My 30’s: My Working Out Isn’t Working Out Anymore
I’m not old, am I?
It took me around two years to find the kind of exercise that worked for my metabolism and was fun and attractive at the same time. A routine that didn’t feel like exercise but more like an impulse to work out every day, except weekends, of course.
I was 21 years old when I started with Tae-Bo routines and Zumba classes because I like to dance and feeling sexy with the movements. But I also do some boxing and cardio to let out the roughness in me. For eight years, I changed the routines until I detected the benefits in specifics parts of my body and in my mind. So I could be calm if there were months or weeks without moving a finger because I knew what to do to fix it.
But then I turned 30.
I’m almost 31 years old, and before turning 30, I stepped away from my routine because of my job schedule. I used to get out of work very late, and the last thing I wanted to do when arriving home was to work out.
I noted a change in my figure during the time I worked there, and when I started my entrepreneur project, I managed to dedicate an hour of my day to my work out. I thought I had the solution to my problem because of that experience during my 20’s, and I thought nothing had changed.
I had not experienced the pain every person in their 30’s complained about, and I thought they weren’t ever going to happen to me, because I’m a person who works out. Oh, how wrong I was.
It seemed like my body was waiting for that October first, my birthday, to permit itself to present these discomforts. And, yes, the squats that I adored dearly started to become more challenging to achieve. The kicks of which I had become an expert and used to kick beautifully, suddenly started to hurt, and let’s skip the abs topic, I couldn’t complete a full lapse of 8 in weeks.
Even though I took care of my body with these exercises, for five days a week, it was taking me longer to get to my goals. While in my mid-twenties, it was enough to exercise for a month to see changes in my body, this time was taking me around three months to start seeing transformations, but the sweat and endeavor were the same as in my 20’s.
It took me six months to find a routine that wasn’t aggressive with this new body. It was like getting to know me again, accepting myself. Understanding that my 20’s were about feeling comfortable, healthy, but now, in my 30’s, it’s about who I am and to accept that my body commences having limitations.
It’s not easy because it’s a reminder of my body telling me: It’s not the same anymore, you must adjust to something new.
Something new, I see this exciting and mysterious at the same time. Exciting because seeing the changes, it’s a confirmation that I have walked a path and that I am in a more advanced place. And mysterious because I don’t know how bad could it turn. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing to stay healthy if this is what my body needs if I’m doing too much or too little for it. I think I have been here before, but, as I mentioned, this time my goal must be different. And I did not see that coming, I didn’t plan it, I didn’t even look for it, it just happened. And how should I act according to these changes? the famous: if life gives you lemons.
Until now, I have felt small changes with my routine, but it’s fun, and I think it has been an excellent lesson for the new decade ahead of me. It’s about enjoying and having quality time to live. Just like I left that job and started something on my own, I must accept that something changed. I would be naive to expect that my life is only about switching from one year to another like they were all the same.
I only have to accept and continue with what it’s good for me and make me happy.
Is it difficult? No, it’s not, but it is tricky because, on one side, I have society’s speech about women in their 30’s and how we lose value with ageing. Also, because I have my own opinion and this doesn’t fit with that declaration, I have the results of my work with my body, and they are amazing just because I made them.