Day 92 - I'm officially a Yogi

I. Love. Yoga.

I really can't stress that enough. I love it. I love the stretching, the holding, the pain and the willpower it takes to get through that pain. The shaking muscles, the huge increase in flexibility from start to finish. Love, love, love! I can't wait to start looking into yoga classes in town. I have no idea what it'd be like to do yoga with a room full of other people. Plus, I'm pretty stoked on learning new poses. P90X has turned me into a yogi! This is good since, according to Women's Health, yoga practitioners tend to eat mindfully, eating when hungry and stopping when full - they think it's because yoga teaches calmness in the face of discomfort, which might make it easier to cave in to cravings.

Speaking of Women's Health, their January issue has a few delicious looking soup recipes. I made one tonight, Savoury Moroccan, which has chicken stock, diced tomatoes, zucchini, chickpeas, artichoke hearts, couscous, parsley, raisins, scallions and spices. YUM! I added chicken myself, boiling it and cutting it into little pieces. The end result? To die for. We had it with a delicious Blue Menu whole-wheat baguette. WH says to make sure that whole wheat is the first ingredient (check), it has no trans fats (check), and it has at least 3 grams of fibre per serving (check!). This recipe definitely made the books. I can't wait to try the other four recipes - and I intend to!

This isn't my final result - I stole it from WH!

And a gratuitous photo of me in Warrior Two.

Day 78 - Stuffed peppers mmmmm

Our last Chest, Shoulders and Triceps exercise was today! Chris says it's his favourite, and it's definitely one of mine. I'm sad that we won't do it again! Ab Ripper was particularly awesome, with both myself and Chris doing ALL of Fifer Scissors with no breaks! That exercise is brutal, and we finally conquered it! Ab Ripper is slowly, slowly getting easier. Yippee!

A few days ago we found a delicious looking recipe in one of my Women's Health magazines for stuffed red peppers. Chris was determined to make them, so he did! And they were delicious! Red peppers stuffed with lean ground turkey, rice, raisins, green olives and garlic. YUM!!

Mmmmm so tasty!

Day 77 - Kenpo +

Since it was a Kenpo day, Chris and I started out doing the regular Kenpo disc. We stopped once the kick sequences were over, and we switched to Kenpo + from the P90X+ workouts. It's a lot more involved, and a lot more fun. My only qualm is that Tony doesn't really explain the moves, he just kind of.. starts doing them. But I got the hang of it! We only do Kenpo two more times (eeep!) so I'll definitely be doing the Kenpo + workout for those!

Last night for supper I made a fierce pork tenderloin. Chris was MMMM-ing the entire time, so it got his approval, too! I browned the tenderloin in a pan for a few minutes first, then I put it on tin foil and twisted up each corner of the foil so it made a bowl shape. Then I poured in a mixture of chicken broth (1/2c), ketchup (2tbsp), brown sugar (2tbsp), Worcestershire sauce (1tsp), and 4 cloves of garlic. Then I folded over the edge to seal it, put it on a cookie sheet and baked it at 350 for about an hour and a half. And my god. The tenderloin was so tender, it was stringy and falling apart! Delicious! I'll be making that recipe again, for sure.

Next up: Chest, Shoulders & Triceps!

Day 73 - Plyo, plyo, plyo

Oh, how I've missed Plyo! I love it (I know I say that about every workout)! It's definitely in my top 5 favourite workouts. During the Hot Foot exercise, I always used to switch feet every 15 seconds instead of every 30 like Tony does. My calf and foot hurt too much, and I couldn't stand it. But today I managed to do the whole 30 seconds per foot, both times! I was so excited! Nothing else has changed - I still have to take mini-breaks near the end of most workouts - but I'm still feeling great, and I'm still impressed that I can do both 1-minute sessions of the Swing Kicks. Love those!

A few days ago during Legs and Back, Chris took a video of me doing Lawnmowers.. Check it out, I look like such a gym buff!

During my workout, Chris was busy in the kitchen.. When I came out, I was served this: chicken breast with honey chili sauce on stir-fried veggies with walnuts sprinkled on top. Heaven!!!

Mmmmmm tastyyy

Day 71 - Dive bombers

I have a confession: I love dive bomber push-ups. Sure, I do the more easy 'modified' version, but they're still awesome. I did 15 my first set and 11 my second set (in contrast, I did 13 then 5 diamond push-ups). I actually enjoy the dive bombers!

We had a friend over for supper last night, and she loved the Island Pork Tenderloin that Chris made. We got a little cherry cheesecake as a treat, and we each had a little piece. Now we have five pieces of cheesecake in the freezer. I'm thinking we might have to give that away so it won't get eaten! Maybe I'll take a few pieces into school. Everyone loves cheesecake!

Hard to believe we're so far into the program. I was looking at our schedule yesterday. We X off every day that's gone by, and they're almost all marked off... Getting there!

Next up: plyometrics!

Day 55 - Meatballs

Well, so much for Yoga. Chris felt like a more intense workout than Yoga tonight, and after my half-assed Core Syn workout last night,  I agreed. We did Core, because anything more intensely cardio would have caused major stitches since we only ate 15 minutes before working out. I kicked ass though, I'm slowly gaining better form in the Bow to Boat exercise, and for the first time I did the whole minute of Towel Hopping! And, I did 14 Stacked Foot/Staggered Hand Push-ups NOT on my knees! Hooray!!

For supper tonight (and hence the post title) we made turkey meatballs. Originally we intended to buy ground turkey and make them from scratch, but Sobeys sucks and they didn't have any ground turkey. So we bought a blue menu-type frozen kind, Extra Lean Ground Turkey Meatballs. 2.5 g of fat per 4 meatballs, and 10 g of protein.. Not too shabby! Chris made a tasty tomato sauce for them, and we ate them with mashed sweet potatoes and peas and carrots. The best part: we made the whole box, so we have lunch for tomorrow, plus one more leftover meal. Love it!

I'm going to go have some fro yo.. Tomorrow is picture and measurement day! :)

(They got a 9/9 rating on the Compliments website!)

Day 48 - A tasty breakfast adventure

I took pictures of my breakfast endeavors this morning, as promised. I cooked some chicken and shredded that, and chopped up red, green and yellow peppers, tomatoes and green onions:

I dumped all that in with some egg whites..

..then I threw half of it in a pan..

..and, ta-da! Christopher's breakfast!

His omelet didn't really turn out (because I can't cook omelets..), so I cooked mine more as a scramble. It turned out wonderfully..

And, because I prepared enough chicken and veggies to make four omelets, the remainder went into a salad..

..and we ate it for lunch with leftover pork chops from last night!

A photographic journey through my breakfast. Fun! I should do those more often.

Day 34 - Making up for lost time

Today is Sunday, which means I wasn't in school. It's also Daylight Savings today, which means we gained an hour in the day. I woke up at 7:30, kind of by accident thinking it was 8:30, but stayed up and did two loads of laundry, dishes and the Intervals workout before noon (more on that later). Then I went to the mall with Chris, had a chicken hummus wrap for lunch, got groceries, came home, had slow-cooker pork chops, then did Kenpo X followed by Ab Ripper. I'd call that a productive day!

Today I kind of made my own workout schedule. As I was saying yesterday, Chris got P90X+. He did the Intervals workout yesterday and loved them, so we did them together this morning. I loved it! Well, I loved it when it was over and I felt awesome.. Getting through the actual workout was pretty brutal. It's based on interval training, and you do 10 seconds of low-intensity, then 10 seconds of medium-intensity, and finally, 10 seconds of high-intensity. This kind of pattern carries on through the whole workout for every exercise. The first 10 seconds of every exercise were my saving grace from the exercise prior. Intervals is definitely a fantastic cardio workout and I'll be doing it again soon!

We were actually scheduled for Kenpo tonight, and I was thinking about switching that up, but we decided to stick with it. We skipped through the blocks, but we did everything else. And when that was over, I stuck the Ab Ripper disc in and did the entirety of that. So, in total, I guess I did about 2 hours of exercise today! I felt like I had to make up for the last two days, since I was feeling so rotten about missing my workouts. I felt incredible after Intervals, and tired but accomplished after Kenpo and Ab Ripper.

I got my flu shots two days ago (and you should, too!) and the H1N1 vaccine made my arm really tender, like someone punched me in the arm. Because of this, all of my left-handed punches in Kenpo were a little sloppy.   I'm surprised at how much it aches. I still can't sleep on it. But it was worth it!

Chris had slow-cooker pork chops cooking all day, and they turned out to be delicious. He says it was more of an experiment than anything, throwing potatoes, garlic, diced tomatoes, ketchup, barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce and chicken broth in with the pork chops. I'm telling you, slow-cooked is the best way to eat pork chops. They were so tender we didn't even use knives to eat them; they fell right apart. Right after supper we prepped a small chicken by stuffing it with limes and onions (there wasn't much to choose from for stuffing ingredients), soaking him with white wine and chicken broth, and seasoning him with garlic powder, dehydrated onion and oregano. He'll spend all day being cooked and will provide a delicious supper for us tomorrow. We are absolutely obsessed with our slow cooker, can you tell?

I'm heading to bed. Here is a quick photo of me from the Ab Ripper workout - check out them abs! :)

They're coming along nicely!

Day 25 - A quote from the man himself

Today was rest day, so nothing to report workout-wise.

The conference I was at today had soup and sandwiches for lunch, which was better than I was expecting. I took the top piece of bread off the sandwich, and had a small bowl of soup. Not too shabby! Then for supper Chris made Island Pork Tenderloin and veggies.. We're suckers for that pork tenderloin recipe.

Speaking of recipes, I was asked to post the recipe for the slow cooker beef stew that we had for supper a few nights back. There's not much for a recipe! Chris just threw together some stewing beef, a few cups of veggies and a bit of Club House Slow Cookers Beef Stew seasoning. Instead of adding just water to the seasoning, he added half water, half tomato sauce. Then he cooked it on low for 8-9 hours, and it turned out perfectly! It's hard to get a slow cooker recipe wrong, so just try mixing things, but remember to keep enough sauce in it so the meat can get nice and tender.

Since I don't have much else to write, I want to post a quote from Tony from the Kenpo workout. While it's a little harsh, it's very true: with healthy eating and exercise, you get what you give. Take it away, Tony!

I don't believe in age. I don't believe in aging. Whatever. I got your aging right here! I believe in moving and eating good. [...] Take care of your body, and it will take care of you. Because time keeps ticking, you keep getting older.. You can get better, or you can get all gooey.. Crotchety, old, pathetic, icky, gross.. Not me, not into it.

Can you believe he's 51?!

Day 23 - Feel like garbage

If you've been reading my posts, you'll know that I usually go into a workout feeling like crap, and come out of it feeling wonderful, exhilarated and energized.

Not tonight.

I just finished Core Synergistics, and I feel lousy. I'm dizzy, my head is pounding, and I can hardly keep my eyes open. I'd blame it on exhaustion, but I was more tired earlier in the week than I am now, so that won't fly. I guess some days are just better than others. Today, hands down, was the least satisfying workout yet. That's pretty good though, 1 out of 23 isn't bad!

We had the roast chicken for supper, and it was delish. I didn't think to take any "after" pictures of the bird, but I can assure you it tasted wonderful. With roasted brussels sprouts, no less! It was definitely a tasty dinner. Speaking of meals, I can't wait until Phase Two of the nutrition plan starts next week. I get a whole extra carbohydrate serving!! I've missed my carbs! It'll be tough cutting down on the protein though, I have my meals to a science now. Guess I'll have to learn it all over again (but for the extra carb, it's worth it!).

Early early morning tomorrow, so I should hit the hay. Night!

Day 22 - Yoga was a victim of time constraints

I've been really proud of myself for managing to fit in an hour or more of exercise every night, on top of everything else I'm doing. Today, however, time was not on my side. I got home at 4:30 and had to eat supper, get ready and leave somewhere for 6:00. Since Yoga is an hour and a half, that wasn't going to happen. But I really wasn't okay with saying, "Oh well, guess I won't do any workout today", so I did Ab Ripper. I sweat like hell so I know it worked something, and it was better than doing nothing at all. Not exactly ideal, I know, but hey.. I can't win 'em all.

Chris's slow-cooker chili was amazing. Walking home into the scent of cooking chili totally made my day! It tasted better than it smelled, and it made enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Don't you just love that?

Tomorrow is Core Synergistics, and it will get done. Supper's half done for tomorrow already (we have a chicken sitting in the crock pot in the fridge, stuffed with garlic and limes), and I'm home at 7:00, so no excuses!

He will be delicious!!

(It's on the floor because I slid it out of the fridge for this photo

and couldn't be bothered to put it on the table..)

Day 21 - Three weeks!

Because of our schedule switcheroo, we did Kenpo today instead of taking our rest day. I'm still on the fence with Kenpo. I noticed today that Tony takes a lot of breaks, where he gives you five seconds to get some water,  then gets you running, doing jumping jacks and X's. Cardio, cardio, cardio. I suspect that this is to get our hearts pumping, since the Kenpo doesn't really do that. Well, I shouldn't say that.. It just doesn't do it as well as jumping jacks. I strained my neck too, which has settled a little. Chris bought weighted gloves that he used during the workout, and he found they made a huge difference. I might look into that down the road, when I get a little better at my punches. As far as my opinion on Kenpo goes... Meh. It's not looking good, but it still has time to win me over.

We have chili made up to put in the slow cooker tomorrow morning. Lean ground beef, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder, and other spices. Pretty simple! We tried to get ground turkey, but there wasn't any at the grocery store today for some reason. I'm really excited to come home tomorrow and smell it cooking.. Mmm-mmm!

So, today marks 21 days! That means Phase 1 is almost complete! This week is rest week, which hardly constitutes "rest". Yoga, Core Synergistics, Kenpo, Stretch, Core Synergistics, Yoga, Stretch. Intense! Tomorrow is Yoga again, seems like I just did Yoga. Oh wait, I did! Looking forward to it though, still. I only wish I didn't have to do so many damn downward dogs.

Also, my cat found my yoga block (silly me for leaving it on the floor), and he decided to use it to sharpen his claws. I wasn't mad, because really, it still serves its purpose. This is what I have to contend with. Who could be mad at that face?

 

A face only a mother could love.

Day 18 - Beef stew, Yoga and sulking

Because today was Friday, I was exhausted. Added on top of spending my whole week studying for and writing midterms, writing papers and going to meetings, I had a long stressful day today. This is why I was curled up in bed at 6:00 this evening, whining about how I couldn't possibly do Yoga and that I was sooooo tired. I was so warm and comfortable in my pajamas. I really didn't want to work out tonight. But then my determination kicked in, and I found myself up and changing out of my cozy pajamas. I was tired, and cranky, but I managed to finish the hour and a half of Yoga. By the end of it, I was laughing with Chris, who stuck it out with me.

I know I posted about this before, but it really is amazing how exercise can change my mood. And not just my mood; my entire energy level. Laying in bed, I wanted to just stay there and watch movies all night. But after I got moving, I got a workout done and we spent the evening with family playing Scene It. Which was a much better option than sulking in bed. So, this will help motivate me when I don't feel like working out. I just have to remember how great I feel post-workout, and how much it elevates my mood. It makes such a difference. If it didn't happen to me, I would never believe it.

So, Yoga. I love it and I hate it. I love it because it's challenging, it's effective, and it's helping with my balance and flexibility. I hate it because it's an hour and a half, and because I can't do half the poses with perfect form. Maybe that will come at the end of the 90 days, who knows. All I know is that Yoga is not "relaxing", "soothing" or "calming". It makes your muscles shake, and it makes you sweat like hell. It also makes you realize just how inflexible you are. Although, my flexibility is still improving, as I can sit with my feet straight out in front of me and touch my toes with both hands. I could NEVER do that, ever! I'm so proud of myself. And my hamstrings. :)

Chris made a tasty beef stew for supper tonight. We invested in a slow cooker (I use the term "invested" loosely here, since it was $18 from WalMart), and we've made a whole slew of meals in it since. Mainly pork tenderloin, and now this stew. Slow cookers are a godsend. Literally, you throw in meat, some veggies, some sauce or marinade of some kind, and turn it on. Then you leave all day, and when you come back, it smells like someone's cooking you supper. It's wonderful! No idea what to make for the next few nights. We have to do some grocery shopping. Maybe I'll look up some more slow cooker recipes.. If I find any tasty ones, I'll be sure to post them.

That's it for now! I can't wait to take Day 30 measurements and pictures... Eeeeee!

This looks exactly like the stew Chris made.. Yum!