Day 50 - DAY 50!

I'm 55% done P90X!

I know I say this at every "milestone", but I really can't believe it's been that long. I'm going into my second rest week, starting today. Yoga was scheduled, but by the time I got home and we got ready, it was 8:30 and we didn't want to have to spend until 10:00 doing yoga. So we switched it with Intervals, the theory being there's probably a similar calorie burn between the two. Yoga is an hour and a half of relatively calm, isometric flexibility and strength exercises, whereas Intervals is 40 minutes of ballistic cardiovascular exercises. So, in theory, the calorie burn should be similar. If only I had a heart rate monitor, then I'd know for sure. Maybe someday!

Two days ago we did a yoga workout which I blogged about briefly, but was too into posting about breakfast to share my excitement... but I can't contain myself anymore... I HAVE A SIX PACK!!!

I was doing table and Chris walked in the room and was like, "Oh my god, where's your camera?!" So he snapped this picture of me, and there is literally a six pack there. Mind you, standing up and in different light it doesn't look that crazy, but in the bedroom light in table pose, I have friggen' six pack abs!!! And I'm obviously very excited about this!! SO proud! :)

!!!!!!

Day 41 - Cheat Day 2 of 3

Today was a great day. First of all it was Sunday, which means no class, and second of all I had no homework, so it was a real day off! I started the day by eating oatmeal instead of my regular scrambled egg whites and chicken bacon, then I did laundry and Chris did the dishes. When we were finished being domestic we spent some time with his family, then came home and started Intervals. After that we got ready for Christopher's late birthday dinner, and walked there only to discover the restaurant was closed... So we changed restaurant plans and had a wonderful meal together. Starting P90X we allowed ourselves three cheat days: Thanksgiving, Chris's birthday and Christmas. So for cheat day 2 of 3, we went all out, with butternut squash tarts, spinach stuffed pork chops, haddock fillet with apple chutney, apple and cranberry crisp, and wine! Mmmm, it was perfect. I surprised Chris with a bonus birthday gift, and a visit to a comedy bar in town. He was very surprised, and we had a great time.

So, speaking of Intervals, they were brutal! In Intervals, you do 20 minutes of workouts, then for the last 20 minutes you do the same routine but backwards. I found that I was more tired for the first set than the second! I felt like I was dying the first time around, but the second time I literally got my second wind and I finished with a bang. Then we did Ab Ripper, which we were supposed to do yesterday. I did all 40 Mason Twists with my feet off the ground - very proud! After watching some videos of some people doing Mason Twists over 200 times, 40 doesn't seem so hard.. but it really really is, and I'm proud that I can do them all.

That's it for now - I had a busy day and I'm exhausted! How was your weekend? :)

Day 40 - Pomegranates and hip flexors

My flu is almost gone! Hooray!! All that remains is a deep, productive chest cough, which my nurse mother says will stick around for a while. But I can deal with a measley little cough, if it means the rest of my symptoms are gone!

Naturally, I celebrated this victory with some P90X. Chris and I did Legs & Back, and we started Ab Ripper, but we couldn't do it. Well, I'm sure Chris could have, but he gave in to my incessant whining, and we decided to do it tomorrow morning. The leg exercises are mostly lunge-based, which works your hip flexors in a major way. Then, to have to do Ab Ripper is near torture. A lot of the ab moves are in a seated, reclined position with the legs in the air, which translates into major hip flexor work. Mine were just too tired from the leg exercises, they wouldn't stop cramping, and my workout was suffering as a result. So we said "screw it, we'll do it tomorrow morning."

Also, Kenpo is scheduled for tomorrow, so we're going to swap it out for Intervals from P90X+. Intervals is a much better (read: waayyy harder) cardio workout, so I'm pretty stoked since I've been out of the loop for a few days. It feels great to be back.

And, I got three of four of my pomegranates prepped and portioned! Poms aren't in the nutrition guide, so I'm assuming they count as a fruit. One fruit serving is 100 calories, which is roughly 2/3 cup of pomegranate. I'm sure Tony won't mind.. Poms are incredibly good for you, they're full of antioxidants and fibre, and they're freakin' delicious - what's not to love?

  

Pom preparation, and the final result: perfect snack packs!

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!