Quarantine Abs

I remember back in March 2020, when the coronavirus was just on the brink of becoming a pandemic, I was at a recreational volleyball game and was chatting with my teammates regarding its imminent approach. Someone said that that game was probably going to be the last one we will have in a month. And here we are today, not having seen my team for almost a year.

I was pretty active before the pandemic and participated in different sports three to four times a week. Once the pandemic hit, I was a little lost since all my avenues of physical activity had been put on hold. I really didn't think it would last this long so at the beginning, I didn't look for alternatives to stay in shape. After a couple months of inactivity, I might have put on a couple pounds, but the worst thing was that I had became extremely out of shape without even realizing it.

Once summer came in June, my work decided to encourage everyone to exercise by organizing a step challenge. Basically you had to count your steps every day and convert them into kilometers and whoever got the most kilometers at the end of the month would receive a prize. I consider myself a competitive person so needless to say, I decided to participate in the challenge. I thought that the fastest way to get the most steps would be to go out for runs so on that first day, I decided to go out for a 5km run. That is when I realized how out of shape I had become in just a short few months. One of the sports I actively participated in previously was frisbee, and for those who don't know the sport, it contains A LOT of running. So running a 5km was quite easy before, but not on that day. I had to take a few walking breaks and it probably took me 40minutes to complete. After that extremely discouraging run, I realized that I had to get back into shape.

Another thing that happened around June was when I started to see the #QuarantineAbs on Instagram. Celebrities and non-celebrities alike were posting on their Instagram pictures of their nice looking abs of which they presumable got during the quarantine. I thought to myself, damn, while I was wasting my last three months doing nothing, these people used it to get into way better shape. That was when I set my goal to get my own #QuarantineAbs2020.

Now that we are in 2021 and I do not yet have a six-pack, I will label this as my second attempt at it. So how do I plan to do this? Simple (NOT).

First off I have signed up for a few things to push me to continue exercising. It is especially difficult right now during the winter time, as all I want to do is lay in my warm and cozy bed and do nothing (except eat snacks). It is good that at this time, many exercise courses have moved online. I signed up for a virtual step challenge where my friend and I are trying to complete 1332.5KM (the distance of the Ring Road in Iceland) in 3 months; which converts to about 8km a day for the each of us. This is a good way to motivate me to get my cardio in every day and I need a lot of that because running on a treadmill is dreadfully boring. I envy the people who can run outside in the winter time, I do not know how they do it but I have yet been able to bring myself to do that, so dreadfully boring treadmill running it is. Another thing I signed up for was a fitness course at a local college for police training. I really have no intention of becoming a police officer, but I figured that their fitness training might whip me up a six-pack. Since it is now online, I can do it in the comfort of my own home. Finally I signed up for a beginner's hip-hop class, which is also online. This class turned out to be really enjoyable especially since I can keep my camera off so that no one can see me and my embarrassingly awkward dance moves.

Secondly, and lastly since this is all I got, is keeping tabs on what I eat (kind of). Keeping a diet is hard because as pretty much everyone else, I like eating food. But the quarantine is slightly helping since I now only go out to grocery shop once a week and actually plan out the meals that I am going to make for the week. It is still hard to avoid the desire to get snacks when I am at the store but if I can walk away, then I won't have any around the house to eat.

Well, that is it for my quarantine abs plan, we will see how much longer the quarantine lasts and if I will be able to obtain my goal before it ends or not.