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 39 - Yoga with a side of flu symptoms

I never thought I'd see the day that I actually loathed having a week off from everything. I would have killed for this mini-vacation as a kid! I left the house today for the first time since Wednesday (yes, that's only two days) and it felt so great. I am not one to stay indoors and feel sorry for myself, so the second I felt better, I was out the door. It also snowed here for the first time this fall, so we went on a little snow walk / grocery trip, and we rented a movie. It was cold and slushy and raining outside but I didn't care, because I was outside! Yesterday I checked the mail three times, just for the sake of leaving the apartment and walking down the stairs to the mailboxes. Literally going shack-whacky after two days.

I also ate better today. I am back on track with the diet plan, except I didn't have any fruit today. Counterintuitive really, when I'm ultimately trying to get over a virus. Anyway, I feel good about eating well today. I also did Yoga X, which makes me very proud. I was flip-flopping, trying to decide if I felt ready, and when it came time to do it, I figured that my fever and headache were gone, so why not? I did it all, minus the crazy Warrior Three poses.. which, honestly, I can't do well when I'm not sick. So I did the Yoga and I followed the diet guide. Life is good. :)

Tomorrow I have to prepare some pomegranate that I've been putting off preparing. I love pomegranate! I'll definitely have a serving of fruit if there's pomegranate around.

My poms :)

Day 38 - Feeling better, slowly but surely

Today was a good day. Instead of resting like the doctor ordered (literally), I wrote a paper, started a painting and scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom. This is what I'm like now; full of energy that I have to get rid of in one form or another. It definitely wasn't going to be through P90X workouts.. I'm not feeling quite that good. My fever is gone, but my nose has turned into a running faucet and I'm sneezing like crazy. Plus headaches. I literally have a Kleenex burn mustache going on. Needless to say, I'm very attractive right about now.

I tried to eat a little more on-track with the diet, and I did better than yesterday. Cheerios for breakfast, a cup of coffee (I know better, but I love my coffee), two cups of orange juice, a yogurt, tomato soup, and a protein bar. For supper I made breakfast: egg whites, chicken bacon and two baby bagels. Chris went out for birthday dinner with his mom, so I had no one to impress. Also, I love having breakfast for supper. And now I'm drinking tea. Life is good.

Yoga is technically scheduled for tomorrow, and I would love to get back on track with the workouts. Yoga (at least the easy moves) seems like a good one to start back in with, but I'll have to play it by ear and see how I feel.

This is exactly what I've been doing for the last two days.

Except that's not me. I'm not that pretty laying sick in bed.

Day 37 - Still down and out

Missed posting again last night. I was drowsy and nauseated, and it wasn't a good scene. My doctor diagnosed me with influenza, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how shocked she was that I would come to her office. I even sanitized my hands and put on a mask when I got there, but she said I should have gone to one of the flu assessment clinics set up around the city. Well, I didn't know.. I figured when you were sick, you went to the doctor. Anyway, she gave me a script for Tamiflu and an order to take a week off school and work. Tamiflu is kind of neat, it blocks an enzyme in the body that the virus needs to live. It doesn't end the symptoms, but it decreases the severity and duration. I don't know if it's H1N1 or seasonal flu, but Chris just called to tell me the paper is reporting no confirmed cases of seasonal flu. They've all been H1N1 so far. So, it's likely swine flu.

My fever has gone down overnight, taking Tamiflu and acetaminophen. My appetite has returned a bit, too. All good signs. Still have the sore throat, coughing, sniffing, sneezing and fatigue.

Yesterday I ate a bagel, a bowl of cereal, a protein bar, a granola bar, a delicious chicken wrap that Chris made for me, and 5 glasses of orange juice. For some reason, when I'm sick, I just can't drink water. I have to drink something flavoured. I know it's loaded with sugar and all I ate were carbs but really, right now I'm just focusing on getting better. And, sadly, I don't foresee any P90X in my immediate future. I'll try to post tonight. No promises!

Day 36 - Virus-laden

I didn't post last night either. And I can't blame it on the internet.

But, I'm sick. When I posted yesterday morning all I had was a tickle in my throat, and last night it had progressed to full blown cough, headache and fever. I felt antsy, laying on the couch all night, so Chris suggested I attempt some X Stretch. It helped with my restlessness and it felt really good, but I won't be doing it again today. I'm too sick today. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon so I'm hoping she'll know what I have, if it's a cold, flu or strep. I don't think it's a cold because of the nonproductive cough and the fever, but we'll see.

I've also switched my diet, and am more focused on eating things I can get down. So far today that's consisted of two glasses of orange juice and a bagel.

And, today is Christopher's birthday. Worst timing ever. :(

Day 35 - Internet FAIL 2.0

My internet was down again yesterday, hence the lack of posting last night. I called them and they're going to come fix it on Saturday. I'm posting from school right now, but hopefully it's back on for tonight's post.

Yesterday was supposed to be rest/stretch day, but I did NOT feel like sitting around. (Plus, a friend of mine gave me a Lululemon workout top, which motivated me as soon as I put it on!) I did Plyometrics, and it felt great. I skip a few parts, based on last time I did it. I skip the twisting exercises where I'm supposed to spin 180 degrees, back and forth, because it makes me crazy dizzy. And I skip the "bonus" sports exercises, except for the jumpshot since it really gets my heart going. All in all it was a great workout!

Our slow-cooker chicken turned out really well, and we had it with stir-fried vegetables with it. It was very tasty! No idea what's for supper tonight. But it's Core Synergistics for my workout, and I can't wait! I'm in the middle of a crazy period at school so I loving having P90X as an outlet. It decreases my stress level, clears my mind and calms me down. I love it!

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!