Thursday, April 28, 2011

Sun: it does a body good

I woke up feeling SO GOOD today! I was chipper and energized. I think my neck is almost back to normal (I say this at the risk of jinxing myself like last time I said I thought it was on the mend) and maybe that is part of the reason that I am in such a great mood. Also, it is supposed to be 65 degrees today (whoo hoo) and we get to go see my beautiful & super awesome friend, Carmen (aka RunnerGirl), and her kids after school. Totally excited.

Did my shoulders this morning. I'm sticking to the circuits, as I said before. But I think they are even more intense than just plain, slow going heavy lifting. I get my heart pumping and I'm out of breath in some instances, so it's great! I was thinking, "today is shoulders, no big deal" but it KICKED MY BUTT! I think even more than butt day (which was yesterday). Yes, I have devoted an entire day to my butt. Believe me when I tell you, it needs it!!

So anyway, for circuits, I do 3 exercises per circuit. I'll do the first circuit (10 reps of each exercise) then I repeat the circuit 2 more times before moving on to the next circuit. There are 4 total. It takes me about an hour. But that's probably because I have to rest a little longer than normal between some of them because it's hard damn work!! And I'm not used to the fast paced lifting. It shouldn't take too long before I'm up to speed though. And I think the change should give me some positive results (fingers crossed). I was going to run last night. I haven't run at a steady pace forEVER. But I figured I better make sure I can still run for an hour straight if I plan on running the 10k with my sister. I'm quite positive that I can, better to be on the safe side though. BUT, my hubs wouldn't let me. He thought that all the jarring from running would not do my poor neck any favors. So I was easily talked out of it ;)

I keep thinking about that horoscope that I read about a month ago (which was such a fluke because I don't ever read them) that said all the little things I'm doing now will really produce results later on this year. Of course I don't hold my breath when it comes to horoscopes but this one really hit me. And although I would really like to see the changes I'm expecting earlier than later, to see them at all (even if it's after my goal date) will be rewarding. I will never stop. Not even once I'm there.

There are a lot of little things that I have done to improve my diet since the beginning of 2011. Since my revelation that I needed to focus more on nutrition, I have started to incorporate a lot more healthful things to my routine. Including taking the right supplements, eating more vegetables (I go through a big bag of spinach by myself in 2 days), drinking more water, and various other things that I wasn't doing consistently before. Also, I have drastically reduced my sugar intake. Before, I wasn't really considering how much "cheating" I was actually doing. No wonder I was never getting anywhere! Now, I don't eat any sugar (I'm talking, not even ketchup or steak sauce or anything that sugar lurks in...not just sweets) Mon-Fri and then on the weekend, I might have a treat. If I feel like it. I had gone about 3 months without ANY treats. And I broke out of my plateau and all my jeans got looser. It was great!

I was exercising for literally years before I discovered that the missing link was my diet. Obviously, if exercise alone did the trick, I would have had a bangin' body years ago! Trust me. I believe it when they say that your body is 80% what you eat, 10% how you exercise and 10% hereditary. I really really do.
Now I seem to have hit yet another plateau since I'm not seeing any movement with my measurements (that reminds me, I haven't measured yet this week!). So, I'm going to have to get in a two week fat blasting diet just to get over the hump again. I'm not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. I'm shooting for the last 2 weeks in May, but we'll see how I feel. Maybe sooner? But no later than end of May. I'll be calorie cycling and reducing carbs to 10%. Not gonna be fun :( I love my oats and Ezekiel bread.

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