Confessions of an intake-aholic

First off, I am a blog slacker. I meant to totally stay on top of this and keep everyone super informed etc etc. FAIL. Truth be told, I have thought of many things to share with you, but I have been full of guilt so I haven’t sat down to write. Well, that ends today. This is going to be a long post – a time of confession and catching up. So settle in, this may take awhile.

So why am I full of guilt? I do all the workouts and even though I can’t do as much as Tony, I hold my own pretty well. I love to work my arms and shoulders, I love Kenpo X, and I am starting to like Yoga even though 90 minutes of Yoga is just too bloody long. I even did a handful of clap pushups today, which was sweet! We have completed Phase I which included 3 weeks of heavy lifting and 1 week of recovery. The term “recovery” is used loosely here, but it was mostly cardio, stretching, and core work so at least we didn’t have to do any friggin pullups.

Again, why the guilt? I am full of guilt because I basically cheat on my diet every day of the week. I eat all the right stuff, but then I eat more on top of it. I eat at the wrong times of the day, and I eat right before bed. Sometimes I eat in the middle of the night if something wakes me up, which happens alot, believe it or not. I think about food all the time. I crave Mexican, Italian, junk food, and a whole slew of carbohydrates. I dream about chips, all kinds of chips, and chips with stuff on them, like salsa, or like nachos. Mmmmm, nachos. Oh sorry, I just had a little daydream about stuffing my face with nachos.

To date I have avoided chips, which is a miracle in itself. I’ve had a few crackers (while wine tasting, I blame the cloudy judgment). There were also isolated instances involving enchiladas for dinner, peanut butter for lunch, and pie for dessert (Brooke!!). But really weird items have turned out to be the biggest issues. Candy is a major culprit. I had 2 Robin Eggs at Lisa’s on Saturday, but amazingly I haven’t consumed one Cadbury creme egg yet, knock on wood. Mike and I finally gave away the Sees Candy Suckers which were tempting us every day and night. Those things are the devil! 80 calories a pop! Then I tried to buy Sugar Free candy, and I have some of that laying around, but yesterday I think I ate 15 atomic fireballs. What!? Those are... um... NOT sugar free.

And hot chocolate has become another issue. I get tired of coffee but I need something warm to drink, so I go for tea and that lasts for one cup. E for effort. Then, I go for the hot cocoa. Happens almost daily. I tried to head that one off at the pass by purchasing fat free hot cocoa, which I brought to work and that’s working so far. I have a couple cups a day and count that as part of my carb, OK whatever. Then oops, last night I found myself eating hot chocolate powder, the real stuff, “rich chocolate” flavor, right out of the tub with a spoon while I watched a special about Led Zeppelin on TV. At that point I had one of those “WTH self?” moments, walked briskly to the kitchen, and threw away the entire tub including whatever was left in it, which was probably like 15 servings of hot cocoa. Oh well! The Dutchie in me tells me I’m being wasteful, but Tony Horton says “Toss the Junk!!!”

What can I say? I’m a grazer! I actually believe deep down in my soul that I will never be able to stop grazing. So instead of grazing on bad stuff, I figured I would buy something that’s OK to graze on. So I went to the taqueria and bought a quart of fresh pico last week. Nothing but tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. The theory goes: this way when I get the munchies, I have a few spoonfuls of pico and bingo, grazing need satisfied. That actually worked like a charm, even though it doesn’t do charming things for my breath! Poor Sug!

Mike is such a solutions kind of guy. I kept yelling at him because I would use a spoon to take a few scoops of cottage cheese or pico (grazing), and the next time I would go to use the spoon (more grazing), it would be in the dishwasher. Now don’t get me wrong, I will NEVER complain about a husband who does dishes! But it’s just inefficient to wash 6 spoons when I could just be using the same one over and over again. (Yes, it is feasible that I could have 6 grazing spells in one night; I am aware it is a sad state of affairs). Anyway it’s not the use-of-the-spoon that bugs Mike; rather, it’s the spoon-on-the-counter that drives him crazy. So Mr. Solutions Person created a little paper pouch for my “munching spoon” and stuck it to the refrigerator. What a punk! But I have to admit it’s really funny, and actually so far has worked great. Except now my pico is almost gone and I must go to the taqueria to get more. The obvious problem with this is the very real chance that I will order a jumbo wet burrito with green sauce while I’m there. Life is so full of challenges.

Basically the bottom line is this: I suck at dieting. Always have, probably always will. I consume large amounts. Like my father before me, “my favorite dish is food”. Every other time in my life when I have tried to diet, I have lasted two weeks, and then I have gorged myself back up to my pre-diet weight. The only time I had success with weight loss (mind you, “success” here means a couple pounds tops) is because of exercise. I even said to Chad in the beginning, “Screw the diet! If I work out 6 days a week that will be good enough!” But my partner was committed, and over time I became a believer that results in this program are maximized by dieting along the way. Ok, fine!

Now that I have been a complete failure at dieting for two weeks in a row, I’m starting to get angry with myself, which means I will be probably be great at dieting for a week or two. (Self-loathing has turned out to be a pretty decent motivator for me, who knew?) Also Chad is so awesome at this diet that I need to get my $hit together if I expect my results to be anything like his. There’s the competitor in me! I knew she was in there somewhere! (underneath all the FAT).

OK, I'm newly resolved, right? I’m going to OWN the diet in Phase 2, right? Yes! I’m ready! Bring it! Then this morning Patsy walks in and hands me two boxes of Girl Scout cookies. WTH! Nevermind the fact that I ordered them out of my own volition and totally brought this upon myself! Nevermind that! Back ye devil!! Frozen thin mints are like little slices of heaven. Ok, honesty time! If I put these thin mints in the freezer, will I be able to avoid them until the end of P90X? Check yes or no! I think I might be better off taking a little stroll over to Graceada Park where I can hand these out to someone who will appreciate them. Versus eating them all myself and sending myself into a fit of self-rage. Stupid diet.

BUT I still say “hooray” for us! Because we have completed 4 weeks (Phase I). We had to adjust the schedule in Week 3 which was a b-yatch. We skipped our coveted day of rest after Week 2 and went right into Week 3 in order to accommodate a commitment in the middle of the week. I was so unbelievably tired that whole week. There was even one day when I bailed on Chad in the morning because I was nauseous, so we ended up having to do the workouts by ourselves at separate times. That wasn’t good because it left room for cheating on reps since there’s no one there watching you (Chad!!). At any rate it was no fun working out alone. Incidentally, that killer Week 3 is also when I started to epic fail on my diet. I would love to blame the schedule change, except that we were back on pace in Week 4, and I was still cheating. Dangit.

And yes, the thought occurred to me “why am I nauseous in the morning, what if I’m .....!?!” Horror of horrors! If you have talked to me lately, you know that I can come up with about 3 pros to having children, and about 4500 cons. It would be just my luck if during the middle of this undertaking, I ended up pregnant and ruined it all! My goal, my body, my lifestyle, everything! Thankfully that question has been answered, and I am not preggers. Whew, that was a close one!

Injury update: plantar foot issue is still there, but not getting worse. I welcome any suggestions about how to deal with it! The problem with the back is almost gone. I’ve had a couple tight quads and hammies along the way, but have been able to treat them with Vitamin I and the miracle gel from the health foods store. That stuff actually has "poison ivy" listed as an ingredient, which is crazy! But it works.

Vice update: I gave up beer for lent, so I have only had 1 beer since we started P90X. I’ve had some wine along the way, and will probably continue to have a glass socially here and there. Red is better than White I guess. Lent ends at Easter (April 4), but I think I’m going to try to stay off beer all the way until the end of the program (early May). That way it will be all the more glorious when we go to P. Wexford’s for our victory feast and enjoy 10 pitchers of yummy Obsidian. OK, that might be a little aggressive... Maybe a pitcher each, haha.

The early mornings are definitely bogus. I stay up too late and never get enough sleep. But P90X is cool. I like the mix of cardio and weight training. Once in a while Tony stops sounding like a tool and starts sounding like a trainer; in those brief instances, I actually kinda like him. And Chad and I are seeing results, albeit minimal at this point. We both lost a few pounds, a couple inches, and we can see a little increased definition. So I’m diggin’ it! If only I could get this ridiculous diet under control. Lucky for me last night one of the GEMS told me I remind her of “Melissa” on The Biggest Loser. I said “Oh, is that one of the trainers?” You can guess the answer. Come to find out, she’s actually a contestant, who got kicked off because she gained a pound. Sorry Melissa, that’s not going to be my fate - I’m getting P90X’d!!

'Til next time! - Laura