And so it begins

Well, it actually began two days ago. My aim was to start on the 1st, but I had all my stuff and wanted to coordinate my one day off a week to be Saturdays so I started Sunday. Much to my surprise and utter joy, Lynn has decided to do it with me. I am so thankful because even after the first two days I realized that the motivation would have waned quickly because of how hard the program is.

Day 1:

This consisted of taking pictures (which I refuse to look at since I know it will make me sad), Doing body measurement (which made me feel totally exposed and like a high school girl), grocery shopping and finally the work out and diet plan.

WORKOUT: Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X

Chest & Back:

I had my first formal date with my pull up bar. She is lovely, but makes me work very hard for her. Currently, I cannot do a full pull up. I have been told this can be normal for women as we have less natural upper body strength. Apparently, I also have no coordination muscle memory to do such a move, so my muscles also need to learn the movement. The rest of the DVDs was push ups, push ups and more push ups.

Ab Ripper X:

Oh my. This workout is crazy. Its 20 minutes that we do 3 days a week on the days we do weight lifting DVDs (like today with Back & Shoulders). There will definitely be room to grow. It is made to be extreme advanced with no apologies about it. You do 339 sit ups in 20 minutes. so there is that....

I liked the DVDs because they have a lot of room to grow. I felt inadequate, but also feel confident that if I stick with it I will go far. The theme of the workout plan is to commit and work hard by giving it your best. I have also been on a lot of online communities that let you know its okay to feel frustrated especially through the first month.

The diet:

So this is where the commitment come in. It is an extremely hard diet, but extremely healthy and I feel good doing it (except for the sugar withdrawal that I will get to). Its high protein and, for now, lower carb intake. The idea is to clean all the bad processed sugars and crappy processed carbs out and replace them with the much healthier options of whole wheat, fruit in moderation, etc. You also intake carbs at the right time like after working out. I am doubly excited that Lynn is doing this part with me. It would have been hard eating like this alone.

Day 2:

Plyometrics

Here we go with the endurance and cardio. It is an hour long I had those thoughts of, "I can't physically lift my leg one more time," But then I did. I really surprised myself. My muscles didn't want to move, but somehow I willed them to do so. It felt really great, this whole mind of matter thing. While there was times I could not keep up I am glad that I have a lot of room to grow.

Day 3:

Sugar???

The sugar withdrawal kicked in last night and today has been really bad. I already ate my fruit for the day and my fruit bar for snack. I also stupidly ate a "protein" bar that is made by Snickers (insert duh moment here) and was shocked after I read the label and saw the 15 GRAMS of processed sugar. While grocery shopping Sunday we picked up a whole bunch of bars to try and one of them was snickers. I looked and it had the recommended amount of carbs and protein so I added it to our pile. Now, I am not someone to be fooled in the marketing of large companies to think they make "healthy" options, but I guess I let my guard down. So, in the middle of my sugar craving today I grabbed for a protein bar and decided on the peanut butter flavor, courtesy of Snickers. Immediately I bit into it and it was the delicious. I thought, "yep, this is way to good to be true..." and it was. Though it had the recommended amount of carbs, unlike the other bars that have maybe 3 grams of sugar adding to their carbs, this has 15! Now I am all hopped up on processed sugar which feels great right now, but just like smoking I will suffer for it later. I had no idea kicking sugar would be so hard. I quit smoking almost 3 years ago and I don't think it was as hard as the sugar thing.

Well, its time for some Arms & Shoulders and, of course, Ab Ripper X.

Until next time...