Tough Workout + Healthy Dinner = Happy Alissa

Today's workout was Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs. With my hiatus, I hadn't done this one in a while. It was tough! That is an awesome, killer workout though! Suffice it to say I was dripping! In the abs workout, there are a couple crazies that I just have to explain. Most of your exercises take place from a C-sit which is basically sitting on the ground with your knees bent but your feet out sort of far and leaning back slightly so your abs are engaged. The KILLER move on this is when you lift both your legs in the air and then down, then bend your knees into your chest and back out straight. The most impressive thing is that the people in the video have completely still backs! You can't use your hands at all and they're balancing! That is some serious strength! I can do 3 at a time and then I start to wobble so I rest. The other CRAZINESS is when you change from plank on your hands to plank on your elbows, back and forth. Gets pretty freakin' tiring after a little while! Of course, being the crazy that I am, I love it and feel awesome when I'm done. So YAY!

On the nutrition side of things, I cooked myself a well-balanced meal tonight, and I even tried to use some antioxidant rich foods! :) I have a nice salad with tomatoes (rich in lycopene) and carrots (full of beta carotene). I made a piece of orange roughy, and I used an old Weight Watchers recipe for that. It's 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, 2 T of breadcrumbs, and a little paprika, which you dredge the fish in, then bake. It's really yummy! I actually substituted Turmeric for paprika because I read it was really good for you. It actually tasted good! I didn't use too much but it added some color to the fish.

All in all, a yummy meal! With that crazy workout, I still need a few hundred calories before bed, so I'll probably have some Greek yogurt and some dried fruit.

Nice to be back on the wagon!

Pure Cardio, Abs, and TAP!

Today was a big workout day for me. I had Pure Cardio, which was awesome! I'm taking way fewer breaks than I've ever done, AND I actually felt like I hit a runner's high. Any runners out there probably know what I mean. Four years ago, I ran a marathon and raised money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Team in Training). I never believed the whole runner's high thing until I noticed that I felt awesome after mile 5 and beyond. Like literally, 45 minutes in, I was almost in an ethereal state. I felt like I could run forever!

I felt that today with Insanity! I made it into Cardio Abs, and the jumps were cake. Okay, maybe not cake, but much better than the other day! At the end of the workout, you do these crazy plank moves where you go from planking on your elbows to planking on your hands. I definitely need to put something down so I can't slip! My first time I did this was at the hotel over the weekend, so I was on shag carpet (it was a trendy hotel!). Today I did this on wood floors, and I was slipping all over (of course because I was dripping with sweat).

To make the day crazier, I went to a tap class tonight at a local university. It was fun! I've been tapping since I was 5, so I was happy to be in a class. The style was different than I'm used to, but I'll ease back into it. The teacher was very nice, and there are people of varying levels... like other adults like me and then some students in the musical theatre program at the university. All in all, good time and I burned almost 500 calories! Insanity was around 800, so I hit some big numbers today!

So, that in turn made food a challenge. I had planned on eating this monster chicken breast for dinner because of the need for INSANE calories, but I got so sick of the taste. I had rice and beans on the side, and I decided to add in some baby carrots and hummus plus strawberries for dessert. It brought me up to 2200 calories, and MFD told me I could still eat something crazy like 500 more calories and meet my "Lose 1 Pound per Week" goal. I'm tired and not hungry though, so I am DONE.

Tomorrow is a Cardio Recovery day for me. Woo hoo!

Keep pushing play! :)

Plyo Cardio Circuit Again!

I just finished up Plyo Cardio Circuit again, and I am soaked! That seemed harder to me today! I've definitely got the warmup down, but once we moved into the pushup section, it was rough. Basically, you jump down, do 4 pushups, then stay in plank and run for 8 counts, then jump up and repeat. Tough, tough, tough! After all that, you do a bunch of different jumps from plank position. Whoa, my legs were losing it. All in all, it was 661 calories!

As for food today, I'm doing well. No temptations thrown my way, and I've managed to keep myself full all day. I'm already starting to feel healthier, so that's a huge improvement from 2 days ago. I seem to be getting myself easily to around 1900 calories, but myfooddiary and INSANITY want me to eat more.

Here's a question for all of you! Which do you think is better?

a) Eating when you're hungry even if you "don't eat enough." Of course, I'm certainly not condoning starving yourself, just the difference between 1900 calories and 2200 calories.

b) Eating more because it's what is recommended, even if you're not hungry anymore

Time for dinner... have a healthy night! :)

MUST FOCUS!!!

Okay, so this is now week 2 of INSANITY. The workouts are going well, so that's great. Unfortunately, as is always a fact with me, I fell off the food wagon this weekend. I don't know why I do it because I can be so focused with my workouts. It's totally unacceptable to me that I will workout and then eat crap on the weekends and think things will turn out well! So not good!

This summer, I was traveling all week for work, and I COMPLETELY lost all control. I was working long hours, I was eating out at every meal (living out of hotels), and I wasn't working out. This caused me to gain back the weight I had lost on P90X and then some. UGH!!! Again, so not good!

I really need to focus on my eating so I can get the real results of these fitness efforts! Here are some of the things I'd like to do to keep myself on track for the next 8 weeks:

1. Log my food and workouts on www.myfooddiary.com, including my walks to and from school (35 min each way with my laptop bag on my back... that's actually pretty tough!)
2. Eliminate alcohol, even the occasional glass of wine for this next 8 weeks. I can go back to the occasional glass of wine when I'm done with INSANITY and I really feel like I've got myself in a good food pattern.

So, I'm not sure where else to focus. Do you guys stick to your plan all the time? Or do you subscribe to the one day off philosophy?

So today is not going too hot. I'm at the too few calories level... oh boy! This is so difficult but it's worth the effort! I'd really like to lost 30 pounds, so I've got to FOCUS!!! Any and ALL advice is greatly appreciated!

On the topic of INSANITY, today's workout went well. My power jumps are getting much better! I still had to take some breaks at the end, mostly when I was transitioning from move to move. Today was the Power Cardio Resistance workout... not sure if that's the exact title, but it's got a bit more of the toning moves in it... some dips, more pushups, etc. Quite nice! I burned 612 calories... woo hoo!

INSANITY Nutrition Program

Since I'm not prepared to start the workouts until next weekend, I decided to do my due diligence and read through the Elite Nutrition book. I really like it!

Before I went to grad school, I had a very typical office job, and my company was just awesome and relaxed and flexible. We had a fridge and a gym there, and I was able to structure my meals and workouts really well. I ate 5 small meals a day, and I made sure I balanced my carbs, fat, and protein. It was awesome! This nutrition book suggests the same, not surprisingly. I've wanted to get back to that type of eating, and I have been using my lifestyle as an excuse... no longer! I'm going to follow this plan!

With my age, weight, and fitness level, it says I should be eating 2100 calories a day to lose weight. I'm going to give it a shot! I think this is the breakdown I'm going to go for:

Breakfast - 400 calories

Snack 1 - 400 calories

Lunch - 500 calories

Snack 2 - 300 calories

Dinner - 500 calories

I know it's not goo to push all your calories to the end of the day, but I know I'll always want to have more at dinner, so I'm going to just plan for it. The good news about the plan is that it's a lot of food I really eat anyway like whole wheat toast with peanut butter on it (my breakfast EVERYDAY).

I'm going to be gone all day long, so I'm going to need to pack my foods in the morning. There are a lot of egg options, so that's going to be difficult. I don't like hardboiled, so I'm going to stick to eggs when I'm home near my stove. I have a feeling I'll be substituting in sliced turkey or even beans for some of those proteins on the go. I love oatmeal and yogurt, and I actually used to use those as my afternoon snacks when I was more on the 5 meals a day kick. I think this is going to be an old familiar eating plan that I have absolutely missed! Now the key is to never get off of it!

INSANITY has arrived!

While I was away for work this week, my INSANITY package arrived. Very nice! The packaging is quite fun. It's this huge book basically. I love it! So far I've looked at the beginning of the nutrition section and paged through a few of the recipes. Here are my observations:

It definitely sounds like a great way to eat! I used to be in the habit of eating 5 meals a day that were very well structured in terms of the balance of carbs, protein, fat. This internship has gotten me away from that, so I am going to focus a lot on this when I start INSANITY.

The calorie totals are high! I used the Very Active multiplier because it's for people who exercise 5-6 times per week. I'll be doing that plus walking to and from school which is ~1.5 miles each way. That brought my maintenance calories to 2645! I sadly gained a few pounds this summer... They won't be here for long though! I'm going to do the weight loss totals, so that will still put me at eating 2145 calories a day! WOW!!!

I plan to track my calories on www.myfooddiary.com which is IMHO the BEST food and exercise diary out there. It's only $9 a month, and it is worth it! Waaaayyyy better than the free ones!

Okay, only one more week of work and then I start INSANITY!!!! I can't wait!