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! :)

Another day of INSANITY!

So today is going much more smoothly for me... I don't feel like quite the mess I felt like yesterday. I have been telling all my wonderful friends that I'm giving up drinking and eating completely clean for the next 8 weeks, and they look at me like I'm insane! Haha... no pun intended. I guess I am! I already feel much better today, even if it's just the mental resolve that's making me feel better.

Positives for yesterday:

1. I had a fantasy football draft last night where there were tostitos and salsa, plus beer. I had NONE. I have a soft spot for salsa, tostitos, and guacamole, so that was some serious restraint.
2. I felt much stronger while doing my workout, and I walked to and from school carrying my laptop (it's actually kind of hilly here). I burned over 1000 calories!

Areas for improvement:

1. I only slept 6 hours, and I definitely prefer 7 - 8 hours.
2. I didn't eat enough! By the end of the day, I had logged 1508 calories. INSANITY says I should eat 2100 calories a day, and myfooddiary said I still needed at least 900 more calories to be at a safe weight loss level.

As an aside (I've said this before but I'll say it again), if you're looking for a food diary, I highly recommend www.myfooddiary.com. They have a huge list of foods, so I hardly ever have to enter foods manually. They will track all your major nutrients in addition to calories in and out. Then you get a little report at the end of the day to tell you how you did. This is what it said to me yesterday:

At a glance ...
	Notes
	Exercise! You burned 1218 calories.
	A high-fiber breakfast can help you lose weight and reduce your risk for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
	No dessert! You easily saved yourself hundreds of empty calories.
	You have eaten fiber-rich foods. This is a good indicator of a healthy diet.
	Saturated fats only accounted for 3.2% of your calories. Good job staying below the 9% limit!
	You consumed 1313 mg of calcium. This is 131% of the recommended daily value (1000 mg) for adults under 50 years old.
	You consumed 3778 IU of vitamin A. This is 126% of the recommended daily value for women.
	Too few calories. Consuming too few calories can decrease your metabolism. This will hurt your long-term weight loss efforts. Note: Make sure you have entered all of your foods for the day.
	You consumed 2718mg of sodium. Ideally, this number should be below 2300mg.
	Only 13.6% of your calories came from fat. Fat should account for a minimum of 15% of your calories.

Cool huh?

So here's the scoop on today. I did Pure Cardio, which AGAIN, is BANANAS. Shaun T's words, not mine... now every time I do that workout I think of Gwen Stefani. It's bananas, B A N A N A S! :)

For the food, I was much more thoughtful about what I ate/am eating. I'm going to be in school till at least 9:30 tonight, so I had to do some quick planning. I was home from 11:30 to 1, and in that time, I did my workout, I cooked my dinner, I made my lunch, AND I packed snacks. The key to my success today was literally having my laptop next to me so I could log all my food and figure out if I needed more. Turns out, I did! I added in a bag of walnuts and dried fruit, and now I'm all set.

MUCH BETTER!!! Thanks for reading! Good luck with your health and fitness goals today!!!

Day 5 - Pure Cardio

So you know you're in trouble when Shaun T finishes the warm up of his workout and proceeds to say he's scared to do the workout. Ummm, really???

The warm up was the general warm up he uses for all the other workouts where you mix up jogging, high knees, butt kickers, etc. and vary your speed as you move along. My favorite move in this part is definitely the 1-2-3 Heisman. I'm getting better at that already! My feet are moving so freaking fast! I love it! After you finish the warm up and the stretches, you move into fifteen straight minutes of cardio. And by cardio, I mean the type of cardio where you feel like you are sprinting up a hill. For 15 minutes... in Shaun T's words, it's bananas!

In total, that was 596 calories!

Still having issues getting the food balanced out during the day. I'm at 1100 calories, and I only have dinner and a snack to go. I shall continue trying...