I mentioned in my February workout plan blog that we were going to make this a monthly series and… That definitely didn’t happen. But I’m back at it again and will try to write these more consistently. (Not going to promise every month again this time 😂). For my May workout plan, it’s going to be another fairly loose plan, because life happens and things come up. Let’s get into it!

The May Workout Plan

I’m not a fan of extremely structured workout plans with no room for flexibility. Anytime I’ve tried to do something like that, I end up falling off it in the first few weeks and feeling bad about myself.

Personally, I end up losing motivation quickly if my workout plan has no wiggle room.

So the way I typically create these plans has a lot of room for flexibility. I’m taking into account that things come up. Also, there’ll be times when I just need a day or two off.

That being said, I still like to come up with a few goals for the month. This helps to keep me motivated and moving in the right direction.

My May Health & Fitness Goals:

1. Have a good (50/50ish) balance of weightlifting and cardio
2. Get groceries and plan out meals for the week every weekend
3. Stretch at least twice a week

Let’s break those down…

1. balance of weights & cardio

For the past couple of months, I’ve really only been doing weightlifting. I completely ignored any sort of cardio, HIIT, stretching, or anything else really, and only focused on strength.

A lot of fitness influencers I follow say they work out like this (all lifting, no cardio). So I was swayed by them to try it.

For me, it just didn’t work. I love strength training and always plan to incorporate it into my routine. But my cardiovascular fitness is important to me too.

When I was only weightlifting, I’d be out of breath from just going up the stairs or going for a walk.

I think it really hit me when Jeremy & I were late for a flight at DFW, running through the airport… By the time we got there, I felt like I was going to fall over in exhaustion. I ended up needing to chug water and sit down for 5 minutes after, just to catch my breath.

At that point, I realized something needed to change.

So I’m planning to alternate 50/50 between strength and cardio workouts now. I’ll get more into it in my workout plan below.

2. plan meals for the week

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know I’m not a fan of strict meal plans or diets. (In some cases, going on a diet is okay if it’s something you need for a health condition, etc. But I’m not a proponent of diet culture in general.)

That being said, I do want to try to eat out less (mostly for money reasons > health reasons). I also want to grocery shop for food over the weekend.

I always grocery shop over the weekend, but most of the time it’s without a real plan. I’ll get a bunch of food and end up wasting some of it because I didn’t buy it for any particular reason.

For that reason, I want to plan out actual meals and recipes before making my grocery list. I’ll also try to meal prep at least one meal for the week.

This’ll hopefully reduce food waste, cut down on my spending on food for the month, and still allow me to have healthy, satisfying meals.

3. stretch 2x/week

I feel like I say this at the beginning of every week and then it never happens…

I don’t know what it is about stretching, but it’s my least favorite fitness-related thing to do. Even though every single time I get done, I feel better than I did before I started.

A lot of times when I commit to a stretching goal, it’s like going 0 to 100 and completely unrealistic. I’ll go from stretching 0 times a week to planning to stretch every day.

Needless to say, that never works out for me and I still end up not stretching at all.

I’m hoping that by choosing a more realistic goal (2 sessions per week with no time limit) I’ll be able to actually stick to it. Even if that means only doing two 5-minute sessions per week, it’s still better than nothing!

My May Workout Plan (Flexible & Realistic)

In my February workout plan, I broke the month down week by week to be based around my cycle. If you’re interested in a more cycle syncing-focused plan, give that a read.

This time, I’m going to be creating a weekly checklist, which will carry over into each week. I’ll still base it around my cycle each week, but I’m not going to plan ahead. That’s where the flexibility comes in to be able to do less cardio or strength one week and focus more on yoga, etc.

Weekly workout checklist:

Most weeks, I’ll end up doing 2 cardio workouts, 2 strength workouts, and 2 stretching sessions. But on weeks where I’m feeling more energized and want to do more, I’ll do 3 of any of those categories.

The cardio workouts I typically bounce between are: incline treadmill walks, long walks at the park, or runs at the park.

For strength workouts, I typically will do one leg day and one upper body day. If I have a week where I want to do more, I’ll throw a full body day in there, so everything is still getting evenly worked.

I’ll try to balance out my stretching too, by doing at least one lower body stretch and one upper body stretch each week. These might only be 5-10 minute sessions, but I’m still proud of that since it’s better than I was doing before!

Other posts you might be interested in:

• February 2022 Workout Plan
• How to Motivate Yourself to Workout Again (5 Simple Tips)
• Why Walking for Exercise is Incredible for Your Health

Let’s be friends 👇

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