Holy crap, Holidays!

I've been super busy in the past few weeks not only with the normal holiday stuff but throw in a birthday and getting a new job and I haven't had time to think let alone blog. The whole diet and exercise thing has kind of taken the back burner as well sad to say, but while I haven't lost any more weight since my last weigh-in I have kept off what's already gone. Unfortunately I doubt you guys will be hearing from me for the next few weeks since I'm making most of the presents on my list this year and every moment of free time goes to that. I'll try to pop in before the trip to Florida for x-mas and write something that's actually worth reading. Love you guys!

Om Nom Day

Just a quick note to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I've been in the kitchen baking for the past three hours making delicious things that definitely don't mesh with my diet. Oh well, one day of tasty noms should only equal out to an extra week of working out right? Heh... 

A lot to do about gum.

     Wow, I just realized it had been almost two weeks since my last post! While I'm not exactly sure how many people actually read this I figured I'd apologize none the less and give you all consolation gum. Okay so it's really only my opinion of the new Extra Dessert Delights gum flavors but that's similar right?
      I ran across Extra's fancy new gum flavors the end of last week and nearly exploded I was so excited. I mean, avoiding sweets is the hardest part of a diet for me and now there's sugarfree gum I can chew instead?! Be still my heart. I bought a pack of all three flavors I could find but was only really impressed with one sadly. So without further adieu...

      Key Lime Pie - While this flavor smells spot on the taste is just short of authentic and occasionally I got almost a pine taste. I think it was the gram cracker crust flavor that was off or perhaps the "key lime" lime was to blame. In fact now that I think about it the lime tasted more like a regular lime than a key lime and yes, there is a difference.  Over all I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't amazing either.

     Strawberry Shortcake - This was the one I was dying to try. Turns out I should have just died, it would have tasted better. Much to my disappointment this tasted like the incredibly sugary strawberry syrup that you find in gas station strawberry shortcake. That weird semi-gelatinous goo that tastes way too strongly of fake strawberry. And to add insult to injury after about 45 seconds it gets increasingly difficult to chew, eventually ending in the consistency of rubber. I give it a 1 out of 5. It vaguely tastes like half of the named flavor so I can't count it as a complete failure but it's close. Perhaps you think I'm just a shortcake snob and will go out and buy this flavor anyways. Have fun with that but don't say I didn't warn you.

     Mint Chocolate Chip -  May a choir of angels sing thee to thy chewing. This flavor is my favorite, hands down it's spot on in every way. There is a tiny picture of mint chocolate chip ice cream on the box and by god did they get it right, even down to the color of the gum itself. Oh and did I mention that the flavor lasted the hour and a half I chewed? Why, I actually had to throw the gum out to eat before it lost all it's glorious flavor! Extra, my hats off to you on this one. Mint Chocolate Deliciousness get a big shiny 5 out of 5. I won't go on about the flavor because it tastes exactly like you'd think it should. How exciting!

     On and semi related subject I'm down a little over 10 pounds thus far so I'm 1/3 of the way to my target!

Getting back on the horse

     Admittedly I haven't been doing anything that I'm supposed to this past week exercise wise though I think I have a pretty valid excuse, what with my pulled thigh muscle. Anyways I'm finally healed up and ready to get back to it, especially since my roommate bought a scale and I'm apparently the biggest I ever remember being. That was a depressing moment last night. :( Since being faced with the actual number I've become quite a bit more motivated, and as such have decided to couple the P90X workouts with belly dancing and the diet my mum went on a year or so ago that worked wonders. Now for those of you who think I'm being overly ambitious... first, you're probably right second however I'm not actually going to be following the P90X workout schedule since realizing it was so far out of my current fitness level. I'm going to pick and choose and couple the exercises in such a manner that I'll still be able to workout the next day. After all it seems a bit counterproductive to workout really hard one day and then be laid up in bed unable to do any sort of exercise for the next week.

 Here goes something!


 

The morning after...

     I'm thinking I may have been a bit ambitious with my choice of exercise programs. I was sore after the workout sure but it wasn't anything unmanageable and after about an hour I was actually feeling pretty good. I tip my hat to you endorphins.  Spent the rest of the day and evening with that "this hurts but in a good way" feeling and went to bed early to help with the recovery. Ate proteins, drank lots of water, and all that jazz you're supposed to do after a workout and figured I was fine. Then I woke up this morning and couldn't move.
     It isn't actually my abs that are screaming in protest but the muscles that connect the front of my thighs to my torso and more specifically the entire front of my right thigh. I've been trying to stretch everything out and that was working well enough until I went downstairs and sat on the couch reading an advice column with Chris. I had trouble getting off the couch, and I'm not just being a wimp about this, my right leg literally would stop responding after a certain point. I can't raise my right knee more than mid thigh level at best and at worst I found out I couldn't raise it enough to step up onto the stair.
     So a bit of advice. If you think you've stretched enough before doing any of the P90X videos, do another five minutes. I know everyone has differing levels of fitness but this was like trying to go from 0 to 60 without shifting out of first for me. I red lined and I may have injured something so I'm going to try and do the yoga video today instead of the plyometrics for fear of actually ripping myself to shreds. Plus as excruciating as the yoga is going to be I think, if I go easy on the leg, it will actually help.


To Winter- Honey, if I'm brave (or stupid) enough to do it I have every confidence you can too. Everyone I've talked to that has actually tried this program has said that yes, it's hard but it does deliver results. Also, since you have the shall we say "boxed" copy of this would you be opposed to letting me take a look at some of the written material at some point in the near future?

Ab Ripper

So I did the ab ripper segment with my roommates a few minutes ago and was completely shown up by Chris, however I did my best and currently feel like Im dying. My legs are shaking and my abs have gone on strike. Hopefully this will get easier the more I do it.

The adventure begins!

     When I realized I'd gained almost 30 pounds in a little over seven months I was horrified, where had it all come from?! Then I started remembering all the delicious (and terrible for us) food my boyfriend Fenix and I had been eating since I moved up and the frequency of which we were doing so. As it turns out his family are eaters where as mine are talkers so I wasn't used to consuming mass quantities of food every time people got together. Also, he has about 20 times the family members I do so if you calculate that by the average caloric intake of any given gathering and divide by the days in the week you get, well I have no idea what you actually get but it results in 30 extra pounds of ah... fluff on me. After spending a couple weeks moping around feeling sorry for myself I decided it was time to do something about this.
     Did I choose some sort of polite exercise routine that would lovingly coax those inches away? No of course not, that would be the sissy (and possibly smart) way of doing things. I instead went for the meanest, nastiest, kick you in the teeth sort of regime I could find. P90X. I've heard all sort of things about this system and all of them are terrifying for a chronic lazypants like myself. I'll be doing my first P90X workout in a few minutes but figured I should type all of this while I could still move. I'll let everyone know how it went after, assuming I'm not dead.

Wish me luck!