I have honestly lost count of how many days we’ve lived through this Movement Control Order (MCO). My rough estimate tells me we’ve just gone a couple of days over a month. Most people I know seem to be doing relatively okay, judging by their Instagram posts. I suppose we’re the lucky ones. I continue to hope that everyone is doing well. We show what we choose to show, but please, if you need help, reach out to people close to you.

Anyways, I wanted to write about some stuff I’ve been doing, to maintain some form of sanity. I realised that, although I’m not a social person, and although I don’t necessarily enjoy going out, I need to be on the move, if that makes sense? If I stay still for too long without any activity, my thoughts overwhelm me, and darkness becomes my friend.

Pre-MCO days, I’d have stuff like basketball, or a teensy bit of running or exercising here and there, but most times, I wouldn’t be at one place almost all the time. So in order to stave off my moodiness, I’d have to find some form of physical activity to do, to keep my endorphins (apparently happiness hormones) up.

If anyone knows me, they’d know that I hate exercising. The thought of physical torture, repeating movements for up to an hour really repels me. But I had to do something in order to avoid doing nothing (well, duh). Luckily, one day I received an email from my old Adidas Training account, reminding me to keep exercising. To be honest, the last time I logged on to the account was 3 years ago, and any emails I got from them went immediately in the trash.

I thought to myself, “what the heck, let’s just check it out”. To date, I am now about 5 weeks into my workout regime – I created a 12 weeks workout routine with the app, and it allows me to fast forward to the next week once I’ve completed the current week’s exercise, hence explaining the anachronism of only being in lockdown for about 4 weeks – and, I’ve got to say, I’m kind of enjoying it.

The good thing about the app, and the exercises contained within it is that it’ll give you exercises that are in line with your capabilities and, it usually takes about 20 mins, tops. So throughout, I’d feel like I want to die, but the process is less than half an hour. It works for me, because it means I won’t have to leave my daddy duties for too long, and that I’ll get the exercises that I need in order to dampen my mood swings. At least I think it’s working.

I think that if you’ve been looking to workout, but are scraped for time, and maybe even doubt your capabilities, you should try checking the app out. They have video guides on individual exercises in case you weren’t sure how to do them, they have a workout creator if you wanted to target any specific areas, and even a workout planner, where you can schedule how many workouts you wanted to do in a week. Heck, if you’re feeling like a quick one, you can find workouts that’ll even take you less than ten minutes to finish. The best part, at most, all you’ll need are a pair of shoes, and the occasional wall.

The training routine that I’m on has certainly kept me busy, and I think for the most part, it’s kept me from getting down on myself. I reckon that during this period, we could do with any help that we can get. Try it out, who knows, it might work for you too.

Check them out here: https://www.runtastic.com/

*I realised that I’m on the premium plan because yonks ago I bought their training pacer. But right now they have a 90 days free preview – enough time to get through this MCO, I think.