Exercise habits – before the pandemic I used to go to the gym perhaps 4 or 5 times a week, also swim sometimes, just use my bike to go down to town every day (round trip about 15-20 minutes) for shopping.
But in the first lockdown the sports centre shut and we were told we could only leave the house once a day – for exercise or shopping or medical appt etc – so I started to rack up the miles on my bike until I was out cycling for between 30 – 60 minutes every day (doing the shopping, calling on mum etc at the same time). At the same time, I started walking in my garden (not allowed out a second time) and doing UTube routines indoors.

I got very fixated on my steps (goal 12,000 a day, often 15,000).

The gyms have reopened but I’m not rushing back.
I do like to make sure I get 1,000 steps before breakfast – I do a short Utube workout which is low impact but gets all the joints moving, stretches my rusting limbs and gets me out of breath.
After breakfast is usually do my bike ride, out in the countryside, on the hills. Get home around 11. Then I do several short videos during the day with goals of 5,000 steps by lunch time, hope for 10,000 by dinner and then just pottering around for the last 2,000 steps by bedtime. I had a hysterectomy in Jan 2020 and it took several months to be able to do more than 15 minutes aerobic exercise at one time. I had to start with “just walk to the first lamp post, next week walk to the end of the road” and so on.
I have been doing the planking challenge (along with some others from here) for a couple of years but I have drifted off recently. Need to pick it up again and get back to the gym for strength training.
This has turned into a long essay – I’ll put it in a spoiler.