30 Day Challenge - Day 6

Technically it's Day 8, but it's Workout 6. Anyway.

Yesterday I did indeed end up doing the sandbag workout I had outlined, because Bodyrock didn't get the workout up until late at night. I find it's generally easier to just work a full day behind on that site so I'm not waiting for their workouts. Anyway, the sandbag workout was good and hard, and I still felt sore from the day before, so last night I was REALLY sore. Then on my EMS shift we ran constantly and I got a whole two hours of sleep. I dragged myself back at 630 this morning and crashed until noon, whereupon I woke up and squeezed eight hours of work into six hours. Fun.

Tonight I did Day 6 - Turn Me On, which was AWESOME! It was brutally hard, yet also somehow so fun that I didn't want to slack or take breaks. In the video, Lisa Marie keeps saying how fast her heart is beating, and man, I felt like mine was hammering out of my chest. That last set of situps had me pouring sweat and breathing so hard, and when my gymboss finally beeped the ending, I collapsed and just lay there gasping. Then afterward I went to do fix dinner for myself and my mom, and my heart rate stayed elevated for the longest time! I felt this incredible sort of high. It was fantastic. What a great workout.

The workout was really innovative, I thought, because the geniuses at Bodyrock had the idea of hanging the sandbag from a hook on the wall and using it as a punching bag. I was skeptical at first, but holy crap, this worked GREAT. The workout was a circuit for four moves, done 3x through, at 10:50 intervals for 12 minutes total. The moves and my reps for each move were:

2x Burpee + Tuck Jump / 10x straight punches: 3, 3, 2.5
2x Burpee + Tuck Jump / 10x hook punches: 3, 3, 2.5
2x Burpee + Tuck Jump / 10x combo punches: 2.5, 2.5, 2
2x door touch situp + 2x bag touch situp: 6, 6, 5

As we can see, I was pretty winded for that last circuit. Holy crap. I was huffing and puffing and sweating like crazy through this workout, and yet it really just felt awesome. I'll be bookmarking this as a favorite for the future.

Sean had a workout up on the site too, and I think we were supposed to do both today, but like I said, I've been pushing it really hard and my sleep was all messed up, so I only did the one. Maybe I'll double up tomorrow.

I've continued the great food streak; I still haven't crashed or binged or anything, and I'm two days out from my special lady friend, so that's a huge accomplishment, if I do say so myself! Tonight I made an incredible dinner. I slow-roasted a pork tenderloin all day until it pulled apart really easily, then I mixed the pulled pork with some chopped celery, onions, walnuts, and dried cranberries and stuffed the mixture into portobello mushroom caps. I baked this for a while, then stuck a scoop of goat cheese on top of each mushroom and broiled it until it was toasty and golden on top. We ate these stuffed mushrooms with garlic-rosemary mashed cauliflower and roasted brussels sprouts. It was incredible. All the ingredients for this meal, btw, came to about 12 bucks, and it fed two people. Let's be clear: IT IS NOT EXPENSIVE TO EAT REALLY WELL.

I finished off the pumpkin pie for dessert. I did the math on that pumpkin pie recipe, btw, and an eighth of the pie (one normal-sized piece) comes out to 16g carbs, 9g protein. Seriously, for a dessert, you cannot beat that. That's awesome.

Lotsa running

This past weekend was very busy with friends, errands, and enjoying the outdoors, so I didn't get a lot of focused working out in. I did, however, do a quick 21-15-9 workout of pullups, pushups, and air squats on Saturday before I went to dinner and a movie, then a 3-mile trail run along the Potomac yesterday just before the thunderstorm. Actually, partly during the thunderstorm. It was pretty funny; the sky goes from clear blue and shining hot sun to black in a matter of minutes, and just as I come back out at the trailhead by the river (still about a mile from my house), thunder and lightning occur maybe five miles away. I start sprinting toward home. All of a sudden, the relatively clear road becomes a traffic jam of runners converging from trailheads at all sides of the park, sprinting for the hills. I had just made it to the last block before my street when the wind suddenly went crazy and pouring rain started pelting me sideways. So, I almost made it in before the storm. It was a pretty fun run.

We had an amazing Easter dinner of buffalo burgers on lettuce "buns" with bacon, tomato, and red onions. I also added thinly-sliced jalapeno that I fried in the bacon fat, plenty of sriracha chili sauce, and sliced mango. It was DELICIOUS, although it could have been even spicier. I was going for four-alarm spice and it was only at about a medium. We had mango, banana, and strawberries in coconut milk for dessert.

This morning I was up bright and early to take River to the park. Then I got back, hydrated, caffeinated, and did another 3 miles, on the park roads instead of trails this time (my shoes got really muddy yesterday). It was HOT, but that's about a billion times better than cold, so I'm not complaining.

Today's Crossfit looks awesome and the Bodyrock still isn't up, so I'll probably do Crossfit later before my rescue shift. (If I can get all my work done--I have a ton to do.) Will update later.

Tacos, Crossfit and marathon training

Hooray! After a solid three days of feeling like shit (and a very uncharacteristic chocolate binge last night that extended into this morning), today saw me perking up and back to my old self by the end of my workout. If you're a man reading this blog, I apologize in advance for the next paragraph, and maybe skip over it while thanking the Force you don't have lady parts.

JESUS CHRIST, the older I get (and it's not like I'm even close to what could be termed "not young", so I've got a long road of this ahead of me), the worse my special lady friend, as I like to call it, gets. It's getting to the point where I am straight knocked on my ass for like two days before and the first three days of it. I have a couple days of feeling bloated and like a truck hit me, a day of feeling like I'm going to vomit if I even smell food (and I lay around all day trying not to vomit), and then a couple days of cramps and more nausea, all the while SO TIRED and lacking energy that it's a struggle to even get out of bed, let alone work out. Also I cry at the drop of a hat. Like if anyone even mentions children or small animals. IT'S TERRIBLE. I HATE IT. Okay, rant over, because it's really pretty redundant to rant about how much the special lady friend sucks, but CHRIST.

However, my month of Whole30 has cut my junk cravings so completely that with this month's SLF visit, I didn't totally break the bank with eating shit. Yesterday I had three dates with salt sprinkled on top pre-workout, which sounds innocuous, but dates are 15 grams of sugar each, and usually I only have a single salty date pre-workout if I'm taking a long run or feeling especially tired. Then in the evening I binged on dark chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds from Trader Joe's. I know, not so bad, but a pretty carby day, and having gone from eating zero sugar besides thrice-weekly sweet potatoes (I didn't even eat a single piece of fruit last month), I'm sure my insulin was like WTF YOU BITCH. Then this morning, I finished off the chocolate pom seeds for breakfast. SO BAD. So unlike me. But that's the nature of the special lady friend. At least I didn't have a donut, and all things considered, I feel okay about it all. Thank you, Whole30.

I forgot to take pictures of last night's dinner and update the blog afterward, but WOW my dinner was so delicious. If you've ever been to Austin, Texas, you have undoubtedly had the pleasure of visiting the following:

Torchy's Tacos is basically the greatest restaurant ever conceived by man. It's not especially healthy (unless you don't eat the tortillas, in which case it's actually pretty good because there's no rice and beans and it's all fresh whole foods), but it's DELICIOUS and cheap. They have a zillion different kinds of really creative tacos and they all taste like heaven. After several Torchy's trips during which I made it my mission to try every single taco on the menu, I narrowed down my #1 favorite to the Crossroads and my #2 favorite to the Brush Fire. Whenever I visit Austin (and I will be moving there quite soon--yay!), I make it a point to eat at Torchy's every single day and work out extra hard to make up for it.

So last night, in the midst of the deleterious effects of my SLF, I was craving Torchy's so hardcore. (Again, at least I wasn't craving doughnuts.) I decided to try to recreate some Torchy's right here in boring-ass old Northern VA. I made two kinds of tacos: my best attempt at the Crossroads, with pre-cooked brisket from Trader Joe's that I simmered in Mexican spices and vinegar for a while, and some fish tacos using the Garlic & Chile fresh halibut fillets from TJ's, with a creamy lime-paprika dressing and homemade vinegar slaw. Instead of tortillas, I used big romaine pieces. I also added fresh minced jalapeno to both

Verdict? FUCKING AWESOME

I ate six of those fuckers. Sweet holy Skywalker, it was satisfying. Not nearly as good as the real thing, but good enough that it made me really happy. And I actually still stuck to the dairy-free thing: the creamy lime dressing was something I whipped up myself, using homemade olive oil/ghee mayonnaise mixed with coconut milk, lime juice, vinegar, and paprika.

Today I woke up still feeling a bit poopy (actually I slept in ridiculously late, and it's not like I chose to snooze that long--my body literally did not wake up until nearly noon--DAMN you SLF!), and I felt nauseous yet still chocolate-craving, so like I said, I polished off those chocolate pom seeds. Then I had a ginormous pot of coffee and worked until just about an hour ago, when I was feeling a bit normal again.

Workout today: Hill repeats (part of marathon training) and the Crossfit WOD.

I warmed up by completing two sets of the following circuit: gently jog 400m, do some P90X-style Military Marching and Knee Raises, some Mary Katherine lunges, and 20 jumping jacks. Really good warmup.

Hill repeats are accomplished on the big hill right behind my house. It's an increasingly quite steep grade, and running up it and back down again is a .15 mile distance. It takes me about a minute-thirty, on average, to run up and back down. What I do is alternate sprinting the repeat and just running the repeat at race pace, with about a minute of rest in between each repeat. I do as many as I can in 20 minutes. It's a hard, fun workout, the weather was GORGEOUS today, and I had a great time. I got in 8 repeats in 20 minutes.

Then I came inside and did the Crossfit WOD, which was 21-15-9 of handstand pushups, ring dips, and pushups, for time. Modifications: I cannot do a handstand pushup, and can barely do a handstand, so instead I hold a handstand against the wall for as many seconds as reps are called for. Also, I don't have rings. So I substitute chair dips. Pushups I do full, but I take breaks in child's pose when I hit failure. I did the whole workout with these modifications (and I was actually really proud of my pushups form and stamina) in 11:14.

I followed up the workout with a glass of coconut water and my usual protein shake, only I was running low on spinach and used some frozen kale instead. Discovery: I can actually make the kale palatable (i.e. blended finely enough, with which a shitty blender is difficult) by just blending it for a REALLY long time. You just have to be patient, and then it's great.

Phase 1 - Day 25

Whoooops. Forgot to update Ye Olde Blog.

This week is Recovery Week, which as I said in my previous post is basically lots of yoga and Core Synergistics. Sad fact: I have yet to actually do Core Synergistics. I took a rest day Monday because my entire lower half was screaming from the Legs and Back workout on Sunday (and honestly, I was due one anyway), then Tuesday started with Yoga X (not really, I did my own 90-minute sequence).

Yesterday I was supposed to do Core Synergistics, but I got mildly caught up at work, and then when I was all changed into my workout clothes and ready to start, I looked at the workout and JESUS it's more than an hour long and it looks like fully half of it is Tony blathering between sets. I'm not disputing the workout's effectiveness; I'm sure it's great. But I just did not have it in me to waste that much time with Tony.

So instead, I did a Crossfit-style workout that ended up being really fun, and still "recovery"-ish, i.e. no balls-out cardio circuits. It comprised:

3 rounds, 40:20 second work/rest intervals
Kettlebell swings
Wall handstands
Wide front pullups
Toes to bar
Knee to elbow planks (get in plank position holding yourself up on your elbows, then bring your knee to touch the opposite elbow, hop the leg back while doing the same with the other knee, back and forth)

I also finished up with five negative pullups, each five seconds long. As you can probably tell, I'm really trying to work on my shoulder and back strength. I WANT THOSE PULLUPS. And handstand pushups, for that matter, but before I start building those I need to be able to, you know, do a handstand.

It was a great workout, about 20 minutes in length including the warmup and the negatives at the end. The toes-to-bar are REALLY hard for me and require breaking through sort of a fear thing--it's simply WEIRD to tip my body back far enough that my toes come up to the bar, and the first few times I tried it I failed not because of lack of strength but because I got to the "WHOA NELLY" point and just dropped. This time, I was able to get in 7 the first round, 5 the second round, and 5 the third round, with my quads and forearms being the failure points. I finished up the 40 seconds of each round with hanging knee raises if I couldn't do any more toes-to-bar.

Let's talk about food. This week has been great, with the exception of last night. Last night my mom wanted Chipotle and I was taking River to the dog park anyway, so I said I'd stop by Chipotle on my way back. Once I was actually in line, though, I started trying to put together what I was going to eat, and I realized that Chipotle is sort of off limits for me at this point. Let's look at what I eat:

Tortilla: Hell no (easily fixed by getting a burrito bowl, but let's continue anyway)

Rice: Nope

Beans: No

Meat: Hell yes

Peppers and onions: Yes, except Chipotle's are cooked in veg oil so they'd be kind of a cheat

Salsa: Only the ones without corn

Cheese: No

Sour cream: Nope

Guacamole: Yes

So, all in all, I would have been paying 8 bucks (guac is extra) for a bowl of a small serving of meat, a few PUFA-rich peppers and onions, some salsa, and a dollop of guacamole. Didn't seem financially prudent. Chipotle has officially joined the ranks of once-in-a-blue-moon cheat meals for me, along with 5 Guys burgers and Subway.

Instead, I got my mom's burrito made and then went next door to the "Kabob Palace" (really, that choice was my first big mistake), where I ordered beef and lamb kabobs with salad, no rice. The food was good, but was cooked in something that gave me a terrible tummy reaction and I spent much of American Idol, to put it as delicately as possible, occupado en el bano. My fault, really. I should know by now not to venture out of my restaurant comfort zone. New rule: If I don't know for sure what ingredients and cooking oils they're using back in the kitchen, I'm not fricking eating it.

Today, to make up for the tummy upset, I fasted until about 1:00 and spent the morning working. Then I took River to the dog park at around 11, and afterward hit up Whole Foods, the international food store (for River's food), and a small natural health food store nearby (mostly just to check it out). Whole Foods... bless you. They have by far the most affordable/healthiest/most sustainable meat options out there. I'm also vastly appreciative of the ranking system they have for animal treatment of all their meats. I can root through the packaged stuff till I find a 4 or a 5 and get the rest of what I need directly from the butcher. So I picked up a package of chicken thighs (making baked curry chicken tonight), a couple of grassfed beef shanks, and some ground grassfed beef. I also got some organic coconut oil, a couple tins of sardines, and some coconut waters.

The natural foods store was pretty lame... terrible selection and most of it is cheaper at Whole Foods anyway. Their selection of protein powders was terrible and insanely overpriced. But they did have coconut butter, which is delicious and which I have to stop myself from devouring ala a pint of ice cream, as well as local organic eggs. And a pretty good pick of Yogi Teas (I love Yogi Teas and it seems like I can never find a store that has more than one or two kinds). I got a green tea meant for muscle recovery.

Then the REALLY great find was at the international food store, which I usually only go to for River's food (giant selection of organ meats, offal, and meaty bones), but as I was perusing the aisles I decided to see what kinds of cooking oils they sold. Sure enough, there was a good selection of coconut and palm oils (although I wouldn't buy them because the packages don't say whether they're hydrogenated or not and I don't trust it). And nestled in among the oils? BIG JARS OF PURE GHEE. For like four bucks. I was thrilled.

Got home, put everything away, and then made myself a lunch mashup of grassfed beef, bacon, sweet pepper slices, onions, eggs, and mini heirloom tomatoes, all cooked in ghee. I also had some of the muscle recovery tea with a spoonful of coconut oil mixed in, and a couple sinful spoonfuls of the coconut butter (that stuff is freaking amazing).

Today I have forsworn to actually do Core Synergistics. I will. I really will. Also there will be yoga.

Back to the drawing board

What a year. I'm back to this blog after basically a full year away. I definitely didn't stop working out--in fact I feel the past year has really solidified my workout strategies more than any other time in my life. Now I know what works, what I like, and what I can sustain.

So what happened to this blog? Well, quite simply, the first time around, P90X was not sustainable. The biggest reason for this was that I didn't have any equipment in the tiny basement room I was renting, and had just moved to Canada from the US with nothing but a single suitcase and my cats, so I was relying on the gym for weights, pull-up bars, etc. The other reason was time: all told, because I didn't have a car and was relying on the bus, it was taking me a solid three hours to get to the gym, do the entire P90X workout for the day, shower/change for work, and then go to work. Just not sustainable.

I basically kept doing modified versions of the P90X workouts every other day or so, or whenever I could make it to the gym. But then during the summer, I got really motivated to work out due to an upcoming high school reunion of sorts (I haven't even hit my ten-year reunion yet, but all the choir kids were getting together for a mini-reunion). On the same week as the reunion, I was going to go to the Outer Banks with my family. I decided I wanted to impress in a swimsuit and also impress my former classmates, so I started looking around for a more sustainable, convenient home workout option.

Enter Bodyrock! If you've never been to bodyrock.tv, check it out. Zuzana and Freddy, a husband-and-wife team who are both ridiculously fit, come up with daily HIIT workouts that they film and clearly explain. The best part is, most of the workouts use only bodyweights--I think the only other equipment ever used is a kettlebell, a jump rope, a pull-up bar, a dip bar (which I don't have, I just use a chair/bench/table/whatever's nearby), and a Gymboss interval timer. I managed to assemble all of these items for less than 100 bucks. The other great thing about Bodyrock is that the workouts are 20 minutes tops, and usually end up between 12 and 15 minutes. And they're incredibly effective. No overtraining and exhaustion, no three-hour gym trip, no expensive equipment.

So last summer around May I started doing a Bodyrock workout in my backyard every day. I added some of my own ideas to the workouts, too, being that I could take advantage of being outdoors in a backyard that was woody, with variable terrain. I basically did interval workouts, about 1 minute on/30 seconds off, with exercises ranging from kettlebell swings to pushups to hill sprints to plyometric jumps, and more. I lost a little weight and really toned up, and ended up looking great in my swimsuit later that summer.

Then winter came, and without the space in my room to really work out effectively (seriously, NO SPACE at all), I turned back to the gym and my workouts sort of petered off into the typical 3x per week, strength + treadmill routine. It was boring. I did get a puppy, and when she was old enough I started taking her for runs and it got me back into running, which I love. But all in all, I was really glad to move back to the States in December, where I now have a big bedroom with plenty of space for workouts, and where it's not so cold when I want to run.

The past couple months, though, I've really been slacking. I've been averaging maybe 2 Bodyrock workouts a week, 2 runs a week, and general laziness otherwise. I've also been lazy about my food. This, combined with winter weather that has me moving around a lot less, has led to some noticeable weight gain and a loss of muscle tone. I'm not too happy with myself (I think I probably look the worst I've ever looked), but thankfully, I know how to fix it. I just need a jump start.

So, I'm doing P90X again. The time commitment is much less severe this time around, being that I have the equipment (pull up bar, resistance bands) and space to be able to to it at home. It's just about an hour a morning. I won't be doing the Yoga X day since I do yoga anyway (more on that in a minute), and I'll do the Kenpo X if the mood strikes me, but otherwise will probably leave that out too. I'm doing this--leaving out days--because of a couple other fitness things I have to squeeze in:

1. I'm signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon in October and need to train for that.
2. I'm doing a five-week intensive yoga teacher training in Victoria, BC this summer, and have to get serious about my yoga. No more "oh I'll do yoga if/when the mood strikes a few times a week". I have to do five yoga practices a week, period.

Another motivator for me right now is the fact that I'm going to be dressed skimpily in a hot yoga room about six hours a day for the entire month of June, and I want to look good. Right now I'm not happy with the way my flabby, untoned self looks in my yoga clothes.

I've set up my workout schedule so that it's sustainable and so that I incorporate five runs and five yoga practices per week. I don't think this will be too much because my runs are mostly low-mileage for the time being, with the longest one I might do being 10 miles. Once I get back from yoga training, I'll ramp up the mileage in preparation for the marathon. I'm also hoping that P90X will get me to a place where I can maintain my fitness with Bodyrock, yoga, and marathon training. I just need to shock my body right now and I saw great gains with P90X last time.

I'm also going to be really diligent about my diet. Primal all the way! I've been great with staying away from wheat and grains lately, because they so obviously affect me poorly, but I decided I also need to fully cut out the dairy, and to spark a weight-loss mode, cut the fruit for a few weeks. I'm basically doing Whole30, but I am eating a whey protein shake post-morning workout (it's my breakfast), and I find it unnecessary to give up the small amount of caffeine I enjoy in the morning. But otherwise, no dairy, processed sugar, continuing with no grains or white starches, and no fruit for a month to see if it has an effect. (I'm not counting avocados or sweet potatoes as fruit, both of which I view as essential parts of my diet, especially with all the running).

The end! Back to ripping! Honestly, the hardest part of it might be waking up with the douche extraordinaire (though a truly great trainer and a very fit individual) that is Tony Horton. He makes me stabby.