Finishing up week 2!

So even though this is my third week since starting my second round of p90x, I'm just finishing up week 2 since I didn't work out at all last week. This week has been great! I woke up at 5:15 every day before work and got my workout in. I realized how much I just NEED to work out in the mornings...what a difference from last week when I didn't work out at all! This week I was in a better mood, had more energy during the day, and slept like a baby at night. So I've come to the conclusion that I just have to force myself to wake up and work out so that I'm not miserable. Plus, when I work out in the morning I make healthier food choices during the day because I don't want to undo all my hard work!

I did skip YogaX this week and went for a run instead with the dog...I was feeling pretty tired and knew that I'd get more energy out of running than out of Yoga. Plus the dog appreciated it. =) Today is KenpoX and that will make 6 straight days of working out! It's been so long since I've done that. Yay!

I went to a really great restaurant last night. It's called The Loving Hut and it's in Falls Church. It's an Asian-inspired restaurant...and the best part is everything is vegan! It was so nice to go to a restaurant and have the ability to order ANYTHING off the menu! I got a veggie burger (which I didn't realize would be fried) but it was AMAZING! It had this really yummy special sauce on it. I asked for a side salad instead of fries and the salad was really nice...lots of fresh veggies and craisins and it had some amazing homemade dressing. My mom got a portobello panini and my dad got a Vietnamese (fake) pork sandwich with jalapenos, sauerkraut, and cilantro. Everything was really tasty and cheap...my dad's sandwich was only $4.50! For dessert we shared some vegan raspberry lemon cheesecake. Delish! The menu is not up online yet but they have a lot of choices...pho noodle soup, chinese dishes, Indian dishes, salads, sandwiches, etc. Check it out! http://lovinghut.us/fallschurch_01/

healthy food disaster

I just got back from a weekend at Ocean City to celebrate a friend's birthday and have a girls weekend. It was a really fun time...we relaxed, had some tropical drinks, talked, and ate...a lot. In an effort to hold myself accountable and not conveniently "forget" what I ate I'm going to write it all down here. It's not pretty. Here we go.

Friday:

Lunch - on the way up we stopped at Applebee's and I got one of their under 550 calories meals. It was shrimp and lots of veggies over whole wheat noodles in a teriyaki sauce. Not too bad health-wise but it tasted like it had a ton of sodium.

Afternoon - two of us were in the hotel room for the majority of the afternoon waiting for the other girls. So we snacked ALL afternoon on pretzels and sun chips. We did take a long walk on the beach but I don't think that made up for all the chips we ate.

Dinner - the other girls got to the hotel late...too late for dinner...so we hit up some late night food. This was pretty bad (but tasted so good). Late night grub included fried pickles (one of my favorites), mozzarella sticks (I only had 1/2 of one since I'm not really eating cheese), and jalapeño poppers. Fried food heaven. Add a couple of beers on top of that and that pretty much rounds out my Friday. Healthy food DISASTER!

Saturday:

Skipped breakfast.

Lunch: I wanted to stay away from fried food after Friday. Being vegetarian is hard sometimes when you go out as a lot of the vegetarian friendly foods are often fried (appetizers and such). So I decided to have tuna salad which I'm sure was loaded with fat from full-fat mayo. This came with potato salad that was also I'm sure made with full-fat mayo, so I didn't eat all of the potato salad. This also came with fresh fruit and a hard-boiled egg. I also had a tropical drink called pain in the ass.

Dinner: Seacrets in Ocean City! So fun. And delicious! I had a really good black bean burger with guacamole and salsa (no cheese) but of course it was served with fries. I tried to share them and not eat them all but fries are seriously one of my all time favorite foods. Top dinner with a couple rounds of fruity (way too sweet) mixed drinks and a couple of beers...and Saturday is pretty much another healthy food disaster.

Sunday:

Breakfast - Wawa MTO...not too bad...whole wheat roll with scrambled eggs (no cheese), tomato, onion, and pepper.

Lunch - At home. Phew. Had a few pieces of sushi and some honey nut cheerios. Weird combination I know. I was starving after the long ride home.

Dinner will be fresh mussels over pasta for my mom's birthday.

So. That's my weekend of binging. It was a great weekend and I had a fabulous time with my friends. But it made me realize a big part of why I have a hard time losing weight...WEEKENDS! I eat so well all week and then on the weekends w/social gatherings I tend to throw it all away. Boo. Not good!

So here's my plan...after a week hiatus from p90x I'm going to start week 2 tomorrow. I have a little over 4 months before the wedding which is a good amount of time to tone up in a healthy way. I'm going to focus on eating mindfully, slowly, and eating healthy foods. I'm going to aim to work out 5 days a week (even though p90x is for 6 days...some weeks that is unrealistic). If I'm crunched for time and can't fit in a p90x workout then I'll take Bishop for a run (even the dog is porking up!).

I feel good about this. It's good timing since next weekend is Memorial Day and marks the official start of summer which means bikinis! I felt alright in my bathing suit this weekend but I'd definitely like to feel better and more comfortable with myself. Time to get down to business!

rough week

Well...this has been a rough week. I haven't worked out at all for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I haven't had hardly any sleep this week. No real good reason why but it makes it almost impossible for me to wake up at 5:15 and work out. So I decided this week it's more important for me to sleep and get some rest. Also, my knee has been bothering me like crazy. I think it's still from the week and a half that I did Insanity...but it's hurting a ton when I sit for long periods of time (which is inevitable as a therapist) or put too much weight on it. So I figured a week-long hiatus from p90x may help my knee heal up a little bit. And then to top off an already crappy week, last night I found out someone is trying to use my identity and get access to my credit report. So this = me super stressed. I realize working out is good for stress and am a total believer in that, but this week I just feel like I need some sleep. I bought some Melatonin and took that last night and have already taken some tonight so hopefully I get some sleep. I'm having a nice relaxing beach weekend coming up and hopefully after that I'll be ready to re-do week 2 next week!

Something to ponder

I met with my trainer from Lifetime today for the last of my three free sessions. Overall I liked meeting with her because she taught me some new routines that I can do at the gym to incorporate more strength training. One of the routines I can even do at home with weights that I have. I'm still not sure if I will quit the gym or just put my membership on hold...but I'm going to do something because there's no sense in me paying for the membership when I'm committed to p90x for now.

Yesterday was YogaX. I went to the Washington Bridal Expo a few months ago and there were some people there from p90x marketing Shakeology. I talked to them and told them how much I hated Yoga and they recommended that I do the first 30 minutes and last 30 minutes so that I get the benefits of the vinyasas but also the good stretches toward the end. Ever since I started doing this I've loved YogaX! An hour and 30 minutes was way too long (which is how long it takes to do the whole video) so I would just skip the whole thing. Doing an hour is a much better option than not doing anything at all! I didn't do p90x today since I met with my trainer and we did a circuit of strength training moves.

I've been trying to eat mostly vegan but have incorporated eggs back into my diet. I've also been more lenient about eating foods with milk in them, but I'm still trying to steer clear of dairy foods (except eggs). I still haven't had cheese because of how much it upset my stomach when I had some on Easter.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how changing your diet to vegetarian or vegan seems to bother a lot of people. This doesn't make much sense to me since my eating habits don't affect anyone other than me. But for some reason there are people who think it's unhealthy or whatever and can't seem to let it go. To those people I say, leave me alone! I'm doing this for me and not hurting anyone by doing it (actually I'm doing the opposite and saving some pretty cute animals). I've also been reading a lot of books about vegan and vegetarian diets ("The Kind Life," "Skinny Bitch," "Veganist," and "The China Study") and am blown away by the harm that eating animal products can cause (I'm talking health-wise not animal cruelty...although that's obvious)! I'm not trying to push my views on anyone here...some of the stories are just crazy. There are so many stories of people who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer and then they switch to a plant-based diet, and not only does their cancer not progress but it goes away completely! Totally remarkable if you ask me.

Anyways this is just something I've been thinking about. I've changed how I eat to focus on being healthy and I've noticed a ton of health benefits since doing so (clear skin, better sleep, being "regular" if you will ahem) and I would really like people to stop talking trash. I'm not going around preaching and trying to make other people change their diet, so I'd appreciate the same respect in return. Many many thanks!

2 days down!

Well I've finished the first two days of my second round of p90x! They went pretty well considering I haven't done p90x in months. It's pretty interesting to me...I'm wearing a heart rate monitor this time around and I burn significantly less calories than I thought I did. For Core I burned a little over 350 calories, and for CardioX I only burned 260! I guess it's good that I know this so that I'm not overeating, but it's a little disappointing. Either way the program works because when I was doing p90x before I definitely noticed that I was toning up. Maybe since it incorporates a lot of strength training you are building muscle which helps burn calories throughout the day. Who knows.

I've also been trying to eat better the past two days...since the first phase of the p90x diet calls for more protein and less carbs, I've been having a salad w/balsamic vinaigrette and a veggie chik patty for lunch (I really like the Boca spicy chick patties...like Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich!). Last night I had one of my new favorite recipes, red lentil curry http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/red-lentil-curry/Detail.aspx (I use vegetable broth instead of water and add peas...sooo yummy and so healthy!). Today for dinner we're having fresh brussel sprouts, corn on the cob, and tuna salad. Once I get on the right track of eating healthy it's so much easier to keep it up. Nighttime and weekends are my nemesis so I know I really need to focus on eating healthy at those times.

Tomorrow is shoulders and arms and ab ripper...that's gonna be rough!

Getting ready

I've spent some time today trying to get myself ready for the upcoming 90 days...I really want to do this right. I read up on the p90x nutrition program and realized that I'm going to actually need to increase my calories (which I'm not upset about at all since I love eating). I'm going to need to find some creative ways of adding protein without carbs for the first month, but this should be easier since I've started eating eggs again (and I'll just have to eat lots of salads w/veggie burgers or tofu or tempeh).

I saw my trainer today at Lifetime. She taught me a good strength training routine that I can do at home or at the gym...but the whole thing was only about 40 minutes and that included a good amount of rests in between reps. It was a good workout, but I think I burned significantly less calories than doing one of the p90x videos (thanks to my new heart rate monitor I can see how many calories I'm actually burning!).

So far today I've been doing well with eating...had a peanut butter, banana, honey butter wrap for breakfast and curried red lentils for lunch that me and Jan made last night (omg so good). I'm thinking about going to Whole Foods and getting some fresh fish and veggies to for dinner (I refuse to give up seafood because to me it is one of life's greatest pleasures).

Let's give this a try...

So I decided to start a blog. Obviously. I've been trying to figure out a way to stay motivated with working out and eating healthy and thought a blog might be a good way to track my progress and stay focused. I always tell my clients to journal so I thought I'd take my own advice!

After lots of thinking (because let's face it, I overanalyze everything)...I think I'm going to quit Lifetime and start back up again with P90X. Lifetime was going well for about two months, but I've realized that I do better with an at home program because I hate getting ready for work at the gym (and I am not a night time exerciser). I started with Core Synergistics this morning (I'm doing the lean program) but I'm going to officially start the 90 days on Monday.

I'm also a relatively new vegetarian (since the end of February) and this will be a challenge with P90X but I know I can make it work. I was vegan for about a month, but I'm going to start eating eggs again to get that extra protein without adding any carbs. I had my first egg wrap today in over a month and it was fabulous. We get our eggs from an organic local farmer which makes me feel good about eating them.

Well...that's all for now. I hope I can keep this up and I'm seriously hoping it helps with motivation! Encouraging words will definitely be much needed and appreciated!