Hi,

My name is Cheryl and I can’t stop working out. It is immensely fun and as of yesterday, I have worked out for 230 days straight.

Yes, you read that right, 230 days straight. This all started due to an email my gym sent to members. Work out for 30 days, and they would pay for a month of dues. Given the month of dues as this was occurring around the holidays, I was all over this. In a spin class that I take regularly, our instructor asked how many of us were doing it and I was the only one who did it.

After the 30 days were up, my spin instructor challenged me to 50 days. That seemed like a piece of cake since her challenge came around day 35 of my continuously working out. On February 29th, I hit 100 days. After 100 days, I thought I would take a day off, but it just never happened. Then it became “let’s see if I can make it 120 days.”

After that flew by, then it was on to 150 days. Now I am working on potentially getting up to 240 days, which doesn’t seem that far away.

Before you start thinking, that this cannot be good for me, I should probably explain some things first.

One, I don’t always work out as hard as possible when I do a workout each day. During the week, I will run, take a spin class and lift weights. I also will do yoga. Sometimes the yoga class is pretty intense (think hot bikram yoga) or it will purposely be a relaxing class.

Two, I listen to my body. On days when I am feeling really good, I push myself a bit more. If I am not feeling so fantastic, I purposely back off what I might do on a normal day. I have suffered through not being able to workout due to injury. I never want to go through it again, so I try to make sure that now if I feel something coming on, I take care of it before it becomes a real thing.

So why do I do it? Because as much as I push myself physically, I also find it incredibly relaxing. I am also competitive so I have to keep besting myself. It’s sort of game to play with myself to find out what can I do next to get better.

While I have my workout streak going, it has been further fed by the Nike+ FuelBand. You may remember that I wrote a review of it back in March. Well, now I have one to use all the time and it just makes me want to work out more and reach my fuel goal that I have set.

It may seem silly the little rewards you get with the Nike+ FuelBand of reaching your goal, but I really do enjoy at the end of the day getting my notification that I have reached my goal. The animations are fun and it strangely in a way makes my day feel complete. It is even better when I find out I have exceeded my fuel goal by 150 or 200% for the day.

In experimenting with the Fuel Band, I have noticed that it makes a difference which wrist I wear it on (or ankle, which I will explain later.) If I wear it on my dominant hand, it picks up more fuel points because it is sensing movement. When I wear it on my non-dominant hand, it is a lot harder to get the fuel earned.

I also have found that if I wearing it on my wrist in a spin class, I appear to not be working very hard. This despite the fact that my heart rate monitor (in some of my classes, it is a required item) says otherwise. The first time I wore it in spin class I was shocked that I had only earned less than 300 fuel points. I thought that was crazy.

However, if I wear the FuelBand on my ankle, it gives me a more accurate depiction of around 1,900 in fuel earned. The takeaway for me is that when I wear it on my wrist, I am keeping a very still upper body, which is a good thing in spin class.

Despite the different numbers that can occur, I have had fun using it. It would be nice if it had a heart rate monitor built into it as well. It is fun that it counts calories and steps, but it seems that it would be logical to have a heart rate monitor on it.

While doing something everyday, I have had some races mixed in there. From 5K all the way up to a half marathon. You would think that with running the longer distances, I would need a day off of doing no workout. However, those are the days I feel the most need to do something, mainly to loosen up stiff muscles from the long runs.

On the day after those long runs, that is when I will do a more relaxing yoga class. And it really helps me to stay injury-free as well as keep me from feeling guilty about not doing something.

Aside from the relaxation that comes from working out, I think I am doing it because I truly enjoy it. If I must have a vice, this is probably the best one a person could have. How long it will continue to go, I am not sure. I am almost up to seven months so I feel I cannot stop until I reach that goal at a minimum.

Some days are harder than others, but I always make sure I do something. I have enjoyed the strength and endurance gains I have made over the past six months. And frankly, I look forward to the gains I will continue to make. I know one day my streak will end. But when I do officially take a day off, I will no doubt look forward to the next streak, should I choose to do one.