The great thing about working out regularly is that you can take an unexpected day off from working out, but taking more time off is still difficult. Recently, I've been on a great exercise kick (sadly, not accompanied by a great eating kick, but that will come around eventually). From mid-March to mid-April, I worked out at least 5 times a week for four weeks, which satisfies goal 3. Visit gym five times a week for a month.
I started this goal on a Wednesday; for me, that seemed to be the necessary psychological kick. I can typically get into the gym with no issues on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. After that, I just needed to accrue two more days to get in my 5 times a week. Turns out, I usually ended up at the gym 6 times a week! In this past week, I went Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which was a satisfying week of working out. Because I knew I was hitting the gym regularly, I was able to take off Friday night (I was feeling under the weather) with no big issues.
The problem came in just the past few days, and I'm now trying to get up motivation to head to the gym. On Tuesday, I was on my way over to Matt's so that we could head to the gym together when I got an unexpected phone call. A friend of ours in town had three free hockey tickets: did we want to go to a game? Yes, yes, and yes! We headed up to St. Paul immediately and called a friend on the way. This one day wouldn't be such a big deal . . . but we'd already made plans to go to a Twins-Mariners game on Wednesday. This put the kibosh on a Wednesday workout (no time after work, and I couldn't realistically wake up early to go to the gym, as I went to bed at 11.30 on Tuesday night).
Now, it's Thursday. I have the day off work for a job interview, but I don't have to leave for the interview until 10.30ish. I woke up at 8, and I've spent the last hour and a half saying "I'll go to the gym soon." It's hard to get up the motivation to return after taking off two whole days; I know it's just one day more, but this is so much more sluggish than I've felt about gym-going for awhile.
I think it's time to get back in the habit. Today will be 6 times in the month, so only three days off so far. I'll be able to make it to the gym on Friday and Saturday, and I'm going to find some way to exercise on Sunday (the gym is closed for Easter). Hopefully, after a successful four-day run, I'll be able to get back into the groove that has made the last month a great gym month for me.