20x20 Challenge

So I've mentioned before that I used to be in the fitness industry. I taught group fitness, boot camp classes, and did some personal training. During that time, I was introduced to a business called Metabolic Effect, which was based in Winston Salem, NC. It was a revolutionary way to look at nutrition and exercise. They specialized in female fat loss.  And one of the members of Metabolic Effect was Jill Coleman, who in her own right is a bit of a bad ass super star.  I started following Jill on social media and loved how real she was in everything she did.

Just a sampling of Jill Coleman & how she opearates

She is well spoken, highly educated, but despite the fact that she was what I would consider an "ideal" body, she never shied away from being honest about her struggles. She was honest about where she was mentally, emotionally, with her training, with her eating.  It was revolutionary to me.  Finding someone that was so different in a cookie cutter fitness world was fresh.  I looked forward to her emails.  And one day, she launched something she called the "20x20 Challenge." It was a free workout program where she and any who agreed to the challenge would complete 20 workouts in the month that lasted at least 20 minutes long.  She provided workouts and guides - but it could also be whatever you wanted it to be.

I downloaded the workouts and saved them to the same folder that had all the other workouts from my classes I'd taught. It was my little treasure chest of workouts.

I don't remember if I completed the 20x20 Challenge that year.  I'm pretty sure I did, but I can't say for sure.  But it became somewhat an annual event for Jill's subscribers.

And as I was sitting on the couch the other night, sick of being overweight and out of shape but simultaneously being lost on how to begin, the 20x20 Challenge came to mind.  And it became an inspiration.  I decided to commit myself to 20 workouts, lasting at least 20 mins long each, during the month of October. I decided NOT to think longer than a month -- I didn't want to become overwhelmed and decide before I even started that I would fail. I needed to only take it one step at a time.

Okay... So I'd made that decision. But what workouts would I be doing? Just the thought of creating my own workouts had my anxiety levels rising. Nope. Couldn't go that route.  And then I remembered that I had saved all the workouts from Jill's 20x20 Challenge.  So I opened my treasure chest. I printed ALL the workouts out. I alphabetized them.  I put them in a binder all nice and pretty.  I printed out an October calendar and made my schedule -- weighted HIIT workouts and cardio/running days with rest/stretch days evenly distributed.  That felt good.

But how would I pick which workout I would do on the HIIT days? I had probably at least 50 workouts printed. I knew myself and knew I'd avoid certain workouts because they had certain exercises in them that I hate (Mountain Climbers, Burpees to name a few). There was only one way I could think of to make it a "fair" chance for every workout -- I put each workout name on a Popsicle stick and would draw them out at random.

And that's how I'm starting y'all -- the very scientific method of the Popsicle Draw. 20 workouts in October. That's my commitment. That's how I'm starting.  And at this point, it's not so important how I start but that I find some way to start at all.