Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Insanity, Day 25: Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs

Ugh.. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't work out yesterday. I started to, but I had a small headache, and when I was into the warm up, the headaches got worse as I landed my jumps. I won't lie and say that I had to force myself too hard to quit. I have been really tired in the past few days and my motivation is wearing off. I have put on a tiny but of chub -- hopefully it's bloat -- from all of what I ate last week.

Yesterday, I drank my hemp/strawberry/blueberry smoothie, asian pear, apple, some grapes, a couple of handfuls of nuts, odwalla bar (yuck, I hate eating bars but I was starving), bad banh mi from Lee's, Yogurtland. I would consider this my "normal" desired way of eating minus the Odwalla bar. Well the thing that's connected to that is I worked straight through lunch so I didn't really eat a lunch lunch.. the banh mi was lunch dinner. As you can see that is clearly not enough protein. It's lots of carbs and moderate fat. I remember when I was focused on what I was eating and making sure I was getting "enough" protein I did not feel bloated. This morning my stomach measured a bit over 26" whereas I would be a solid 26" before. Maybe I should indeed go back to the way I was eating before: high protein, low carb, low fat. I've been WAY slacking on the veggie juice. Like WAY slacking. My skin is not great right now as I've started to break out from eating too many of these processed foods and not drinking enough veggie juice. My main problems are:
  1. Tired all the time
  2. No veggie juice
  3. Not enough protein
  4. Too many carbs
  5. Unmotivated
  6. Battle between wanting to eat the way I want to eat and making Insanity worth it, eating plan and all
These are all related to each other, probably spurned on the most by #1 and #5. The problem for me right now is scheduling. Ideally if I had all the time in the world, my schedule would look like this:
  1. Wake up
  2. Shower
  3. Make veggie juice
  4. Make smoothie
  5. Drink smoothie on car ride to work
  6. Get to work, drink veggie juice, eat correctly
  7. Go home, work out, drink protein shake
  8. Get to bed 2-3 hours later
My main problems lie in these areas:
  1. I need to leave the house by 6AM. 6:15 at the latest. Which isn't a problem in itself; #2 is the problem:
  2. I would have to wake up at 4:30. Do you know how hard that is? I can't shower at night after my work out; I don't want to sleep on wet hair, and I don't want to spend an hour blow drying it. Not to mention I can't ever style my hair after having slept on it (wet or dry). So I must shower in the morning. I must also make veggie juice in the morning, because I don't want to drink it at night.
  3. You should drink veggie juice fresh. I don't normally drink it until after I finish my smoothie, and I don't normally finish it until a couple of hours after I start. By then it's gross because it's warm and the juice starts to oxidize and turn brown and taste yucky, and a lot of the nutrients are gone by that time. It takes me about an hour or so to get to work, then some more time to get settled then start drinking.
  4. I usually either wake up hungry or get hungry soon after I wake up. I also heard that you should eat soon after you wake up to jump start your metabolism. If I wake up at 4:30 and not eat until when I get on the fwy, I will be voracious.
  5. Waking up at 4:30 means I would have to sleep at 8, since 8 hours of sleep is clearly  not cutting it for me. I think I would be comfortable with 9 hours of sleep, but I'll try 8.5 first. Not sure if I have the willpower to go to bed at 8, and my social life on the weekends will suffer.
  6. I'm on an entirely different schedule from everyone else at work; I get in around 7-7:30, everyone else, 9-9:15. Ideally I get two lunches -- one at 11, one at 2. They normally eat around 12:30ish. That's fine, I guess; I just don't want to step out twice (I work in a small office, and office etiquette says don't eat things that smell!).
  7. This doesn't leave room for me being late anywhere, including staying late at work (although if I stay late at work that means I face boat loads of traffic, which is another discouraging thing about leaving late).
  8. I hardly ever have down time to read or do anything.
So it looks like my revised schedule will be:
  1. Wake up at 4:30
  2. Shower, eat something real fast, do my hair and make up, make smoothie first, then veggie juice
  3. Drive to work at 6-6:15, drink smoothie in the car
  4. Finish veggie juice before 8:30
  5. Eat snack at 9
  6. First lunch at 11
  7. Second lunch at 2
  8. Hemp shake at 4 when I leave work
  9. Work out when I get home, finish protein shake by 6:30
  10. Be in bed by 8:00
Hm, okay, looks like I'll have some wiggle room there after my work out. Hopefully I will be able to sleep at 8:00 after finishing a work out just 2 hours prior. This is hoping that I can actually get up at 4:30 and get ready in 1.5 hours.

Wish me luck...

2 comments:

  1. Oy sis. Can you drink the smoothie after the veggie? And is the reason the veggie juice doesn't last because it can't be exposed to oxygen, or because it can't be exposed to heat? Because offhand, I can't think of anything that would make the nutrients disappear so fast, as the ingredients are just veggies, right? And have you checked out Shakeology at all? That last question is more a curious thing - I was interested in it and was wondering if it would be worth it, but it sounds like you're doing about the same thing with the veggie juice anyway. Also, can you bring a juicer or blender to work and just put it in the kitchen so you can have less time drain? Or get the boss to buy a juicer/blender? And, while we're at it, get the boss to buy you free, healthy, nutritious meals? Lols.

    I know this was definitely true for me, but winter + workout = increased sleep demand. I mean, when I started Bootcamp, I was WIPED OUT. I'd be at work straight up on the floor napping in the middle of the day because I couldn't handle the strain. Same thing in China, when I was working out in the morning because of table tennis - I just had so much more of a sleep need. But plus the fact that the morning sun doesn't bother us uber-early is a factor. Can you take breaks to catnap at work, or is that frowned upon?

    I'm so proud of my lil' sis' for continuing this journey! I'm going to have to get tips from you later on when my Bootcamp creds run out and I need to start Insanity as my regular workout. Love you sis!

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  2. Thanks for your thoughts, Den.

    Hmm, I never thought about drinking veggie juice first. I did think about drinking it in the car, but my canister that holds 30+ fl oz has a REALLY big opening, so I never wanted to take the chance of spillage in case I tipped it too far. And beet juice stains.

    While warm veggie juice tastes gross, I think the nutrition depletion has to do with being exposed to oxygen. Apparently leaving veggie juice out for a couple of hours is enough to make it oxidize, gross. I can taste and see the difference (yes, the ingredients are just veggies: a mixture of some or all of celery, carrots, chard, kale, cucumber, beets, spinach). I have a friend who works for Beach Body and I saw some posts she made about Shakeology and I *think* there are ads for Shakeology in the end of some of the Insanity vids; I don't know if it's good but there's whey protein isolate in it, and supposedly there's no lactose in there so it shouldn't give me digestive problems, but I took whey protein before believing that and I still got bloated. Reason #2 would be that it's an animal product that's not worth it for me (read: Yogurtland).

    You know, your comment reminded me of this one-serving blender I saw a review for. The only bad side is that it's from Wal-Mart but maybe I can get it somewhere else.

    Interesting about needing more sleep in the Winter. Never thought about that. I can break to nap at work, no biggie. I hate taking naps though because I rarely wake up refreshed -- usually groggy. And usually when I put my head down, I don't want to get up!

    What do you mean your Bootcamp creds run out? They run out?

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