Fitness: Finding Your Niche

One of my resolutions were to gain my fitness again and who better to do this with than Claud. So ever since school started after the summer holidays, we began exercising.

Ever since I was young I always found cross country not as bad as my classmates did. When I was around 11 I joined the running squad at my school with friends, enjoyed it so much and actually got really fit. However going into high school and getting so overwhelmed with everything being new I stopped running and now I can barely walk up a hill! 

Luckily for me and Claud, we are both so similar and enjoy the same things - running and yoga. So, we decided to alternate the two every Sunday morning. Lululemon does free yoga classes on Sunday mornings (I think I talked about this the first time I went which was one of my first blogposts!) and there is a small mountain nearby where we jog up and the top has a great view. Last Sunday we got up at 6am to catch the sunrise which was honestly breath-taking. The perks of Sunday morning is that you will wake up early and feel really good and energised after a run or a yoga class, instead of sleeping in and feeling lazy for the rest of the day. I also joined the running club at my school with some friends and I’ve been loving it. So far I’ve actually been so pumped and motivated to run!

I think one of the most important parts of enjoying fitness is finding your niche. I know that a lot of people consider exercise a total pain but it’s important. Believe it or not you actually feel so much better in the long run (no pun intended) as you won’t feel constantly tired. As Elle Woods says, “Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy - happy people just don’t shoot their husbands” which I think is hilarious but it’s true, exercise does give you endorphins. And it doesn’t hurt to buy some new workout gear! I think buying new workout gear gets you super motivated. I think what most people don’t realise is that exercising isn’t necessarily swimming laps or going to the gym if that’s what you’re not into - there are so many more options that might suit you. 

Here are a few:

• yoga

• pilates

• hula hooping

• skipping

• trampolining

• walking your dog

• rock climbing

• skiing/snowboarding

• kayaking

• paintballing

Remember to not go straight into extreme exercise as the first time we jogged up the mountain I did not realise how unfit I was until we got to the top and I could barely breathe and was feeling light-headed. You should start with walking, then slowly progress to more jogging and then finally when you’re feeling like it’s easy (which will not come overnight - believe me!) you can run. Plus, I definitely think exercising with a friend helps the entire process - you motivate each other and it just makes everything more fun!

Hannah xx