beachbody

Four days in, going ok so far. I am getting my workouts in no problem – everything is hurting. It’s scary how much you revert in just a few short months. 🙁 But here’s hoping I’ll move forward better and stronger than before.

Food-wise, having a few hiccups but nothing outrageously bad. I *HAD* to check if the cake in the fridge was still good (it was ;)) – that’s hubby’s fault. I told him to just throw it out because I was not expecting it to be good. Gah.

I also love carbs, which is a problem. My two yellow containers are precious but they end up getting used for silly things! I thought I was doing good by eating edamame noodles today. In my head, it was “GREEN CONTAINER DOWN – SCORE!” but then I realized edamame is a yellow. 🙁 I would have just eaten real pasta then! 😛

Today is Lower Fix day – I don’t know if my legs can take it but I’ll definitely take Lower Fix over Cardo and Dirty 30 – soooooo not looking forward to those. Maybe I’ll swap for PiYo 😉

So it’s been a busy few days, and I haven’t had time to update regularly.

Where did we leave off?

Day 3 – Pilates Extreme. I love this workout. This was the day I realized I really should  wear sneakers while working out because WOW, that band hurts against bare feet! If I remember correctly, all you need for this workout is the band itself. And it will make you work!  There were a few exercises I didn’t quite nail, but next time…..

Day 4 – Lower Body Extreme. UGH, and here I thought we had already done Plyo! More squats and lunges. You need your weights and the band again. 

Day 5 – Cardio Extreme. I got some good readings on my heart rate monitor with this one! Definitely a killer workout. I’m not sure if my resolve has weakened or the workouts just get harder as the week goes on, but I pressed pause a LOT during this workout.

Day 6 – Dirty 30 Extreme. 3 sets, 2 workouts each lasting a minute. Hard but good! More squats. SO MANY SQUATS in this program. My legs and butt love and hate me simultaneously. 

Day 7 – Back to Yoga Extreme… I kind of cheated here because I actually missed Day 6, so I did Dirty 30 today. Oops. 🙂  But Hubby and I are celebrating two years since he proposed sooooo I’m going to say it’s ok!

Meal Plan is going well.  I re-planned for this week and did my grocery shopping. Fortunately, it was less this time. LOL.  Everything’s all cut up and ready to go, though I do have some minimal prep during the week. I’ve learned there are certain things that really should not be prepped so far in advance. So let’s see how this week goes!!!  I was sort of lenient Saturday night because we went out to eat.  I saved up a couple carbs, veggies, proteins that day so I splurged on some bread, calamari, steak (yum!), brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes.  It would have been better if I’d passed on the potatoes, but OMG, totally worth it.

I haven’t measured myself again – my weight fluctuates up and down so I don’t know if that’s because of muscle or what – but I do see some change in my physique so I am going to say, we’re moving in the right direction. 🙂

Day 2 – Upper Body Extreme. Not nearly as killer as Plyo, but not easy either. Plus, I am super sore from Monday. To get the most out of Upper Body Extreme, you need the following:

• Resistance Band – preferably one with handles
• A set of light weights
• A set of heavy weights

I only had a my resistance band and one set of decent weights so I just used those. I am going to get some heavier weights because I don’t think I got as much out of the work out as I could have, but even with the lighter weights, I was EXHAUSTED.

Upper Body Extreme was more intense in that it was a full minute of exercise and only a short 10-15 second rest in between. Keep your water close! 🙂

Meal Plan is still on track!  Today was the only day I didn’t plan my day out well. Just breakfast, fruit, lunch, and then dinner. So a bit hungry right now, but dinner is some yummy chicken fried rice, so I am excited to eat.  It’s good though – it shows me how I should plan going forward, and actually, I’ve found that I don’t prefer heavy dinners. I much prefer my shake for breakfast, a few small snacks/meals, and then dinner.  That way, I never really feel hungry-hungry. 

So I realized yesterday that what I am calling Day 2 is really Day 1, so I’m really going to be doing a 22 Day Fix. 🙂 It’s a weird quirk I have to start things on a Sunday – if I try to start on a Monday, it just never works. I need to begin when I define my week to start. 

That said – Monday was Plyo Extreme. HOLY CRAP. My performance was abysmal! The workout is structured as a 30 second on/30 second off timeline.  And I thought – oh, 30 seconds? I can TOTALLY do that. Pfft, this is going to be a breeze. And if I wasn’t so horribly out of shape, maybe I could! But I’ve always had bad lower body strength, so the combination of weights and jumping didn’t work out so well. Actually, the weights aren’t bad, but I hate jumping and lower body workouts. SO MANY SQUATS. I would say that I made it through the 30 seconds on about half the workouts and 15 seconds through on the other half. So the goal will be by the end of this to get all the way through, because even with my half-assed job, I am still so sore. So I’ll consider it a success.

Meal Plan so far is going well!  The hardest part for me is 4 proteins… it’s more than I am used to! I had 2 Shakeologies yesterday, some fish, and some yummy greek yogurt. 🙂  Doing well with water intake too – but I add a bit of lime and mint to it so that it’s not so tasteless.

My current favorite Shakeology recipe is to brew a cup of hazelnut coffee in my Keurig and then blend it with Shakeology. That way I still get my fix but without the cream and sugar or the bitterness!