Atelier Doré

I know what you’re thinking…another self-quarantine post about at home workouts!! NOOOO….Spare me!

I know I know, I feel the same way. If I see another friend share her at-home yoga practice, a 10 pushup challenge, or a hyper-lapse of a pilates class I’m going to have to delete Instagram. (Just kidding Instagram…I can’t quit you! Especially during all of this isolation!) But I need these at home workouts the same way I need…well, Instagram.

I’ve been socially distancing, self-quarantining, self-isolating—whatever we want to call it—for over three weeks now. Let me share with you my at home workout journey:

First, I started by telling myself (and my husband) that I wasn’t going to lift a finger. I spent a few days in full sloth/panic mode. Sitting on the couch in the same sweatpants without showering, eating pretty much constantly, panic binging every show I could find on Netflix (hello, Tiger King) and falling in love with Andrew Cuomo via his live-streamed briefings. It was a sort of manic bliss. Until I started to smell, and was that my triple-chin coming back on family zoom calls? Hmm, Huston, we have a problem.

Then, I decided to channel my panic and anxiety into exercising. Not only for the fitness, but also, for the showers. I changed my sloth-like schedule into something that went like this:
Wake up
Comfort-eat a huge breakfast
Work for two hours
Exercise for an hour to the point where I am fully sweating through my spandex even though it’s only 67 degrees in my living room
*Shower*
Dry brush my face and moisturize (game-changing, I promise)
Lunch
Back to work

And I felt like a new human. A new, very sore human. Every day I would stream a free Core Power Yoga Yoga Sculpt class, using cans of crushed tomatoes as hand weights. These classes are pretty amazing in that they pack a lot of punch in a quick period of time. But let’s be honest, I never worked out 7 days a week during normal life, there was no way I could keep this up in quarantine life. And I haven’t. I’ve entered the final and hopefully lasting phase of my at home workouts which is something more like this:

I workout when I feel anxious and I have a lot of energy, especially on rainy days when I can’t go for a walk. And I gave up on working out for a full hour every time and I’m pretty happy if I exercise 4 times a week. Lately I’ve been mixing up those Core Power classes with twenty minutes of dance cardio on Peloton in which I look like a complete tool but find myself smiling while getting my dance on (no equipment required). Or sometimes I tune into the Sky Ting live stream. If it’s nice out, I’ll go for a run using the Peloton outdoor classes to keep me motivated and so I don’t have to curate my own playlist. I’ve got a two-week trial of The Class bookmarked, and also Tracy Anderson Method.

And sometimes I just call my mom and my brother and my niece and we all turn on the same song and dance around our kitchens, together but apart.

My at home workouts are a luxury, I know. I’m fortunate to not have to deal with homeschooling kids, or having to go into work at an essential business. But my at home workouts are a little piece of sanity that are helping me sleep, that are keeping me a more stable colleague and wife, and just maybe that third chin will be gone by the time we’re allowed back out into the world.