Recovery

 This is what has been staring me in the face every day at work.  How evil is that?  I've been showing great self-control, though.  Those little balls are Sixlets and Sixlets are delicious!  Yes, I've indulged in some Sixlets but I'm limiting myself to two of the little tubes per day I work.  There's only 60 calories and 5g of carbs total there so I don't feel bad about it.  Plus, I get to eat candy.  Yum!

Today is the first day since Friday that I've been able to exercise.  Somebody remind me that walking stairs 45 times is a bad idea the next time I want to do it!  Saturday I was sore, but Sunday I was so sore I had to wrap my calves in ACE bandages so that I could push through work.  Sunday night I had to get out of bed to get a heating pad because my legs hurt so much.  Ugh!  I'm still sore, but now only marginally.

Today it was about 70 degrees and gorgeous outside so I took a walk.  I walked the half mile to a lake near our house.  I was standing on the sidewalk to take this picture.  Back to the left around the curve of the lake the sidewalk winds and then stops.  I stopped at the end and did a 25-minute arm workout on Workout Trainer, then turned around and came home.  It was very nice!

This was my lunch on Saturday.  One cup of broccoli, one cup of cauliflower, one-half cup of baby carrots, and one ounce each of cheddar cheese, pepperjack cheese, and mixed nuts.  I found the saltiness of the mixed nuts was a really great compliment to the veggies.  I've already packed my lunch for tomorrow the same way, except instead of nuts - which I'm almost out of - I've mixed some dip for the veggies.

And this was my lunch yesterday.  Are you jealous?  I'm jealous of myself for getting to eat it yesterday!  I spread two low-carb tortillas with a tablespoon each of cream cheese, then I layered on turkey lunchmeat and added one ounce of cheddar cheese.  It got grilled in a pan with some butter until the tortillas were nice and crispy.  Along with it I had a glass of juice that had carrots, parsley, and cabbage in it.  It was so very stinkin' delicious, the entire thing. 

My skin is starting to show signs of dehydration - mainly getting flaky patches that look like I've buffed with sandpaper.  I've been drinking between 7 and 11 glasses of water per day, but it's time to step it up.  It's so hard for me to drink a lot of water.  To me, 7-11 glasses is a lot of water.  I'm not sure if the dehydration is because I'm working out and therefore need extra hydration, or maybe it's from the cleanse I'm doing and that's causing me not to absorb the water I'm drinking before it's getting flushed out of my system.  In two days the cleanse will be over so I'll up my water intake and keep it up as I move into the next phase of my challenge.

Check It!

This morning I got up and decided to step on the scale.  I know, it's been 4 days since the challenge started but most of the ladies on DietBet weighed in this morning so I got the itch to do the same.  When I got on the scale I was so surprised that I stepped off and weighed myself again.  I'm down 5.2 pounds!  I'm sure a great deal of that is from the cleanse.  Yay!  It's so exciting. 

I was so excited and inspired by the loss that I decided that I was going, for the first time, to trek the stairs in my house as my workout.  I went up and down these stairs 45 times.  Let me tell you, stair climbing is insanely intense cardio!  I huffed and puffed like you've never seen.  I'm already dreading the pain that will be my thighs tomorrow, but I feel so stinkin' accomplished.

I showered and got ready to go pick up my nephew.  Once I was out of the shower I got a text from my friend who is leading the Advocare challenge that she wanted to go to the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve.  It is a gorgeous day out today and walking around the Preserve sounded like a whole lot of fun, so I agreed.  We ended up walking for an hour.  It was nice to be able to be outdoors and be active, but it was extra nice to do so while catching up with a friend. 

Between the stairs and the Preserve I walked over 10,000 steps today!  My daily goal is 7,000 so that tells you how well I did.  Suffice it to say that I am kicking butt in the challenges!

And because I can't post a blog without food in it - my breakfast, eggs and bacon.  Yum!

Challenge Day Two!

Today was a day full of eating things that just really did not taste good.  One of the first was this fiber drink.  It's part of the 10-day cleanse part of the Advocare challenge.  It's not yummy.  It's slimy, and chunky, and really just kind of gross.  It took quite a lot of mental pep-talking for me to chug it down.  It's the most unpleasant part of the cleanse, but one of the most important.  On days 1-3 and 7-10 you drink one in the morning, so only two more days until I get a break!  It'll be worth it to get all the toxins and bad stuff washed out of my system, totally worth it.

The second "bad" thing was this juice.  It was....  There aren't words for how bad it was.  It was just terrible.  It had this severe afterburn after every drink.  It was as if after I swallowed the juice was afraid I'd forget it existed so it scalded the back of my throat as a not-so-gentle reminder.  The sweet carrots just could not make up for the grossness of the garlic and parsley.  Oh, it was bad.  Really really bad.

This salad looks good, doesn't it?  Wrong!  Okay, it might look good, but it just tasted terrible.  Let me start with what's in it.  Lying on a beautiful bed of butter lettuce (that I'm upset I ruined by making this salad) was chia seeds, cheddar cheese, a horribly failed attempt at grilled tofu, and honey dijon dressing.  My attempt with the tofu was to make it like Pei Wei does.  Pei Wei's tofu is this gorgeous, thinly sliced, grilled tofu that has so much texture and bite to it that it's like eating meat.  My tofu was mushy, tasteless, and had parts that were lightly grilled and parts that were grilled to death.  It also just fell apart and stuck to the pan.  Ugh.  I need to figure out how Pei Wei does their thing because this is just not working for me!  The cheese got stuck in clumps, the chia seeds tasted weird, and the dijon dressing is calorie-less and carb-less so it just tasted funky to begin with.

One thing that I ate today that was not disgusting was my lunch.  A cup of baby carrots, 1/4 cup of walnuts, and 1oz of cheddar cheese.  Yum!  I love making meals that have a little bit of a lot of things.  Having a variety of foods, even if it's only a small bit of each, makes me feel like I'm eating a lot more than I am and it fills me up faster.  I made a few of these snack packs to get me through the week and weekend.

The good thing about today is now I know what doesn't work for me.  I can use that now to figure out what does work.

Day One

Welcome to day one!  I started my day at 7am, waking up early enough to get some exercise in.  I did a 30 minute full-body strength training workout on my Workout Trainer app, and did 30 minutes of a Leslie Sansone walking DVD.

To hydrate and energize me during my workout I had 16 ounces of coconut water with one scoop of mango-pineapple Rehydrate and a packet of watermelon Spark.  Yum!

The workout kicked my butt, but I am so proud of myself for getting up early and doing it!  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to sleep in so it takes real dedication to give up some sleep to work out.  Once I was doing the workout I didn't mind it....except the part where I got hot and sweaty.  Anyone who knows me also knows how much I loathe being hot and sweating.  Haha.  I'm going to have to get over that!

For lunch I made some juice.  This one had one cucumber, three stalks of celery, two cups of bean sprouts, and one bulb of fennel.  I wasn't ecstatic about it, but it wasn't terrible.  Really just tasted like funny-tasting water so it could've been a lot worse!

I failed to take a snack with me to work so I was so hungry after work that I made some bad decisions.  Chicken nuggets and some chocolate-covered pretzels aren't the healthiest choice.  That said, I've learned my lesson.  I'll be taking snacks to work so that my hunger doesn't overcome my good judgement.  I already bagged up enough for the next week!

A little while ago I took my new favorite supplement.  If I do strength training during the day I take this at night before bed and I'm not sore the next day.  It's kind of amazing.  It also helps repair your muscle and helps them grow and become stronger after you've worked them.  I like it!

And on a closing note...  A friend of mine texted this to me last week.  It seemed appropriate!