It may not seem like much but it's a pretty big accomplishment in my books. I can't remember the last time I've had 8 days eating healthy and no slip ups. I'm actually feeling pretty proud of myself.
There was moments this past year I didn't know if I even had it in me to stay the straight and narrow with my diet anymore. I'd question how I was able to do it in my younger years and yet as I've gotten older I wasn't able.
It was like being on a self sabotage reel that would go over and over. Eat well for one or two days and then go off the rails for 5 days plus.
After 8 days it's amazing how you start feeling the feelings of old. It's like it time travels you back in time. To the time you were able to eat healthy, lose weight and feel great.
The hypnosis tapes every morning has also been very helpful. It's a great way to start the day with some positive thoughts entering your brain and conditioning your thoughts right away. Now that I've been doing it for 8 days there is no way I want to stop.
My mission is to get to the end of the month, or at least until March 27th. March 27th is the Three Dog Night concert in PA. I have a feeling I might go off the diet that night, perhaps a few beers. To win my bet I need to be flawless until then and if I'm not where I need to be then I'll have to be a good boy right up until the end of the month.
With all that said I'm still a little disappointed with the weight loss to date. Tomorrow is my official weekly weigh in and maybe I was bloated today or something. I'm currently only down .6 lbs and was so discouraged I actually started up a live chat with the weight watchers team.
I wanted to know if I was doing something wrong.
I've followed the diet strictly and not even using any of the given "cheat points" or my additional exercise points. The person told me not to be discouraged that I should expect between .5 - 2 lbs of loss per week. In a strange way it helped getting that info. And normally I don't like chat, but with WW it's great they are very responsive.
I also did some google searching on the best exercises to do to start the fat burning process. It wasn't a surprise when it said that short, intense intervals was the best and that long cardio exercises did virtually nothing.
One great article talked about how running extreme distances has only been proven to lose about 5 lbs per year. I have to agree. I learned long ago that you cannot exercise yourself to lose weight only. You need to diet, no ifs ands or buts.
So I found a weight training program I printed out. It's one of those Monday, Wednesday and Friday deals. The good thing about it is its' only about 4 exercises per day. It should be an in and out session.
Next research I found explained how the Insanity workout was pretty good as it combined both cardio and interval training. I've done it before for 12 days and it's a bear of a workout. It's about 45 minutes and you can't wait for it to end, it's painful.
Being motivated I made my way downstairs and did the insanity workout this morning. Just as I thought it was brutally hard. Much harder than when I did it before. I was in better shape before. In fact as I think about it it was about a year ago to the day that I started that workout.
Today's was much harder to complete this workout. Near the end I was in extreme pain and could hardly move through the exercises. The best part of finishing this workout was finishing and the gratification that I did it. It was a major win.
Last year I remember my calf's hurting. It took a week or so for them to stop hurting. Today they started to hurt again. It's a not great feeling. I worry that it will hurt my running. This year I decided I'm not going to do Insanity everyday. I'm going to mix it up with the weight training and the running, biking and swimming cardio.
Another thing I've been thinking about doing is hot sauna's or hot tub at LA Fitness. I'm thinking maybe that will get the metabolism higher and force the body to work harder.
One of the things I think is helpful on the hypnosis tapes is that they suggest you visualize your ideal self and feel what it likes. It's very powerful.
Today was stocking up on food for the week. Lots of fruit and low point food. My preference is fruit over vegetables. Alice is the opposite. It takes a while for the body to adjust to fruit, at first it tastes sour. Then it adjusts and it tastes so sweet. It's amazing how your taste buds change.
I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow and hoping I'll be down at least a pound I'd be over the moon if I was down 2 lbs. Heck at minimum I deserve being down 2 lbs with all the discipline and commitment I've shown over these past 8 days.
Insanity Workout - 45 minutes.
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uh oh, your first injury. ignore it and push through. no pain, no gain....8 days
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