Sprained ankle a blessing???

Since the beginning of the year, one major focus of mine is exercise and nutrition.  Well on December 28, 2016 I was at Sky Zone with my family and sprained my ankle pretty good.  I wanted to do a flip into the foam pit only to panic right when I decided to go for it.  I came down on the edge of the trampoline instead of on the trampoline and rolled my ankle as I fell into the foam pit.  It hurt soooo bad I wanted to cry.  It is already difficult to get out of the foam pit with an unsprained ankle.  I thought I was going to have to get help to get out.  But I pushed through the pain (and didn't cry) and got out by myself because I didn't want to make a scene from my stupidity.

So needless to say, I am like, "just great" in a negative tone.  2016 wanted to make sure the year ended on a crappy note as well.  I was so looking forward to getting back into a healthy lifestyle routine again after the holidays.  It is amazing how when you eat so much "crap" you feel like crap.  And now I can't even exercise because I can barely even walk.  So of course I wanted to have a pity party with myself.

Well I ended up finding out not long after that the sprained ankle was kind of blessing on my part.  That is because while I was gung-ho about working out and I was dying to do the newest Beachbody workout Core De Force, one of my weaknesses is meal planning.  It stresses me out for some reason.  I like the quote, "fail to plan, plan to fail."  I think the sprained ankle happened because it forced me to really focus on one of my goals which is to meal plan like a pro!  :-)   That way with better meal planning comes better nutrition.

I have tons of recipes but I guess it just overwhelms me.  I have really been liking the recipes on Skinnytaste.com that I went ahead and bought both of the cookbooks.  Between these cookbooks and the Shred 10 (that I will go more into detail in the next post),  I have made some progress.

Also couldn't have made it to this point without my BFF.  I asked if she wanted to be accountability partners.  We ended up inviting a couple of others and we started our own little accountability group on Facebook.  First, she posted this 30-day ab challenge with sit-ups, planks, crunches, and leg lifts that she found.  I am like okay I can at least do this ab challenge with my sprained ankle.  Well then I started to get bored with that but I still pushed through and did most of the days.  But then she encouraged me to do water aerobics or get on bike at the YMCA.  I did do a couple of deep water aerobic classes and they were fun but I just prefer to workout at home.

By this point my ankle was getting better so I thought I would try out some low-impact workouts on my Beachbody on Demand (BOD) account.  Especially since starting this year Beachbody offered every single program on BOD for one low price.  It was $100 for every program (even new ones that come out this year) for the whole year!!  I was ecstatic because you cannot get a gym membership for that low for the entire year!  And I like having a variety of programs because I get bored easily.

So I did some Country Heat and Hip Hop Abs workouts to start.  Until I decided that my ankle can handle T25 and Core De Force with some modifications.  So that is what I am doing now.  I am alternating days with T25 and Core De Force with modifications.  I still don't do a whole lot of jumping yet.  I am loving Core De Force, it is so fun.  It is a mixed-martial arts kind of program.  I never thought I would like kickboxing, martial arts, etc but it is a good way to exert out any frustration.  :-)

So that is where I am at now exercise wise.  Stay tuned for the next post to go more into detail on the Shred 10 and working on my goal to meal plan like a pro.