Doubt and Worry

I haven't posted in a couple of days. It's hard to stay focussed on it on days I don't work out. I rearranged my Fitness Together schedule so now I'll do spinning on Mondays and Saturdays and Fitness Together on Wednesdays and Fridays. I tried calling my doctor's office today to see if I can add in running but kept getting the answering machine with no recording option.

I'm finding myself worrying about whether I will stay on my fitness and nutrition regimen without the level of overview I was getting from Fitness Together. I wasn't aware of how much it influenced me knowing someone was looking at everything I ate and that I had a commitment to someone else to workout 4 times a week. I've haven't been over my eating points ever since I started, but I did have a beer tonight. It tasted really good. I have to keep in mind that if I think my diet is heading south, I can always ask the people at Fitness Together if I can send it in every week. It's not as if asking for support is some shameful thing to be avoided at all costs.

I had a great workout today. I told Savanah that I wanted to be sore tomorrow, so she gave me a workout where everything I did, I did for 20 seconds, rested for 10, and repeated 6 times. I started with pushups--the last 2 sets were murder. Then I did squats with 12 pound weights at shoulder level, going into a press when I stood up. Then I did ab work, starting by sitting on the floor in a vee with my arms and legs in the air, holding a ball and lowering it to the floor on the right side and then the left side, followed by crunches with my legs in the air, reaching my hand to the outside of the opposite leg.

Then onto dips on the bench, lowering myself to work the triceps. Finally, rows using the rings. My body was at about a 45 degree angle from the floor, holding myself with straight arms with the rings, and then pulling myself up.

All in all, just the kind of workout I asked for. When it was happening, I was unhappy that I had requested such a hard workout, but it felt great when it was done. I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow. Fortunately, it was mostly an upper body workout, so spinning shouldn't be painful.

Gee But It's Great to be Back Home

It's good to be home in snowy, snowy Massachusetts. I had a really great trip in terms of staying with my fitness goals. I had a long talk with Mark at Fitness Together on Friday before I left about eating strategies on the road. Flying is usually a problem for me, because there really aren't many healthy choices at airports. I brought an egg and cheese sandwich, apples, almonds, and protein bars for the flight to LA, so didn't need to get anything at Bradley or at my layover in Las Vegas.

I also texted a friend of mine that was also going to be assisting at the workshop over the weekend. I know she usually goes to Trader Joe's for food for the weekend and I was going to be arriving too late to go there, so I asked if she could pick up some yogurt, turkey, and cheese, which were great for breakfast (with almonds and fruit) and lunch and I had protein bars for snacks. I ate out for dinner, focussing on protein and veggies, avoiding sauces and breads. I was tired of turkey and cheese by dinner time on the flight back, but found sushi at the Baltimore airport--perfect. Sushi is high in protein and low in calories, is filling, and tasty.

I also managed to get one workout in over the weekend. The result was I came back weighing exactly what I weighed when I left. Success!

Speaking of protein bars, finding a good one is hard. Most of them are candy bars in disguise. If you read the ingredients, sugar in some form is usually the first ingredient, and if it's not, it's probably because they use a bunch of different forms of sugar, which if combined, would make sugar the first ingredient. What I want is a bar that's high in protein and low in sugar. The one I've settled on is the Think Thin Peanut Butter Protein bar, which has 240 calories, 20 grams of protien, 8 grams of fat, and no sugar, although now that I look it up, it says something about sugar alcohols. I have to find out what that means. When I first started eating them, they seemed pretty tasteless, but now they taste fabulous and are really filling.

Just a little over a week until my assessment!