Shocking

I'm visiting some old friends today and tomorrow, and of course, that means dining out and stuff. For dinner, everyone wanted Chinese food (haha, remember my Panda Express sentiments?). I chose mu shu chicken, thinking it was less bad than most other stuff on the menu, and resisted the egg rolls everyone else ordered. Then, after dinner, we had a little chocolate treat, and I thought to myself, well, it is a special occasion, so I won't worry about cheating. Not to mention that lunch was out today at Souplantation with DH. But guess what?? After everything was input into FitDay, it still met my goals! Woo-hoo. I can't believe it. Resisting that second muffin at Souplantation and only eating half my order at dinner really did help. It's basically like a miracle that I get to count today as perfect, but I'm definitely not complaining. :D

Challenge
Workout: Baptiste Journey Into Power Yoga 2
Food: 2002 Cal, 47/29/24
Consecutive Perfect Days: 3
Total Perfect days: 11/39

Being a picky eater sucks

I don't mean picky like I was when I was a kid, but picky like particular about what kind of fuel I will give my body. DH and I went shopping today and of course, I didn't bring a snack with and got ravenously hungry while we were out. We were at the mall, and they have a food court, but there was absolutely nothing that I was willing to eat. I couldn't find a single choice that had protein without gobs of fat and sugar attached to it. The old me would have just gotten some mandarin chicken from Panda Express and been happy, but the new me is all, "hmm...it's coated in corn starch, fried in oil and then dipped in sugar. Is that even close to being worth it?" I think not. So, instead, sweet hubby that he is, cut our trip short and drove me home so I could have a nice, healthy snack.

Going out to eat used to be one of my favorite things to do. Now, it's a chore. It's so much easier to eat at home, where I don't have to guess what I'm eating. :(

Challenge
Yesterday's workouts: TJ Cardio Party 2 (am), Legs & Backless, Ab Ripper X (pm)
Yesterday's food:1248 Cal, 38/36/28 (hehe, sounds like measurements)

Today's workout: Cathe's Cardio Kicks
Today's food: 1458 Cal, 40/34/26

Consecutive Perfect Days: 2
Total Perfect Days: 10/39

Back to zero

Well, I guess I had it coming with all that talk about being perfect. I had my cheat meal yesterday, and it wasn't that bad, but usually I try to keep my meals really good the rest of the day before I cheat. However, yesterday was just okay, not great (before the cheat) and then we went to Pat and Oscars. But it was so worth it! I love those breadsticks and I haven't had real pizza in a long time. Yummy! So, my consecutive count is back to zero. But I'll be good from now on, I promise ;) I have always said that it's only worth doing if it doesn't make you miserable doing it. That's why I allow myself cheat days in the first place: if I really want something, then I should be allowed to have it. Just use moderation!

Challenge:
Thursday's workout: Shoulders & Arms, TJ Cardio Party Remix, Ab Jam
Thursday's food: 1649 Cals, 47/36/18

Friday's workout: rest day
Friday's food: 2383 Cals, 43/23/34

Consecutive Perfect Days: 0
Total Perfect Days: 8

A perfect week

There's something really personally motivating to me to have a challenge to meet. I have had no problems meeting my goals at all for the past 7 days. If I get tempted to skip my workout because it's so freaking hot, I just think about how I don't really want to mess up all the great work I've done so far and I just suck it up and do it. I think it's kind of like grades in school. I always wanted to be the best. Not really because I enjoyed learning (I did, but that wasn't it), just because I wanted to get the highest score. This challenge is like that for me. As long as there is a "perfect score" I'll do my best to earn it.

So I did Low Max yesterday instead of Plyo. I've never done that workout in its entirety before. It's a real leg killer and I have never been so sweaty in my life during a workout. Part of it is because I refused to close all the windows and turn on the a/c, but also, it's a very tough workout. I'm surprised my legs aren't sore this morning, since you do about 500 squats and lunges during the blasts. Anyway, it's an excellent sub for Plyo since it has all that leg intensive stuff.

Challenge
Workout: Low Max Blasts 1-6 (avg hr 133, max hr 165, 573 Cal)
Food: 1648 Cal, 42/36/22
Consecutive Perfect Days: 7
Total Perfect Days: 7/39

So I've been finishing a side table/cabinet that I started building last spring break. It was in the garage for like a year. And it was practically finished. I have no idea why my momentum in working on it tailed off. I think spring break ended. So, I've just about finished it now. I added trim along the bottom edge and made the doors. I put one coat of stain on it and will do the others tomorrow. I also put one coat of stain splotches on my right leg, but not my left. Weird. I'm so excited to be finished with it. I know it's silly, but I feel like I made a big accomplishment. It's going to be a nice piece of furniture to add to my house and hopefully something that people will say, "You made that??" when they see it. It's meant to match the desk that DH and I built for our den. (Well, the desk was made to match this, but the desk got finished first.)

I'll post a pic when it's all finished.

Challenge
Yesterday:
Workout: rest day
Food: 1514 Cals, 40/35/25

Today:
Workout: TJ Fat Blaster (am) / Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X (pm)
Food: 1392 Cals, 47/33/20

Consecutive Perfect Days: 6
Total Perfect Days: 6/39

A feast

My friends W and E came over for dinner tonight, and we literally had a grilled feast. They brought eggplant, onion, mushrooms, asparagus, and red bell peppers and we had NY strips and zucchinis. We had to grill everything in 3 shifts, even though our grill is a decent size. It as one of the yummiest meals I've had in a while. And really great for me, too. I love our grill. It's so easy to use and cooking with it is always delicious. It's healthy, easy to clean, and fun.

Today was my last day of my recovery week before starting into phase 3 of P90X. I can't believe how fast this is going. I'm really happy that I decided to do this program. DH and I were discussing how much we really think it's worth, especially compared to other things people pay for fitness-wise. It cost just under $110 with discounts, and we both agree that it is worth much more to us than the $600 bowflex sitting in our garage gathering dust. It's certainly more convenient than schlepping to the gym and back and definitely costs a lot less than membership fees. We agree that, knowing what we know now, we would not hesitate to spend $400-500 on it. But would we have been willing to spend that much without knowing? I guess that's the dilemma that companies like beachbody have to balance out. Once you've already bought into the program, it's easy to say it's worth so much, but people in general are not likely to spend more than $150ish on an infomercial product, no matter how many excellent reviews and before/afters they show you.

Challenge
Today:
Workout: Baptiste's Journey into Power 2 (yoga)
Food: 1607 cals, 37/37/26

Yesterday:
Workout: Core Synergistics
Food: 1634 cals, 44/30/26

Consecutive perfect days: 4
Total perfect days: 4/39

Cheating

Ok, not really. I still fell within my goals, but I did have a planned cheat meal at my favorite cookie 'n' ice cream place: Diddy Riese. Fresh cinnamon sugar cookies wrapped around butter pecan ice cream. Yum! This was after being extremely good at the Olive Garden, where I had scoped out ahead of time and ordered the Apricot Chicken. I highly recommend this dish. It's low fat/high protein and is yum yum yummy! I had half, and DH had half, but did we just order one and share? Of course not. So now we both have lunches in the fridge. We're so cute, all the same but different.

Challenge
Workout: rest day
Food: 1752 cals, 39/30/31
Consecutive perfect days: 2/2
Total perfect days: 2/39