Day 12

Day 12: Feels Like Jesus

This morning was legs and back and then of course the ab ripper. I was really proud of my work out today! Some milestones for me were that I did 7 reverse grip pull ups unassisted, I was able to hold the back-against-the-wall-seated stretch for the full 90 seconds, I used 12 lb weights on all the lunges, and I finally took my time and really did the full ab ripper, which is 25 reps of everything, equally around 350 reps altogether. It was intense, but it was awesome. I figured this must be what Jesus felt like.

For breakfast I had a spinach and onion scramble with a glass of soy milk. I'm getting ready to hit the road Vegas, now, so my plan for the day is to get Subway for lunch on the road, and then figure out a healthy option for dinner. I'm planning to do my absolute best to maintain my nutrition plan this weekend, finding healthier options with every meal. I also have decided that I will drink this weekend (gasp!), though probably only on Saturday night. I don't really want to drink tonight and then wake up and play hours of frisbee tomorrow. For those a little confused, I stopped drinking after New Years Eve and haven't had one drop of the juice since then. And I don't plan on having more til maybe my birthday. I figure, aside from the obvious consequences, drinking leads to having soda, which I haven't had since Jan. 1, and even worse, binge eating afterward. Not to mention it's an expensive habit!

Anyway, in case I'm unable to blog until I get back, wish me luck in the tournament and with maintaining my nutrition plan while in Sin City! I'm sure I'll have a fun post on Monday...

I'll just leave you with this little photo I snuck in after my work out today...

Day 11

Day 11: Yoga Yoga Yoga

Today, of course, was Yoga X. As usual, it still kicked my ass, but I'm definitely seeing improvement! I'm interested to see if I really do become more flexible by the end of this program. For those of you who knew me in high school, you know I was a dancer, but even then I was never really very flexible. I can see myself getting closer and closer to putting my hands on the ground (which I used to be able to do...), so that's good. I also held myself up in crane for even longer today!

For breakfast today, I had a soy sausage and egg wrap with a little bit of reduced fat cheddar in a whole wheat tortilla. For lunch, I had a salad with chicken, spring greens, bell peppers, cucumbers, and onions with a light Caesar dressing. For dinner, I made an awesome shrimp stir fry with broccoli, onions, bell peppers, and soba noodles. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as flavorful as I would have liked, but nothing a little sriracha couldn't fix.

I took a pic of my new haircut for you all... hmm... I guess some bicep slipped in there...

(sorry about the toothpaste-spattered mirror...)

Day 10

Day 10: What did I eat, eh?

This morning's workout was shoulders and arms. If you remember, last week I used 7.5 lb weights for triceps and shoulders and 10 lbs for biceps. Well, today I used 10 lbs for tris and shoulders and 15 lbs for biceps! And it felt awesome! I was really proud of myself and pretty excited about it! The Ab Ripper X is still kicking my ass, but I'm getting closer to being able to do the full 25 for each exercise! Overall I was really happy with today's workout!

Since I still hadn't gotten more egg whites, I decided to go with another protein shake today. The protein powder I use was on sale at the gym today, so I bought some more, this time chocolate instead of strawberry. So I made a strawberry chocolate smoothie using fresh strawberries, the chocolate protein powder, and vanilla soy milk. For lunch, I went with my coworker to a small industry event to try to do some networking. It was a showcase called Canadian Blast put on by Creative Control, a music supervising company. Basically, there was all you can eat chinese food and live music by artists looking to get represented or placed. Oh and they were Canadian, eh. We watched Steph McPherson, and I have to admit, she was really good! Check her out! Anyway, I made a tuna salad and brought it for lunch, and I was going to get some salad greens and vegetable soup at Trader Joe's to go with it, but since we went to this at lunch time, and I really needed to eat then, I had to eat at the event. I know what you're thinking... "You gave in! You pigged out!" Well, basically, I made the best of the situation.  I ate almost only proteins (chicken, beef broccoli, shrimp) and honestly did not eat a lot at all. The only "give in" was that I had a little bit of vegetable chow mein, but I just can't eat Chinese food without chow mein! I ate so little there, in fact, that I was still hungry when we got back, so I ate the tuna salad, just not with anything else. For dinner, I left out carbs since I had them for lunch, so I improvised a strange salad consisting of turkey and my usual SMOs (it's a thing). It was good, though!

Can you believe this is what it looked like when I opened the brand new tub of protein???

In other news, I got a hair cut tonight. In keeping with all these changes I'm making, I decided to try something new. It's cool that I'm friends with my hair guy. We discussed different options, and I even changed directions a little midway through and decided to be a little adventurous. So here is a glimpse at the new do. Basically, it's short on the sides and long on top. I'm still going to play around with different styles, but this is pretty much a basic comb over. I'll try to get some more pics later.

Day 9

Day 9: 10% Complete

Things I learned today: 1) Don't stay up blogging until 12:30 when you have to be up at 4:45, and 2) Plyometrics is that much harder on 4 hours of sleep...

So today I did plyometrics on 4 hours of sleep because I stayed up catching up on my blogs posts. Sheesh. The things I do for you people. YOU'RE WELCOME.

The workout definitely kicked my buttocks, and I was a little bummed that it seemed tougher than last week, so I'm a little disappointed in myself for staying up so late last night. But I still pushed through and got an awesome workout! My groin muscles haven't been too happy today, though. All those squats really agitated them. I also have a bad lower back, and all the impact from jumping agitated it a little. And also my left ankle is a little fragile since all that frisbee on Sunday, so I had to be a little careful. Basically I'm falling apart today, but I just ignore it. That's what the X is in P90X! At least that's what the guy keeps telling me in the video...

So, for breakfast I made a strawberry-banana protein shake. It was delicious as always. I'm waiting for my roommates to attempt murder for running the blender at 7:30am twice a week... I say attempt, of course, because I do Kenpo now and can kick some ass! But I digress.... I made a steak with green beans and sautéed mushrooms and onions– you know what, I'm going to call them SMOs now cuz I seriously make them with everything– and took that to work for lunch. For dinner, I made salmon with brown rice and broccoli, which I topped with a bit of the absolutely delicious homemade salsa that Veronica made tonight. 8oz of salmon is a lot, btw. But it was delicious. It was SMO-less though.

It is pretty exciting that I'm 10% done already! Wow how times flies... seems like just 9 days ago I was just starting out...

Day 8

Day 8: It comes after Day 7

Alright, I've made it through the first week, so now I've cycled back to Chest & Back. The workout definitely went by faster, and I'm pretty sure I was able to do a few more pushups than last week, though I can't say the same for my back with pull ups. After exerting a lot of energy on my "rest day" yesterday, I think my body was still tired and recovering. But I made it through and did my Ab Ripper X as well. The abs were a little tougher than last week, but I also discovered that I'm supposed to do abs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I was only doing Monday and Wednesday. Hopefully they will really start building up after this week when I start working them three days a week.

When it came time to make breakfast, I realized I didn't have any more egg whites... so I improvised a breakfast and had a bowl of Kashi cereal with soy milk and cooked a soy sausage. Not glamorous, but nutritious nonetheless. I decided I was lazy and didn't make a lunch, so Carrin and I went to Subway, where I got a 6" sweet onion chicken teriyaki on 9 grain wheat with no cheese. I know what you're thinking, and no, it wasn't enough. But it's all about control and portion size. Though I didn't make a lunch, I did however, slice up half a cantaloupe, so I had that after Subway.

After work, I went to support my dear friend and brother, Christopher, by attending the Stonewall Democrats meeting to vote to endorse the mayoral candidate for whom he works, Wendy Gruel. This meant postponing dinner... I thought I was going to pass out from hunger. It's amazing how much my metabolism has sped up in just two weeks. I feel like I get hungry just an hour after eating! Anyway, when I got home,  I got to cooking right away. I made a steak with sautéed mushrooms and onions (you'll start to notice that I love sautéing mushrooms and onions with just about everything) and brown rice. It was quite delicious! I couldn't finish the whole steak, which is good since I actually made a little too much (which I know because I weighed it on my nifty scale!), so Max was kind enough to help me finish it. He's such a good friend :)

Day 7

Day 7: And on the seventh day he played frisbee?

I need to go to the store again... I'm out of egg whites...

Since I didn't have enough egg whites today, I used what I had left, added egg white from an actual egg, and decided to make a ground turkey, mushroom, and onion scramble. I figure the turkey will substitute the protein for the missing eggs. I sliced some strawberries and had a glass of soy milk as well.

Then, come noon, it was off to play frisbee! Next weekend I'm participating in an LGBT tournament in Las Vegas called the Sin City Shootout, so we decided to all get together for one last practice. Usually we play for two hours, but we were all having fun, so we ended up playing for three. Did I mention today was supposed to be the day of rest? Whoops.

By the time I got home to have lunch, I was pooped and famished, but I don't think my brain was really working, so I just tossed together a big salad and had some of the Filipino pork soup (whose name sounds like synagogue) that Veronica made. I then proceeded to pass the f**k out on the couch for two hours. It needed to happen.

For dinner, I made brown rice and sautéed chicken with onion and chopped up asparagus. It was simple and delicious, and there was a strange smell in the bathroom later. Completely unrelated...

Day 6

Day 6: Ready to Kick Ass

Today was pretty awesome. I slept in til 9 which, compared to waking up at 4:45 everyday, is awesome! I made myself a mushroom, onion, and red bell pepper scramble and had a glass of soy milk. At around 11am, Veronica took me to Korea Town and introduced me to the phenomena that is Korean markets. I am never buying meat or vegetables anywhere else! I couldn't believe how cheap everything was. And they have anything you would ever need! It's ridiculous in the best way possible! After that, Jordan, who is also doing P90X, came over and we cooked lunch together. Following a recipe out of the nutrition book, we made huge turkey burgers, and I made a delicious (if I may say so myself) coleslaw. Who knew coleslaw was so easy to make?? Well, probably everyone but me. But anyway, it was delicious and filling, and so then we watched Pitch Perfect cuz clearly we haven't watched it enough times. Aca-believe it.

After some relaxation, it was time for Kenpo. Kenpo is another cardio workout and is somewhat similar to tae bo. You're constantly moving and it involves a lot of punching and kicking. After that workout I almost want someone to try to jump me outside cuz I feel like I can kick their ass. KENPO!! HUH! ...yeah something like that.

So for dinner, I finally got to make something from the book that I've been waiting two weeks to try: swordfish. I seared the swordfish and cooked some green beans and rice to go along with it. I even topped it with some of the honey chili sauce I had left from the other night. I was very satisfied with it!

That night was also CeyJay's Underwear/Pajama Birthday Party. No, I didn't drink. But I was pretty happy with my outfit!

    

Day 5

Day 5: Not-so-fat Ass Friday

In case I didn't do enough pull ups on Monday, Friday is kind enough to supply me with plenty more. Friday is legs and back day. Last week, I was sore all weekend from this workout. Hey there, hamstrings. Wakey wakey! But this week was not only a lot easier, but my legs felt great the next day! I also used weights on a lot of the lunges, which I didn't do last week. It's amazing what all these different kinds of lunges can do to your legs. My legs, fortunately, are already pretty strong, so I'm pretty sure they're going to look ripped a lot sooner than the rest of my body. As for my back, I'm still doing assisted pull ups, but it's a lot better because it allows me to use proper form and really work my muscles. I'm in no hurry to hurt myself, so, with the exception of reverse grip pull ups, which I can do a few of without assistance, I'm going to keep a toe on something. Something really interesting that I noticed is that now that I'm becoming familiar with the workouts, they are going by faster, which is pretty awesome.

For breakfast I made a strawberry-banana protein shake with vanilla protein powder. 'Twas delicious! For lunch, since it is traditionally Fat Ass Friday for my coworkers *coughCarrincough* and I, we decided to take a healthier route, and in my case try something new, so we went to the Veggie Grill down the street. I had the carne asada sandwich, which came with a small bowl of coleslaw. Of course, this is Veggie Grill, so the "carne asada" was not actually meat. But let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS! I felt a little guilty for having bread, but at least it was whole wheat, and I didn't have carbs with dinner. For dinner, my roommate Veronica and I met up with our coworker and his friends at the newly-opened Hot 'n' Juicy Crawfish. O. M. G. I'm just gonna say it. I ate a pound of shrimp. No regrets. YOLO. It was absolutely delicious! But do not fret! I asked the waiter which would be the least fatty sauce option. He suggested the Louisiana Style since it was the only one that barely used butter. And of course the shrimp was all protein. I also tried mussels and crawfish for the first time! My assessment of crawfish: too much effort for not enough meat. I will say, this was quite the (messy) experience!

                             Before:

                               During:

                                After:

Oh! I almost forgot! I also made a trip to Target and bought a kitchen scale! 

Day 4

Day 4: You wanna go? Namaste.

Ok, I'll admit it. I couldn't get up this morning. It's really great that I felt guilty about it, though! But then it sucked knowing that this meant I would have todo Yoga X, the longest work out, at the end of the day. It kind of turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, since it ended up being a long day and relaxing with yoga was actually really nice. Knowing that I wasn't going to eat dinner til after yoga, meaning very late, I spaced out my meals and snacks accordingly. The key is to keep feeding your body so it doesn't go into starvation mode and start storing fat. This is why I have snacks between meals; a protein bar between breakfast and lunch, and turkey jerky, fruit, or nuts between lunch and dinner. Today, I also had a protein shake before I left work to get me through yoga and hold me over to dinner. 

Yoga. Is. Intense. Holy crap! How are you supposed to relax when trying to twist your body is so stressful! Especially when you're not flexible! No, I was actually pretty happy with how much less of a struggle yoga was today in comparison to last week. I was also very excited that I was actually able to hold myself up in the crane position for about 10 seconds at a time, which I couldn't do at all last week. I'm looking forward to being able to hold myself up for the entire amount of time soon! Then I can go around and show off... and you know, stand in that position in... the mall or something... I don't know. Maybe I'll keep it to the confines of my room. 

Anyway, food. For breakfast I made a soy sausage wrap in a whole wheat tortilla with a little bit of low fat cheese. For lunch I made a delicious steak salad with non-fat italian dressing. For dinner, I made chicken with green beans and quinoa, topped with a home-made honey ginger sauce that I made. It was a little honey heavy, but still delicious!

Day 3

Day 3: Back Where I Started

So, I've made it back to Day 3 - Shoulders and Arms. It's really a great workout! I'm currently starting with 10 lb weights for my biceps and 7.5 lb weights for my triceps and shoulders, though, toward the end I moved up to 10lbs on everything. My shoulders are the toughest. Luckily I had worked out quite a bit last year, and specifically put some work into my shoulders; otherwise, this would be A LOT more difficult. But I've got some decent definition there and the muscles are building, so we shall see what happens over time. I think next week I will try to move up to 12 lbs on my biceps, though.

Oh, I forgot to mention the P90X app. It's pretty awesome. I use it to track everything I do during a work out: how many reps and how much weight I'm lifting. What's cool about it is that it keeps all of that info and makes little nifty graphs that show your progress. Every once in a while I will be entering my weight and measurements, and it will show my overall progress in a graph. Once there is something worth sharing, I'll be sure to grab a screenshot and post it.

On to food. Today for breakfast I made a 6 egg spinach scramble. I joined it with half a cantaloupe and a glass of water. For lunch, I had to run to the bank and decided to stop at home to check on Max, since he had to be coned up all day. The bank took longer than expected, so I had to grab some food from My Fit Foods. Since their meal plan has carbs at lunch and no carbs at dinner, and my plan is the other way around, I bought a steak dinner, which came with green beans and mashed cauliflower. It was quite delicious and filling (pictured left). I also bought turkey jerky at the gym, since it was only 50 cents more than Trader Joe's jerky and was healthier. It also has some useful advice on the package that could probably get you fired from work if you take it. 

  

On my way home, I finally did a really grocery shopping trip, which really entailed buying a crap load (that's a technical term) of protein: salmon, steak, ground beef, chicken, turkey, protein bars. It was kind of ridiculous, but now I'm set for about two weeks! 

Day 2

Ok, so first of all, yes, of course I am still working out and on track! It turns out that blogging takes time, and if you don't put aside that time or take the time, posts don't write themselves... I'm still working on training Siri to write them for me though...

I'm going back and writing a post for each day, though, so here is Day 2.

Day 2: CeyJay's birthday!

Tuesday was my first go at Plyometrics. If you're not sure what that is, well, Google is a beautiful thing. I was a bit nervous going into it because I heard how intense it was, but I must say: I BROUGHT IT! It was a really great cardio workout and I felt awesome afterward. I also felt very skinny haha It involved a lot of fast, continuous footwork mixed with a lot of lunges and squats. Suffice to say it kicked my ass in the best way possible!

That morning I made a delicious strawberry-banana protein shake. For lunch I bought some plain, cooked chicken and a salad from Trader Joe's. Lots of protein and no carbs! I used very very little dressing on the salad. For dinner, we went to an 80's themed bar/restaurant for CeyJay's birthday, so I ordered a burger (gasp!) and had any and all sauces on the side. I also ordered a side salad instead of fries and only ate about half of the bun. Protein protein protein! And though water was all I had to drink the whole night, I still managed to make a fool of myself on stage for karaoke ;) We really busted out Madonna's "Like A Prayer" for the birthday boy...

I'm actually pretty sure I under ate today... but we shall see. In the meantime, here's a picture of the birthday boy with his cool new Adventure Time hat!

Day 1

Alright. I quit.

j/k lol lmfao rofl loser loner whatever goodbye

Anyway, this morning I actually ended up starting even earlier than normal. Day 1 was chest and back, followed by the Ab Ripper. 'Twas quite the ass kicking of a workout, but I made it through and now I have a beautiful chest. Ok, maybe not quite yet... It was basically a lot of switching between different kinds of push ups and different kinds of pull ups. I can't quite do full pull ups yet, so I use an assist (I put the tip of my toe on a raised platform in front of me) to take some of my weight off. It's great because it allows me to really work on form and achieve a meaningful workout, rather than strain myself trying to do two pull ups. I could DEFINITELY feel me back working! As for the push ups, I was pretty impressed with myself, to be honest, but it's definitely going to be a while before I can do proper diamond push ups. But that'll come as my arms get stronger. I've started using the P90X iPhone app to track my exercises. It allows me to record the number of reps I do for each exercise and then over time creates graphs to show my progress.

As for meals today, it wasn't the best day for being prepared, but I still made do. If anything, I actually may have under eaten a bit.

Breakfast was a spinach and green onion scramble with 6 egg whites, a glass of soy milk with a about 2 tbsp of protein powder, and some sliced strawberries. Shortly after getting to work, I also had an orange. I then had a protein bar at around 11.

For lunch I got a Caesar salad and this packet of plain, ready cooked, heat and go chicken from Trader Joe's. I only used half of the dressing and sliced some of the chicken and added it to the salad. I then ate more of the chicken. Gotta get that protein!

I snacked on cashews and had another orange around 4:30pm.

Unfortunately, I had to pick up Max from the vet (he had some work done today) and was running late to meet some friends at my house for our usual Monday night viewing of Once Upon A Time, so I didn't have time to really make an elaborate dinner. I quickly made a salad of spring greens, tomato, cucumber, and onion, added the rest of the chicken from lunch, and dressed with a lite balsamic dressing. Later I snacked on some turkey jerky and had some more soy milk with protein powder. Again, not too proud of this, but still making sure I get the protein I need and not eating any crap!

Oh, and this morning I weighed in at 167 lbs. Let's see where I am in two weeks!

Tomorrow I take on Plyometrics. Pray for me! Haha

The Journey Begins

Alright, tomorrow begins a new journey into shaping a whole new body for myself. I've decided to change everything about the way I eat and workout by taking on P90X. I'll admit, I actually started the workouts and diet 5 days ago, but in the interest of satisfying my OCD and starting with Day 1 on a Monday, I'm officially starting tomorrow. So far, the workouts have been intense and the nutrition plan has been, well, expensive, but I'm really pumped to do this and to start seeing some results!

I've decided to blog about this for three reasons: 1) To keep a journal and have something to look back on later; 2) to hopefully have a success story to inspire others; and 3) to keep myself motivated, because let's be honest, it will be embarrassing if I stop blogging suddenly and don't follow brought with this.

Here is the daily routine I have developed and it has been working thus far:

5:00am Wake Up, start drinking water, walk Max (my dog)
5:30am Meet at the gym and start work out
7:00am Get home, start making breakfast, cook lunch while eating breakfast
9:00am Leave for work
10:30am Eat allotted snack (usually a protein bar)
12:30pm Eat lunch
4:00pm Eat allotted snack (usually nuts or turkey jerky)
7:30pm Get home, make dinner
9:30pm Go to bed
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Of course, this is just a typical day. Things will come up and I will adjust accordingly.

So, to get us started, here are my BEFORE pictures. I'm supposed to take pics every 30 days, but we'll see; I haven't decided if I'm going to do weekly pictures as well. Depends if there is enough to take pictures of... Might make for a fun montage later... I'll post measurements tomorrow.