Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Week 4 of p90x = Recovery Week

And I need recovery bad.  I'm exhausted!!  Between meal planning, finding time to work out, actually doing the work out, and just every day life, this program is very time consuming.  Don't take that as any reason whatsoever to not do it if you're thinking about it.  It's not an excuse, it's just a fact.  Living healthy takes some work.  But like all hard work, there are rewards:

1.  Guess who can do real push-ups?  I can!  I'm starting out all push-up exercises on my toes and not on my knees and this is very exciting for me. I can't finish entire sets that way but I'm getting closer.

2.  I've lost body fat.  Real, actual body fat.  I'll give the exact reading on Friday with the other stats but from what's been popping up on my monitor, I'm pretty excited. 

3.  I can feel my muscles in every single thing I do.  Whether it's feeling the firmness in my legs while I'm just walking down the hall or how my back muscles tighten when I do something as simple as stretch, they're there and they are getting strong.  It's kind of an awesome feeling.  Do I look like I have ripping muscles?  Nope.  I still have an awesome layer of fat to work off but I definitely feel firmer all around.

4.  I'm progressing.  It always shocks me when I realize this too.  My reps are getting higher and the amount I lift keeps going up.  I mean, it makes perfect sense that this would happen but it's nice to see it on my workout sheets.  It's real, actual proof that I'm improving.



Those are just a few things that I've noticed.  Yes, it's hard.  Yes, there are days I hate it but I can't deny the fact that it's pretty darn effective.  Phase 2 for me begins on Monday.  I'm switching over to the classic schedule just to see.  It's supposed to be the more intensive of the 2 (lean vs. classic) and I'm intrigued to see how much so.


Also, I haven't been following the nutrition plan exactly.  During the first phase I was supposed to be following the Fat Shredder eating plan - 50% Protein / 30% Carbs / 20% Fat.  I have yet to hit that.  I pretty much have been maintaining 40p/20c/30f.  At the calorie level I'm using, 50% protein comes out to be about 187 grams of protein.  That's a whole, whole, whole bunch.  To put it in perspective - 3 ounces of a roasted chicken breast has about 25ish grams of protein.  Therefore, I would need to eat about 1.5 pounds of chicken a day to eat my protein requirement.  Yikes.  I, of course, would not try to get all of my protein that way but that's a lot of bird.  Anyway, while it seems difficult it's obviously not impossible to accomplish, so I have challenged myself to start Phase 2 trying to hold fast to the nutrition plan.  I mean, on one hand I know it's the key to getting optimal results, its just the other hand is whining about how hard it's going to be ;)

Whatever, I'm doing it.

In other p90x news I still hate yoga.

Today's menu:

B:  Coffee + Creamer + slice ww toast + 1 T PB + 1 c. cottage cheese
S:  1/2 ww english muffin + 1.5 ounces ham + 1/2 laughing cow wedge
L:  4 ounces Roasted Turkey + Laughing Cow + Stone Ground Crackers + Romaine + Carrots + Edamame + Ginger dressing

Ok, this is where I'm at in my eating day - - and for reference this is what I have so far:

22% fat
42.7% carbs
35.2% protein (I'm at 96.9g so far)

Eh, not too bad.

S:  Maybe whey protein shake w/ some almond milk
D:  Maybe some breakfast for dinner

Tonight's exercise is either Stretching or Kenpo - I haven't decided.  Did I mention I'm running on 3 hours of sleep?






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