Friday, October 30, 2009

Day Five, Phase Three

Whew!

Just did Core Synergistics... which I skipped yoga for, oddly enough. Well, not so odd... I slept in for an extra 45 minutes... so sue me!

I'm going to try to do a little yoga when I get home this afternoon.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Day Four, Phase Three

Move over, El Mejor Pistolero, because the new love of my life is this:Ok, so that's a damn dirty lie- how could smokey miso tofu replace a man who is refining the process of making steel-cut oats overnight in a crock-pot? It can't, of course, but as with every good lie there is an element of truth, and that is that smokey miso tofu is my favorite thing to have for lunch. I've had it pretty much every school day for two weeks. The wonderful incredible recipe is here at the wonderful VeganYumYum blog. I'm looking forward to getting the VeganYumYum cookbook in my next round of cookbook purchases.

In case anyone was wondering, I enjoy my miso tofu on a thin whole0wheat bun with Trader Joe's ailoli mustard, a slice of soy-pepper jack cheese, spinach, and some avocado if I have it kicking around.

In case anyone else was wondering, other items on my cook-book list are:
Raw Food Real World, Living Raw Food, Vegan Comfort Food, The Thirty Minute Vegan, The Voluptuous Vegan, and How to Eat, which has nothing to do with vegan/raw food whatsoever!

Otherwise, I'm pretty pooped today because of the usual rumblings and tumblings from my upstairs neighbors keeping me up all night. The most maddening thing about it is that they aren't even DOING anything. They are just living a normal life up there. I know because I can hear every footfall. I need to get a white-noise maker or something. I'd like to get a little more high tech a solution than just sleeping with a pillow over my head. Which I do.



Oh. I almost forgot.

The OTHER reason I'm tired is that I actually got up at 7am today (hooray!) and did Shoulders and Arms (hooray)! Other good news is that I'm definitely ready for heavier weights, for that video anyhow. I've been using 8lb weights for most of it, and though it used to be a struggle, it really isn't anymore. The Notorious EMP has a pair of ten lbs hanging around his house for me... I'm looking forward to giving those a try.

As if P90X wasn't enough, I also had a pilates class at ten. As if P90X and pilates weren't enough, I also have a (light) yoga class after work that I'm really actually looking forward to.

I miss yoga when I don't make it to the studio. Sure, theoretically I can do it with a video, but that's still untested since I've never actually done it. Though I do have access to yoga DVDs.

I'm just set in my ways, ok?

Another thing I want to do is to find time (somehow, probably not that often though to be frank) to start jogging, and to find a way to jog that dose not result in horrible shin splints. One of my roommates is a runner, and her immediate suggestion was to not run in hiking boots. Well. Maybe I'll give that a try if it is at all nice this weekend.

I know I used to squeeze the elliptical into my day, but for the life of me I can't imagine how. It's going to work out that phase three is going to end right around the end of my semester, so I'm thinking there will be a lot of yoga, elliptical, and (finally!) rock climbing this winter before I get back into the P90X saddle with Tony and The Kids.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

An All The Pushups in the Whole World


Yesterday contained an unprecedented number of push ups in the history of my life.

First, in pilates I did about 6 or 8 wide push ups on my knees. I count these as officially the first push ups in my life because I went all the way down and all the way up. Whoa!

Then I did Chest and Back for the first time. It was pretty much a horrible nightmare, since it contained about 75,000 varietals of horrible push-ups. I did my best for all of them, and managed to gimp through the whole thing. I wasn't able to go all the way down to the floor, but I did what I could and I know it worked because I am sore from my bra-band to my armpits: a nice rectangle of stiffness.

I took a serious recovery week. I did yoga a few times, and a little pilates, but for the most part I studied for midterms, worked on school projects, dealt with a minor cold and a draining (no pun intended) period. Betcha thought I gave up! I didn't! I just didn't write anything here! Ha! Psych*!

Some other good news is that I weight myself on El Mejor Pistolero's scale and according to it, I went down to 150 and change from 155 and change. And that was after the delicious crock-pot meat dinner the night before. Yay! More significantly, my pants fit nice and style-less-ly lose, which is how I like them till I have the money and motivation to buy pants that fit appropriately. And, yes, I can wear my "tight" pants too!

So, mad props** to p90x! Maybe I'll get a t-shirt. Actually, maybe I'll get it to celebrate when I can do a pull-up. I love getting shirts of stuff I've done (or like, such as Dogfish Head beer, especially Chicory Stout). We all remember the trapeze shirt fiasco. :).

Today I'm skipping yoga... don't ask me why that seemed like a good idea this morning, because it doesn't seem like one now, but I'm going to to KenPo and maybe some "PM Yoga" from Netflix. Since my exercise/sleep schedule is so wonky lately I've been having a hard time falling asleep before 1am, which of course makes getting up at 7am to exercise sort of not gonna happen.
Anyway, all of this is to say that I'm on phase three, and super excited about it.


TTFN***!




(*-*** I actually used to say those things un-ironically.)

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Whew!


So I've finally finished phase two!

That's right! My long-over-due recovery week starts tomorrow, and I really need it. This weekend, I did nothing but hibernate with El Mejor Pistolero. Literally. I'd wake up around 11, make "breakfast" and then go back to sleep till 2pm.

Anyway, I'm eating well (except for the wine explosion on Friday... haha) and I'm really loving the P90X, and starting to see the results I was looking for*. I'm definitely going to do it again after I finish, though I'll probably sub out a little more, life when I start rock-climbing. I also want to get an butt-working video, silly as it sounds, and do it on one of the days when I'm supposed to do Cardio/Plyo (I know that its nothing like cardio, but I cant do all the jumping in my condo!). On an unrelated note, I also want to get a yoga video I really like so that I can do yoga on the weekends too.

...Which brings me to one of my two big announcements:

I did yoga FIVE days this week.

You read that right... FIVE times! That's a record for me! Woohoo!

The other big announcement is that I won a VitaMix on ebay. Hoooorrrrraaaaayyyy!

Ok, folks, that's all for now!

*P.S.
Learn more about stronglady Joan Rhodes here.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Triumphant Return


This is just a quick post to note that I've been keeping up with the P90X as scheduled (well, mostly... I haven't had the heart to do that nightmarish Chest/Shoulders/Tri, especially today since I have ANOTHER calculus midterm- yikes) and my yoga (three days so far since Monday, and I'm going tonight, so it looks like in min good shape for FIVE yoga classes this week... maybe even six if I can haul myself out of bed Saturday morning!).

The sad news is that between feeling under the weather and tutoring for this test I'm missing both my pilates classes, and have generally been too crazy busy to run on the elliptical. I haven't been carrying my water bottle around though, so I've been drinking less fluids. Boo.

My eating is still great though... and I've introduced KALE into my diet. Yum! I'm also remembering to eat my vitamins (got to put in a VitaCost order soon) with breakfast, and am aggressively pursuing a VitaMix on ebay.

Also: I don't remember if I mentioned this or not, and it happened last week, but... I went to trapeze with one of my best friends, La Abogada, and it was great! (Well, she liked doing something new, anyway, and she did great!)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Lost track again...

...but did yoga today!

Also: got Kale.
I've been doing pretty good this week, honestly!

I've done a workout pretty much every day (except for saturday), I've been eating pretty well and feeling better overall (no more sickies). I think I'm still kind of worn down from school-related stress though.

I don't know if I'm going to get todays core workout done: to be honest I'm so tired right now I kind of think I'd like to go back to sleep and miss pilates.

Hmm....

Friday, October 9, 2009

Phase Two, Week Two (Redo), Day Five


Today started off bad.

I couldn't get to sleep because Things Kept Going Bump in the Night, and in my rush to make the bus I forgot my wallet, so I wound up missing that and the yoga class I'd intended to go to.

Boo.

The good news is that I knocked out Shoulder and Arms. Really, I was supposed to do Chest and Shoulders, but I was NOT in the mood for that kind of torture. Frankly, I'm pretty psyched with the benefits I'm seeing with Shoulders and Arms. I'm not in a big hurry to build up my chest!

Ok: time for a protein shake and to get going!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Easing In

Ok.

I'm getting there.

Somehow when I get off track, I get WAY off track, and its always a bit of a process to get back on. From an outside standard I've been fairly active... again, not P90X "bringing it" active but hardly sedentary. Even the week I did "nothing" I still did pilates and yoga. My eating habits were healthy. I forgot my vitamins in the morning. I stopped drinking as much water but drank a lot of orange juice, which I refuse to believe is a terrible thing.

I went to trapeze a few times!

But now that I'm weaning myself back I'm already feeling better, sleeping better, and in my humble estimation, looking better. Maybe getting off track* was what I needed at that point to avoid burning out on the program.

*And to be fair to myself, I was super stressed and fighting off a cold!

So, today, I did pilates and trapeze. I did not take my vitamins but did take an Emergen-C, which has a bunch of good stuff in it if I do say so myself.

I'm going to have to tweak my method of keeping track though... I'm going to call this the Week Two of Phase Two Redo, and go from there.

Glad to be back, folks... and good night!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

At Last!

Tony and I took some time apart, but we are back together now, and I think things are going to be ok!

We did Core yesterday, and we just finished KenPo. Thats all for now though... I have too many things to do and no car to do them with, which means I have to carry things in my hands and make multiple trips. How annoying is that?

Ok, time for breakfast!