's eye]. The 20 minutes went by really quickly.

At the end of 20 minutes I felt energised so I put on the soundtrack to "Paris" which is an little known musical. What its got is full choral and orchestral swelling music and singing that carries you to another world. I turned up the incline and the speed and power walked. When I got to a fast song, I pushed it to a jog. Walked for a few more minutes then cooled down.

How long was I on the treadmill? nearly 50 minutes. Did I end up doing a decent workout? Absolutely. More than I intended to do, more than I had to do, I did it because I wanted to.

I didn't wear my heart rate monitor so there was no pressure to get my heart to a certain rate. I was just doing what I felt like, what made me feel good.

A lesson learned. Although we need challenging goals, perfectionist like me sometimes don't attempt things at all if there is a chance of failure. So if my aerobic goal today was to do hard interval training for 30 minutes, I wouldn't have even attempted it because I knew I was not physically able today.

So instead I had no goal [gasp!!]. This sounds contrary to the view that if you don't aim for something lofty and noble/healthy/challenging you won't achieve anything. I think that on some days, no goal is better. No pressure, no beating yourself up when you don't make the grade and no guilt for not trying hard enough.

In my world, today at least, something is definitely better than nothing!