P90X - Week 12 - Wednesday

Ab Ripper X and Back & Biceps today. I totally rocked my workout. I was up in weights or reps, and even pulled a few unassisted towel pull ups out of my ass.

Food is not going well. I just can't stop eating crap. I don't know why I can't eat the way I work out. It's pissing me off, to be honest.

P90X - Week 9 - Sunday

Technically, it's the end of week 9 but I'm starting Week 10's workouts today. Well, yesterday's cardio was to get a jump on next week's cardio. Oh, never mind.

This morning, I did ARX, Cardio Kickbox (153 calories) & Turbo 20 Minute Workout (139 calories). This evening, Back & Biceps. No regression on this one. I made improvements in several places. It was a good workout - I felt really good, and strong. Energized, even. I gave myself 5 Activity Points for all of it.

Banana Nut Cheerios w/ skim milk [3 pts]

omelet w/ onion, green pepper & salsa, turkey bacon, multigrain English muffin w/ reduced sugar jam [8 pts]

banana [1 pt]

carrot sticks & green pepper slices [0 pts]

baked tilapia & sweet potato [7 pts]

pumpkin pie [5 pts]

apple & cottage cheese [6 pts]

Four cups of coffee [1 pt] and 80 ounces of water.

31 points today. 0 weekly and 0 activity points remaining. I busted my ass this week and I wasn't letting a single AP go to waste.

P90X - Week 7 - Wednesday

I woke up at 4 freaking AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I sure as hell wasn't getting up at that time to exercise, so I snuggled under the blankets until 4:45. Then I got up and did my warm up for Back & Biceps, did ARX, then proceeded with the weights. I improved in most areas. My chin ups went from 1 unassisted and 11 assisted last week to 3 unassisted and 6 assisted today. I'm not sure if that's improvement or not. Oh, and my towel pull ups sucked because toward the end, my chair slipped off the mat (that keeps it from sliding - go figure) and I couldn't get as many as I wanted in. Anyway, I earned 2 Activity Points from Back & Biceps, and 2 more from Cardio X (208 calories burned). I would really rather do a different cardio on my Doubles days. I get a better burn from Turbo Jam.

At the halfway point, I've lost 0 pounds. That's fine, I didn't expect to. I did my measurements and lost 3/4 of an inch around my chest. Everything else, including body fat, either stayed the same or went up. I gained 1 3/4 inches around my waist AND my abdomen, and 1 1/2 inches around my hips. I don't know what to think. My eating has not been so horrible to warrant such a gain. Most days, I eat pretty well, and I know my body well enough to know that the days I didn't eat so great, shouldn't have had this much of a gain in inches. I'm pretty pissed and upset. On the one hand, I know I need to be patient and see where things stand at the end. I know my food choices could be better, but I am freaking starving all the time and I really don't think I'm eating enough - I think that's why I end up grabbing crap on occasion. I don't know what to do. I can't go back to obsessing about calories, so I do plan to stick with the WW points. This is where I desperately try to fight the urge to cut calories. I am absolutely NOT going to eat less. I'm barely functioning as it is.

I know I can't have it all. I can't enjoy treats and really expect to lose weight. But at the same time, I can't cut them out, eat super clean, then binge. I just can't. I have to make a sacrifice somewhere. I just don't know what I want to give up. I don't have a lot to lose - I am in my healthy weight range. My fitness level is pretty darn good. I'm certainly no athlete but I have made some very good progress across the board, and I'm happy about that. But some visual results would be nice. "They" say that most of the progress comes in the second half, especially for women. We'll see. Days like this, though, they make me want to throw away all my hard work.

The only explanation I can think of that is even remotely possible is that, since I'm doing real ab/core work for the first time (ever), I may have built up some muscle underneath all the fat, none of which has burned off. Still, the numbers are pretty high and I wouldn't have built that much muscle. And 45 days into the routine, my muscles shouldn't still be retaining lots of water to make them all puffy like they do when you first start. I don't know. I am very confident in my measurements. Ugh, this is just so frustrating.

I did take pictures, and I'll have them online some time tomorrow. I'll post the link with tomorrow's blog entry. I'm too tired to fight my crappy computer to get them ready.

I will say that I am super proud of myself for going to the store with every intention of buying junk food, then not buying it.

apple & cottage cheese [3 pts]

omelet w/ onion, green pepper & salsa; light English muffin w/ jelly [5 pts]

venison tenderloin w/ raw broccoli & cauliflower, baby carrots & green pepper slices [4 pts]

yogurt [2 pts]

baked tilapia on homemade bread w/ romaine lettuce, tomato & pepper jack cheese [8 pts]; Even after eating this, I'm still very hungry. I can't possibly stuff more vegetables down my throat. I'm still gagging over lunch's veggies. I'm already over my daily points, and I estimate that I may have hit 1300 calories - and that's being generous. No way in hell is that enough. No way.

almonds & mandarin oranges [5 pts]; I felt a little better after eating these.

strawberry mini wheats & mozzarella string cheese [5 pts]

Four cups of coffee [1 pt] and 80 ounces of water.

33 points today. 17 weekly and 12 activity points remaining.

P90X - Week 6 - Wednesday

This woman is my new hero. I just discovered her blog today. I'm fascinated and insanely jealous. She is on Round #4 of P90X, and is mixing it with Insanity, sometimes doing 3 workouts a day. I have a lot more of her blog to read but holy hell, I am impressed. And sad to know that I could never do what she's doing.

I think I need a new transmitter strap for my heart rate monitor. This is the second day in a row I've had problems keeping a reading. I am positive the strap was clean and moist enough. I did Cardio X and burned 206 calories (earning 2 Activity Points). I really did not want to get up at 5 AM to do it - that first 5 minutes is really rough. Today's workout sucked even more because I think I pulled something in my glute last night. I couldn't do strong kicks with my left leg and bending over is somewhat uncomfortable. After cardio, I spent some time stretching my lower body, but it still aches. I'm glad it's not Legs & Back day! I did ARX after cardio, took my son to school, then came home to do Back & Biceps (2 more APs). I really, really need to force myself to split the workouts up properly. Doing them both in the morning (especially less than 2 hours apart) leaves me completely drained.

I didn't have huge improvements with Back & Biceps. Last week's weights were so challenging that I stuck with them, and still struggled. I am having problems with the corn cob pull ups and towel pull ups. With the corn cobs, you're supposed to move your body from side to side when you're up, but my pull up bar has rounded handles sticking out right where your body would to on those sides, so I can't really do them properly. I'm not sure how to get around that. I can fix the issue I'm having with towel pull ups though - I was using a regular hand towel, and it's just too thick for my little hands to grip. So next week I am going to try one of my microfiber dust rags. I am pretty sure that will be better for me. (Actually, I just tried it with the dust rag and it's perfect! I actually did one unassisted). The one bright spot in today's workout was during the switch grip pull ups - I managed one unassisted chin up and one unassisted pull up!

apple & cottage cheese [5 pts]

scrambled eggs w/ onion, green pepper & salsa, toast w/ reduced-sugar jelly [5 pts]

pudding [1 pt]

chicken breast, baked sweet potato fries [4 pts]

chicken breast, baby carrots & green pepper slices [3 pts]

yogurt [2 pts]

Four cups of coffee [1 pt] and 80 ounces of water.

21 points today. 23 weekly points and 12 activity points remaining.

P90X - Week 5 - Tuesday

I survived my second Doubles day. I got up at 5 AM to do Cardio X (43 minutes and 234 calories) and ARX. A couple hours later, I did Back & Biceps. I'd normally wait longer than 90 minutes between workouts but I had tons of stuff to do today. This workout is nuts! I used 25 pound weights for lawnmowers and 10-15 pounders for the rest of the exercises. There were some interesting pull ups (corn cob and towel) that were challenging. The strip set curls at the end were a bitch. I only have 2 pairs of dumbbell handles and one needs 4 different sets of weights for the exercise. I had to stop after each set of 8 reps to pull weights off. I am going to get another set of dumbbell handles to make it easier. I know I talk about doing that all the time, but I am really going to do it now. I also think I was a little ambitious with the starting weight for the strip set (17.5 pounds). It was hard!!!!!!!!! I was so glad when I got down to my last set, with 10 pounds. This exercise being at the very end sucks.

Here is the exercise list for Back & Biceps:
wide front pull up
lawnmowers
twenty-ones
one-arm cross-body curl
switch grip pull up
elbows out lawnmowers
standing bicep curl
one-arm concentration curl
corn cob pull up
reverse grip bend over row
open arm curl
static arm curl
towel pull up
Congdon locomotive
crouching Cohen curl
one-arm corkscrew curl
chin up
seated bent over back fly
curl up hammer down
hammer curl
max rep pull up
Superman
in-out hammer curl
strip set curl

apple & cottage cheese [3 pts]

Special K protein cereal w/ skim milk, banana [4 pts]

omelet w/ cheese, onion, green pepper & picante sauce, multigrain English muffin [6 pts]

catfish w/ light sour cream, picante sauce, romaine lettuce & green peppers [6 pts]

roasted chicken & mixed vegetables & EVOO [6 pts]

yogurt [2 pts]

Four cups of coffee [1 pt] and 80 ounces of water.

28 points today. I'm down to 17 weekly points and 6 activity points. I'll earn a few more APs this week, thankfully.