It's time for a reboot

I am not fit anymore, dear readers. While I did lots of sports last year and, hence, was healthy and fit end of 2012, now all these great achievements are gone again. Since December last year, I had to downgrade my sports routine more and more until I didn't do any sports at all anymore since end of January, first due to an operation and then because I moved to the UK.

Recently, I observed that I started to feel quite weak and physically incapable. I don't like this kind of feeling. I suffered of it for many years, but last year I have experienced that this kind of feeling can be overcome with steady and regular physical exercise. It is very empowering to feel strong and physically capable for doing anything. So, I really want to start doing more exercise this month again. Also, summer is coming and it would be nice to be able to wear shorts and short skirts again.

Another thing I don't like that much at the moment is that I also don't eat that healthy anymore. When I am spending time abroad in other countries, I love to experiment with different kinds of foods from that country and at the moment - as I have moved to the UK - I am indulging myself in all kinds of unhealthy foods with far too many calories. Furthermore, I was living in a shared house until recently where I didn't feel comfortable to cook. So, I ate a lot of ready and instant meals. Fortunately, I still fit into the trousers I brought with me but I'm sure that I gained a bit of weight as they started to feel a bit tight lately. Unfortunately, I have not found any scales to check my weight.

All in all I urgently need and want to push life's reset button at the moment! 

found @millenialleader

It is really interesting how important it is to have a nice and soothing environment in order to unleash your full potential. When I moved to the UK, I first stayed in a shared house and lived in a freezing room. Each day I was thinking about starting to do sports but the environment and the situation with the commuting just dragged a lot of energy out of me. Now, the weather starts to be much better and I also just moved into a nice flat where I feel great and where I already started to exercise a bit. Have a look at my view when I look out of the window (this is what I mostly fell in love with when I decided to rent this flat):

In April, I want to get back into my routines and into living healthy and meaningfully. My sports goals starting from Monday are:

1. I want to finally start running. In the last couple of years, I tried a couple of times to start running but somehow it never stuck and it never felt really good. As I was not able to take my bike with me to the UK, unfortunately, I needed to find a substitute for my biking cardio routine and decided to start running as it is a great and minimalistic cardio training. In order to do everything right this time, I bought the book by Anja Dostert (Laufend zum Wunschgewicht. Von der Couch zum Gesundheitsläufer) and am currently reading it (on my ipod touch as you can see below in the picture). It is a great read for running beginners. It actually even is a book for overweight people who have not done any sports for ages and it teaches all kinds of basics that help inexperienced and doubtful runners to start properly and keep running. Hence, it's perfect for me even though I am not overweight. Besides the book by Anja Dostert, I also bought a magazine I found here in the UK which looked like a really nice companion for the next weeks when I'll start running.
   
   
2. I want to do Pilates properly and booked a course nearby. A couple of days ago, I had the first session and I like it. It is different from my beloved Pilates course in Germany, but it is not bad either and I can confirm that this "proper Pilates" as well, i.e. it is taken care that the posture is right and we do a lot of mat exercises. I was quite impressed and want to mix and match the exercises I learned in my course in Germany and the ones I learn here and try do a couple of them each morning at home. And I also started to read the book by Verena Geweniger and Alexander Bohlander on Pilates (Das Pilates-Lehrbuch: Matten- und Geräteübungen für Prävention und Rehabilitation). I can highly recommend it. It is really interesting and well written and well researched.  
   
   
3. Furthermore, I want to do Qi Gong probably every second day. I also already tried a course here in the UK but - as I unfortunately also expected, because I know that my old course in Germany was a true gem - I was not very content with it. It was nice but I was missing meditation and some guidance on buddhistic thinking. We just did a couple of moving exercises which were great but for me Qi Gong is so much more. My Qi Gong course in Germany was much more challenging and educational in so many ways. However, I consider to keep going to my course here in the UK as it was not really bad either. I'm not sure yet. But as it is a completely different kind of Qi Gong, I'll also try to keep practicing the exercises I learned in Germany at home on my own with the book mentioned here.