October 6th was day 30 of my first 30-day squat challenge. "Why?" you ask, "did I take on such a challenge?" Well, sure, my move to a new town has eased my social calendar, so I had some time. But I think the real reason is, I've always hated squats and I'm tired of not doing things just because I don't like them.
In workout classes when I've been told to do squats, I usually have done less than the instructor said to do, just because I didn't like them. They feel uncomfortable, they are not in my natural rhythm of moves, I like to work on abs or arms or stretching (why can't there be a whole exercise routine that's just stretching that results in new found firmness?) I have always been good at finding reasons to stop doing squats. But I didn't get the point that if I only work the body parts that I enjoy working, i.e. the ones that are probably already stronger, than I wouldn't grow any new muscles (well, perhaps I got it mentally, but I didn't/wouldn't follow through on it).
I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to find something, a job, an activity, something that will be fulfilling to me in a long sustained way. I'm referring to something outside of the contentment of Jesus's love and outside of loving my husband, drinking wine with my girlfriends, laughing with my family. A human activity that would somehow perfectly conform to and enhance Emily (undefined and messy recipe that I a may be) in a long-term sustained plateau sort of way. An unscratchable itch indeed. On the other hand, I've also spent a lot of time being scared of doing lots of things and/or avoiding things because they are uncomfortable. You can see where those two motivations would quarrel with each other and end up in what I shall refer to "action constipation".
But recently, whether due to the move across the country or just the beauty of getting older, I have received some amount of acceptance that 1) take career out of it, just go do my job and it will lead to whereever it leads, 2) even outside of that, I may never find that perfect activity and 3) doing hard stuff or stuff that I don't want to do is a necessity. I can sit around wishing I could win Powerball, or I could just do what has to be done and move on with it. And since no activity may ever fill me up, I have permission to try them all, even the hard ones (and the silly ones).
Okay, that philosophical stuff is great, but really what made me do and keep doing the squat challenge? In the past, I have seen several friends on Facebook working their way through squat or other challenges, but I couldn't find the motivation to do one for myself. Then I had the "ah ha" moment: the posterior must be a large muscle. If I could turn mine into more muscle, which would in turn then burn more calories, then I could eat more. Somehow the thought that I could eat more food that I loved was the Motivation found! Oh, and I happened upon before and after pictures. Oh, and it's only for 30-days, not forever.
The challenge started with 50 squats on the first day, built up for two more days, took a rest, then jumped to 70, built up for two days, took a rest....etc. to 250. Yep, I did 250 squats on the last day.
I got it from this website: http://aprilathena7.com/life/30-day-squat-challenge-30-day-crunch-challenge/
So what did I get out of it? I feel strong. I feel proud of myself of doing something that I didn't like to do. And...I like squats now.
So the question now is what is the next challenge? What is my second least favorite exercise to do? And outside of exercise, what are other things that I don't like doing/am scared of? If I did them 250 times, would I like them more? I've always been scared of dogs......
(note, now on Day 3 of plank challenge)
