I’ve recently made the decision to start having good days. My first thoughts in the morning include “today is going to be a good day” and then with the commitment of an energetic puppy, I construct A Good Day. As I get older, I realise that bad days will just happen. They’ll find you minding your own business and then boom, your car gets crashed, a meeting goes pearshaped, your lunch gets stolen. Some days you wake up with the blues and it’s a wrap. Good days, however, seldom rely on chance. You have to give yourself good days otherwise life becomes a collection of lots of average days, a number of bad days and very few memorable good days. Good days are decided upon and constructed.
This is why I came up with The Fantastic Four – my workout challenge for November. We’re working out Four days a week, for Four weeks and I’m going to give you Four workouts to do each day. These aren’t prescriptive, if you like one type of workout more than the others, you can do that for the duration of the month. If you’d like to modify any of the workouts I recommend, that’s perfect too. The aim of the Fantastic Four is for all of us to be able to say at the end of those days “today was a good day because I exercised like I said I would”. Personal achievements (especially the small ones) really have the power to make you feel good about yourself. By constructing wins, you build your self-esteem and a high self esteem acts as a foundation for having more Good Days.
So for the next Four Weeks, from the 1st of November to the 30th of November, we’re guaranteeing ourselves Four Good days a week. I’m going to outline the workouts (as well as the food challenge) and hopefully they contribute to getting in more of those personal Ws!
The Workouts
Day 1: Weight-training
4 Sets of the following:
- 20x Kettlebell deadlifts
- 10x Kettlebell Goblet squats
- 20x Plank shoulder taps
- 20x Dumbbell Russian twists
Day 2: Pilates – Banded workouts
4 sets of the following:
- 10x Banded leg raises
- 10x Banded knee clamps
- 10x Banded knee raises
- 10x Banded donkey kicks
- Day 3: Yoga
Here you can be flexible and find a YouTube video, I usually go with Yoga with Adriene.
Day 4: Cardio
You can do your preferred cardio method, I alternate between running and walking. People who like skipping can skip and the cyclists can ride.
Bonus challenge: include four fruits and (not or) vegetables in your meals. How you divide them is entirely up to you, you can have a fruit in the morning and two veggies at lunch and one veggie at dinner, you can have two fruits in the morning and two veggies at dinner. Whatever you do, make sure that that it’s enjoyable enough to be sustainable. The aim is to nourish and have a good day, not force and have a miserable one.
I can’t wait to get started on my journey! Let me know if you’ll be joining me and what you’ll be changing in the comments!
