P90X, Day 24: Kenpo X

This morning I felt much better than yesterday. No headaches. I had a hard time balancing though; I don't remember toppling over this much. And I'm wondering if my back kicks are side kicks... however, I have finally gotten the hang of Star Punches. Anyway, nothing much new here, tomorrow is stretching and then Kenpo again on friday.

Hmm what I ate yesterday was in last night's post... It definitely gets easier to refrain from the food you want after time. Cravings are also easier to handle after the initial transition. I've been off eggs and dairy and I've been minimizing my refined carbs (especially sugar) close to nil except for two occasions in the past two weeks with the last week being more strict and where I want to be for the rest of my life. I still want sweets after lunch, but I don't keep any sweets at work and the sweets that ARE at work have milk in them. OH, that reminds me -- I haven't updated you guys on what I've found out with regards to refined carbohydrates and acne. I'll update you later when I can type with 10 fingers (as opposed to just one on my phone), but the short story is that it looks like I have another motivator to continue eating only fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans tofu, and air.

Food Today

I was really good today. Banana w/ pb, 42g protein smoothie, baked tofu in tomato sauce, another banana w/ pb, asian pear, nuts, raw vegetables in hummus, veggie juice, TJ's meatless meatballs. ~75g protein, no refined carbs, no refined sugars.

P90X, Day 23: Core Synergistics

Omg. Fuck rest week. This shit was freakin hard. I was feeling off this morning, though; got headaches at times. Disappointed that I wasn't able to push myself as hard as I would like. I am chugging water today because I am wondering if I didn't have enough water yesterday. Also I need a lot more sleep.

Core Synergistics was a lot of hard moves. And moves that require more space. Banana Rolls (not sushi rolls. ew) were so eloquently explained by Meg, so I shall save myself the time and copy and paste what she wrote:

you're curved like a banana - so lying on your stomach with arms+legs back to ceiling, then on left side with arms+legs to the right towards the ceiling, then on back with arms+legs forward towards the ceiling, and then on right side with arms+legs left towards the ceiling.....repeat....

And then there were the Banana Rolls where you just go straight from back to stomach. Superman Rolls? Or something. I have a hard time getting from my stomach to my back; I found myself pushing off with my arms for a bit. Dreya rolls weren't as hard as they looked although I'm probably not getting high enough: stand at the front of your mat, sit down on your butt with your hands in the air and roll back onto your neck and reach your legs toward the ceiling. Then come back up without using your hands. I found that Dreya (who I love, btw) kept her legs together the entire time whereas I kept my legs apart a bit to stand up. And anywhere where there were push ups... heck no. These parts were reminiscent of Insanity but I did some. Not as much as I should have. "Luckily" I'll get a second chance later this week...

P90X, Day 22: Yoga X

Skipped rest day, and went straight to Yoga. Woke up at 5, got up at 5:15, brushed my teeth and suddenly it was 5:30. Did 0:15 of yoga, got hungry, cut and ate a mango for 0:15 while the yoga dvd played, got back and did 0:30. The 0:15 I missed was all of the repetitive Warrior poses and when I got back I did 2 chair poses (it is really hard to keep your arms straight! I keep feeling like my shoulders aren't relaxed enough). Oh, and I can NEVER EVER get my foot to where my hands are when I go from plank to downward dog to runner's pose. I don't get how others do it. Like I don't even think I'm getting better at it. My foot reaches the same plane as my mid-torso at best and then I have to walk my foot up. Anyway, after the 2 chair poses were balance poses. I am better at balancing on my left foot than on my right foot which kind of surprised me. I toppled a few times, but whatevs, I'll get better. When Tony started talking about the crane pose, he kept saying don't land on your face and to put a pillow to where your face would be. Gosh, that wasn't intimidating! Then I saw that it's the pose where you put both hands on the ground and your knees onto the upper parts of your arms and keep your feet up. I put a big folded up quilt where my head would fall and tried to get up, but I couldn't. I couldn't even get one leg up. It was so awkward and it hurt because I was experiencing skin burn. I want to do it though! It looks cool.  By then it was 6:30 and I had to get ready: made protein smoothie, showered, put on make up etc and left by 8:05, awesomely got here at 9. I will consider today a success if I end up making veggie juice at night. A potential downside though (that I really shouldn't complain about) is my pants fitting badly. My hips are quite sizable, so I can't fit into anything smaller than a 4. However, with my size that my waist is, proportionally,... it's hard to explain but I've found my second pair of pants that fit funny in front of the crotch. Or maybe it always did this but I just noticed? There is just.. it folds over funny. Extra space there (and yes I'm sure I'm wearing jeans for women!) which results from a not-tight-enough waistband. And this is with my jeans that are my size; the jeans that I bought a size too large has this problem too. So, if anyone has any tips for where large-hipped-but-not-fat women shop, please pass the word...

P90X, Days 19 & 20: Kenpo and Legs & Back, Ab Ripper X

Remember last week when I wanted to kick the person who decided to have Kenpo after Legs? Since I switched things up this week, I did Kenpo after I did Shoulders & Arms, and now I want to punch the same person. My arms were tired during Kenpo but my legs were fine! About 6 minutes into Kenpo I got some work e-mails and then resumed Kenpo a few hours later at Armando's. It was risky because I was afraid I wouldn't work out again after I stopped, but thankfully, I did.

Today I did Legs & Back and Ab Ripper X. I really pushed myself on Ab Ripper X. I was hurting! Oh the pain involved in obtaining a hot bod.

Food-wise, yesterday I ate a mango, much craved Veggie Grill (bayou chicken on a bed of kale + swt potato fries), Yogurtland, tofu and black beans on tofu yam noodles. Oh and another mango. OMG -- I finally picked up these tofu yam noodles. I really wanted them because they have 3g carbs for half a pkg. (The yam isn't the sweet potato yam. I think the yam starch is part of the root or something.. totally not the yam potato.) They kind of taste like nothing but act like a great starchy carb. I will get more!! Today is Mother's Day and I had four small squares of chocolate cake. I also had a mango (my mom just bought a ton of mangoes and they're ALL ripe now), 30g protein smoothie, 6 veggie meatballs, tofu and salad.

On the low-carb no dairy or eggs note, my skin's cleared up a ton. I think I need to eat like this permanently for my skin to clear up permanently. Just gotta cut the crap. Very little refined sugar, refined starchy carbs, eggs, and dairy in my diet. I can't do any more of this "my skin is bad so I'm going to cut out eggs and dairy." That just sets my body off on swings which is less than enjoyable, and then I'm grumpy and crave-y for the initial period of the transition. I'm happy I live in Los Angeles where eating the way I eat is doable.

Tomorrow is Recovery Week. I've gotten into the groove of things. With my new work schedule, I have had to work out super early, make protein smoothie, and try to make juice at night. I haven't succeeded in making juice at night yet, but I need to do it for my skin's sake.

P90X, Day 18: Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X

I realized that I have almost no trouble waking up at 5:00-5:15 to do these work outs. It's refreshing looking forward to a work out -- especially one you'd wake up at the buttcrack of dawn for!

Today's was Shoulders & Arms and I am so happy I bought the weights. There was no chafing or anything; there was just my full range of motion and the appropriate amount of weight even on the way down. I had trouble doing the tricep dips because I couldn't go all the way down. I'm still sore in my shoulders from the chest & back exercises I did with the pull-ups and push-ups. Like the first time I did this, I had to figure out what weights work best for me, so there was a little bit of adjusting; also, there was time wasted in pushing the knob back and forth to get the correct number of weights I wanted. That's the setback about these adjustable weights: it takes time to adjust them. I'll admit I'm sure there are better designs than the one from Jillian Michaels, but for the price I'll spend an extra 4 seconds to get the weights I want.

Abs was good. I think I could have worked harder. Instead of oblique v-up things I did planks and did obliques there. I was wiped out by the end but still did the 50 of the end things where you raise your legs and twist back and forth. It is really hard getting your legs out there straight.

Yesterday I was pretty good. I drank my 42g protein shake, 2 bananas, asian pear, apple, nuts and lunch was vegetables and tofu. Oh, and I also ate an Odwalla bar. I didn't want to, but I was starving and the bars are vegan. I've been ravenous for the past two days. Some days I am just hungrier. I realized now I just have to cut, cut, cut the rest of the bad stuff out of my diet: white sugar, white carbs. Pretty good on that. Yesterday after lunch I was craving sweets but the only sweets here had milk in them so that was a no. I'm proud that I powered through the craving. It gets easier the more days you do it. I previously craved bread and other grains but I'm doing so much better now. It is just hard to get over that initial hump of cravings.

P90X, Day 17: Yoga

So that was Yoga fail. Got up at 5:15 surprisingly without hassle after a pretty bad sleep (fuck you, asshole who called me at 1:36AM. You have to double triple check to make sure you're not calling the wrong number after 9PM, okay? Seriously.). Did 0:15 of yoga. It was too boring. Too repetitive. Too non-exhilarating. Well I suppose it's supposed to be relaxing and calm but I hate staying in the same place more than once. Or, I should say, I don't like holding poses. Sometimes it's because my balance is off, but it's mostly because it's boring and I know I'm going to do it again and again and again. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it's easy at all. It's just boring. And the thing where you plank, get down very low on the ground and return face up is very difficult. I cheated there. I'm also pretty sore -- my abs and my upper back near my arms. I could never get sore like this using bands!


Happy Cinco de Mayo, and May the Fit be wit you.