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.

Phase 1 - Day 20 and 21

This weekend was really busy, but I had time to wrap up week 3 of P90X and get in some fun time as well.

Saturday I was supposed to do either Legs and Back or Rest/X Stretch. The weather was super gorgeous, though, and I knew it was supposed to snow Sunday, so I decided to make Saturday the Rest/X Stretch day so that I could take advantage of the sunny but cold weather with a run.

I should state that to me, Rest/X Stretch just means I don't do P90X that day--I do yoga anyway and I'm not going to sit through an hour of stretching with Tony babbling away at me.

So yeah, I had a nice run. My muscles are generally so tired from P90X that my runs these days are more like painful, slow slogs, but it's still nice to get out there. I just absolutely LOVE the trails by where I live. They're nice asphalt paths, and they're in among the trees enough that you get pretty scenery, but close enough to the roads that it's not secluded and dangerous to run alone.

Now that I've nearly completed a month of P90X and my muscles should be pretty used to the extra effort, I'm going to build back up my weekly mileage and do the Saturday long run like I used to, so that I'm not off-track with my marathon training. It's funny, it seems SO far away, yet I know that if I lapse in training it's going to be a bitch to get it together later. So right now I have to just make the effort to maintain, until it's time to ramp it up in the summer.

Sunday dawned snowy and cold. The snow was melted by like 8am, though. But the frigid cold and wind remained. Fuck running in that nonsense. I'm just not one of those "neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night" die-hard runners, and I never will be. I like running because it's enjoyable. Add in freezing cold 20-mph gusts? Not. Enjoyable.

So instead I went over to Arwen (who is simultaneously doing Insanity over here--actually, she's about a month ahead of me) and Dan's house of funtimes, and we did our workouts together in the basement. Legs and Back is probably the slowest-paced of the P90X workouts--mostly because Tony fritters away, I don't know, A MILLION minutes jabbering about random shit between sets, to the point where I'm both in pain and all CHRIST GET ON WITH IT--and Insanity is, well, Insanity. So while I was across the room holding wall squats and deep speed skaters until I cried, mostly standing in one spot, Arwen was hopping around like a maniac to her Max Cardio Plyo Blow Your Brains Out Circuit or whatever, and it was an interesting and mildly hilarious juxtaposition, because we were moving at basically opposite speeds yet both making the "kill me now" faces and noises.

I felt really, really good about my pullups yesterday, though. I'm still lagging behind my numbers on that first week, but the chair is WAY out there and I'm using much more of my own strength to pull myself up. Somehow I did the wide-front pullups differently this week, because my forearms were a shaking mess afterward, and they've never hurt before. It felt like when I've gone to rock climbing gyms.

I also did Ab Ripper X. Go me! Twice this week! I feel good about that. I don't know why I treat Ab Ripper as a throwaway, but I just CAN NOT get into it. I should love it. It's short, painful, and effective. OKAY RESOLVED. I'm going to do it three times this week, no excuses.

After our workout fest the three of us went out to dinner at a place in Old Town that had pretty good food but pretty bad service. Not a terrible experience by any means, just sort of meh. Then we went to 7-eleven to get ice cream for Dan and went back to the casa and watched the tail end of this weekend's themed SVU marathon on USA. I could probably watch that show 24 hours a day and not get tired of it.

Today begins Recovery Week! Looking ahead, it's a lot of Yoga X and Core Synergistics, which I know from reading Fitbomb is actually a pretty difficult workout, and I'm looking forward to it. There's also Kenpo X and two X Stretch days thrown in. I'll be doing Crossfit and more yoga instead of those. Today is supposed to be Yoga X. Which means a 90-minute Moksha series for me. I don't care how hard the sequence is supposed to be, I don't think I can tolerate Tony leading me through a yoga class.

Phase 1 - Day 11

Today's Shoulders and Arms was more difficult than the previous ones have been. Not sure why. And actually, it wasn't more difficult all around. On some of the exercises, notably the curls and upright rows, I banged out almost ten more reps on each than last week. That was exciting. But on any of the overhead presses, like Alternating Shoulder Presses and Deep Swimmer's Presses, the going was TOUGH. And on the latter I definitely got fewer reps than last week. It was hard.

Buuuuuut I still felt good about the workout. My arms are so pumped after this workout, it's like I was stung by a million bees only on my biceps and triceps. Also, I rocked the shoulder flys, which I usually suck at. I'm only using 5-pounders because my delts are WEAK, but I was at least able to pump out more than ten per set. I also like the modifications I do on the tricep kickbacks--namely, I flat out don't do them and instead sub in more sets of chair dips. This is because I don't own a heavy enough weight to make the kickbacks at all hard, and it feels like a wasted set when I do them. So I just do more chair dips, making it hard by putting my feet up and even raising one leg. I love chair dips. Triceps = whooo.

In other news... FUCK YOU WEATHER

Phase 1 - Day 10 (again)

Typing this as I stretch. Oh, Plyo. At last I might--MIGHT--be beginning to actually enjoy you. Mostly because I'm not crying in pain, and I'm now able to get through all the sets with Tony and Crew at their pace. I do need to pause and lengthen the water breaks by about 30 seconds, though. The pausing I do is not at all about being tired (though I am) and completely about SIMPLY NOT BEING ABLE TO BREATHE. It's like I just came off the peak of Everest, or something, I'm just gasping for air after each set.

Got through the full minute of Hot Foot, yay! That alone makes me proud. Hot Foot is brutal.

I also discovered that running to the kitchen for my coconut water halfway through the workout is a genius idea. After the first three sets I could feel my legs trembling and getting that feeling like they're made of cement, and I was honestly worried I wouldn't make it through the workout, and it struck me that an infusion of electrolytes was possibly in order. Awesome plan. I took small sips after every exercise and by the next set I was feeling good again. Coconut water is the best recovery drink one could ever want.

Today's Tony Soundbite: "I want your joints straight. Limbs like a BOARD. Be a BOARD. Don't get bored!" Then his creepy pedophilic uncle laugh, giggling at his own pun. Sigh.

Phase 1 - Day 8

It's like we went back in time!

Chest and Back tonight was pretty good, although I'm reaching a funny sort of Mars-retrograde phenomenon where as I become more able to do the exercises with proper form, they become harder and I can therefore manage less reps before crashing to the floor. So I feel that I'm progressing, but my numbers are smaller. Still feels good to be doing all my pushups from my toes instead of my knees. Except the Diamond Pushups. I do not understand how anyone can do those from their toes. They are impossible. I pushed the chair I use for my assisted pullups out about a foot, too, and my reps went down but I was certainly working much harder to pull myself up.

Ran out of time for Ab Ripper, again. Sigh. Ab Ripper is just going to have to be one of those things I squeeze in a couple times a week in spare 15-minute windows, because I just do not have the time in the evenings to do all the things I need to do.

Today's food was good. Carby, but good. Leftover tuna for 1st lunch, quinoa dish for 2nd lunch, post-workout shake, then for dinner this "salad" I make of roasted sweet potatoes chunks, roasted mushrooms, and ground beef spiced with cumin and cinnamon. I like when I'm full halfway through a meal and put the rest away for lunch tomorrow. It feels good to leave food on the plate.

My calves are still SCREAMING from Plyo last Friday, so tonight I pulled out my Arnica massage oil and dug my thumbs in to the muscles deep for like ten solid minutes. Fuck, it hurt. Hopefully my soreness will be magically disappeared tomorrow for--oh joy--MORE PLYO.

Phase 1 - Day 3

Shoulders & Arms! I love this one because it's almost like a rest day. It's still hard, but it involves really isolated movements, so you're not in the full-body, shaking, sweating exertion that is required by... just about every other workout. Ab Ripper X, however, was just as brutal as I remember. It's not so much abs pain as quad and hip flexor pain, because the WHOLE THING has your legs raised and there's some form of drawing them into your chest. Then there is indeed some ab pain. It's so hard.

I'm doing P90X with resistance bands rather than weights, and for most exercises it doesn't really feel different--I find that it's actually harder for some things, like shoulder presses--but on some exercises contorting the band to get the proper tension and position is just too weird and difficult. I end up not really doing the exercise because I'm trying to figure out how I'm supposed to be doing it. And then I have to rewind and do it again, once I've figured it out, and the last thing I want is to have extra Tony Horton time. I straight up changed one of the exercises because just absolutely could not figure out how to make it work with the band. They always have one dude demonstrating, but the camera doesn't show him enough or give us enough time to get the band situated before starting.

Speaking of Tony. Wow. Some great soundbites tonight. First, we have him relentlessly hitting on Dreya. This isn't the workout with the "skin like a baby" comment that I remember, but he's still creepy. Then at one point he starts screaming "BRING IT! BRING IT! X ME! X ME!" in what I'm sure he thinks is a motivational way, but it's just freaky and cracked out. Shudder. He looked pretty good in this workout, though. His hair was in a flattering style and I liked his sleeveless grey shirt. And it's not like I blame him for hitting on Dreya Weber. She's really super pretty and fit, and also blonde. I do blame him for being creepy, though.

Today was a pretty good food day, although it was another day where I just wasn't hungry and probably didn't eat enough calories. Black coffee, water, and some tea before 11:30; I had some of the crustless quiche for my morning snack, then I had some mini heirloom tomatoes and carrot sticks, and only got halfway through that before I was full. Then I wasn't hungry again until about 3-ish, and I wasn't so much hungry as just really aware that I needed to eat so it could settle before my workout. So I had some of the chili I made, which was really freaking good. I was too full to eat my stuffed pepper that I brought; it'll be tomorrow's lunch. At home I had nothing until my post-workout shake.

Which, by the way, consists of:

1/2 cup Trader Joe's light coconut milk (let me just say that I have no qualms about the fat in regular coconut milk, in fact I welcome it, but the TJ's milk is the cheapest available and has no funky chemicals or preservatives in it)
1/2 cup water
1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
1/2 cup frozen spinach
1 egg

It perfectly fits in my Magic Bullet shake cup and it's delicious. I only ever have it post-workout for recovery. Well, and this one time when I was really craving dessert of some kind, so I made a shake of coconut milk, whey powder, sweet potato, and cinnamon. Tasted like pie, totally killed my craving, and I think it was all of 15 or so grams of carbs. GOOD CHOICES.

As far as shakes go, I really recommend getting a Magic Bullet. Not only are they easy to use and relatively cheap (mine was 30 bucks), but they inherently restrict the portion so you don't find yourself gorging on a whole blender pitcher of shake.

Today was pouring rain for the ENTIRE day. Except, somehow, the hour in which I took River to the dog park. I was totally prepared to get soaked, but somehow the rain let up just enough for a little while so that I could let her get her energy out at the park. She chased that ball for a solid hour until she was panting and exhausted and the rain started coming down again. Now it's pouring again, so no nighttime walk. Needless to say, there was no running today. Siiiiiiigh.

Phase 1 - Day 2

Aaaaand we stumble right out of the gate.

Monday night saw me scrambling to get work done, stop at the store for puppy and person dinners, and arrive home with barely enough time to eat before bedtime. Certainly no time for the planned 3-miler, and the weather wasn't cooperating anyway. So, I skipped it, and by the time I had made dinner it was too late for Ab Ripper *and* eating. So I skipped Ab Ripper too. I apologize to the P90X gods. Clearly, there are some issues with the whole "split workouts" concept, namely that if things go crazy at work, the rest of the evening gets thrown into flux to such a degree that my exercising gets boned.

Yesterday I got up early enough to take River to the dog park before work for her exercise, then after work I did Plyometrics. GAAAAAAAAH I hate that workout. It's SO HARD. And SO LONG. Oh man. Just hate it. But I finished it, limped into the kitchen and had a recovery shake, then took River for a 30-minute walk in the fresh night air before bed.

Tonight will be (hopefully, time and weather permitting) a run with River, Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X, a bedtime walk with River, and plenty of sleep. However, the weather report says it's gonna start raining pretty much right when I get out of work, so the run might have to be canceled. Gah. The weather is really messing with me lately.

Phase 1 - Day 1

Oh P90X, you sassy bitch, I've missed you.

Chest and Back. One of my more preferred workouts, because it's fun, but also really difficult. There's like five different kinds of pushups and the workout seems to go on forever. It's painful. But you also feel a little badass, doing pushups and pullups till your arms won't raise above your chest (blowdrying my hair after my shower was a feat).

Nothing really to report here. Chest and Back is as I remember, Tony is just as douchey as usual--the two douche moments that really stick with me from this workout are when he says to another guy, "Those are nice shoes. Almost as cool as mine." and when he asks what weights the others are using and then manically runs back to the rack to grab heavier ones, screaming, "Ain't you ain't liftin' more weight than me!" (Seriously, he says that exact sentence.) Oh, and when he makes fun of Maureen's accent. "GEH-MAHN POH-TAY-TOH SOOOOP!" Shut up shut up shut uuuuuuup. Oh, Tony. Please change your entire personality and speech patterns.

I do appreciate his enthusiasm, though. And he's a beast. The man can just knock out decline pushups--on raised bars--for EVER.

Whenever Ab Ripper is called for, I'll be doing it in the evening after my run, because I just can't bring myself to do 1.5 hours in the morning. So I'm splitting it up.

Tonight: easy 3-miler with River (the puppy), Ab Ripper X.