What's wrong with this?

Time flies by so fast, it's unbelievable! One of the reasons why I haven't updated anything is because I haven't had the energy to do it as I got the cold for a few days. 


Day 61. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper X. 
Day 62. Kenpo X. 
Day 63. Rest day.


Day 64. Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, and Ab Ripper X.
Day 65. Plyometrics.
Day 66. Rest day.
Day 67. Rest day.
Day 68. Yoga.
Day 69. Rest day.
Day 70. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper X.


As you can see that this week has been a bit all over the place. I was supposed to do  Back & Biceps on Wednesday but I skipped it all together, just this one time. Like I mentioned above, I've been sick this week, which resulted in not having energy to workout.

I don't know where my motivation has gone. This really sucks. I need to get it back, especially when I only have 3 weeks left of P90X! I'm almost there, I can't believe it! I need to stick through this and then I can have one week break! My weight loss has kind of plateaued. I do know where the problem is - not working regularly and not looking after what I put in my mouth as much as I should.

I just have to keep my head in the game and remember my goals and achieve them! This always happens though, after some time it becomes a routine like and I lose my interest. Also, I start knowing the program so well that I know who's going to say and what they're going to say next. I guess that's one of my biggest problems whenever I'm trying to lose weight. I need to overcome this and just stick with it. I need to lose the excess weight that I have. I need to reach my goals for so many reasons!

End of Phase II with some confessions

Day 51. Core Synergistics. I don't particularly care for this workout. It's in the program way too little to improve the quality of the moves. With that said, it's nice to have some new moves though, especially when I'm the type of person to get bored rather quickly. I just wish that the moves weren't that hard though, haha. Like the title says, it's core work, engaging your abs, thighs, chest muscles..everything in the center of the body. Synergistics meaning that working on different muscles at the same time. (I'm explaining this because I didn't understand what core synergistics meant at first, not because I doubt your English.)


Day 52. Kenpo X. What can I say? A good workout. Not gonna repeat what I've said about kenpo before, just a good workout.


Day 53. X Stretch. It was supposed to be a stretching day, instead I needed a day off. I don't know why exactly, I just needed not to do anything for that day.


Day 54. Core Synergistics. Again, core synergistics, hmm. Not that good of a workout. I wasn't satisfied with the performance that I did that day. That's the perfectionist side in me, I guess.


Day 55. Rest day. Switched up between the stretch or rest day with yoga day, just wasn't feeling it today to workout, again.


Day 56. Yoga X. Did the best I could today, better than I have before with yoga! I'm actually proud of myself, for once! I pushed through with all of the moves (except one), did some of the moves that I haven't wanted to do before. I feel good that I did it properly this time.

There's an issue that I need to bring up on the blog as I promised myself I would be honest in the blog, like I'm honest on my diary. This is not an easy issue, not to bring up or talk about. I have relapsed with eating chocolate. Yes, I know very very bad of me. Every time I think, this is the last time I'll have chocolate, the next day I go an buy more of it. I eat it sneakily. The thing is that I can get away with it, without the other person seeing me eat it or having a clue that I even have chocolate in the house. I feel like I have a serious addiction, not to drugs or alcohol but to chocolate. I don't know what it is.

This has resulted in not losing as much weight as I could, but I haven't gained any weight which makes me really surprised! I'm fearing for the holidays, as it's always been a big chocolate festive for me. I'd love to have that one bar of the best chocolate ever, the Finnish Fazer's blue, as we call it in Finnish. This makes me think should I have it at all this year? I don't want to gain back that weight that I've already lost and I do want to be 60 kg (132 lbs) by the end of May. I will have to think about it.

There, that was one of the hardest things to say here, but I needed to in order to reach my goals. No more chocolate as of today, I promise you and myself, it's just going to ruin my weight loss and I don't want that. I need to bring it even harder next week as it is the start of third phase and I need to, absolutely have to  reach my goals!! This was just a setback, now I'm coming back stronger than ever and don't want anything to interfere with my weight loss!

Second recovery week, and hitting a plateau.

Day 47. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper X. This was a good workout routine! I did the pull-ups on pull-up bar with a chair and some assistance. It was great! I exceeded my expectations of how many pull-ups I can do! Now I can get the back that I want! My back muscles hurt the next day.

Day 48. Kenpo. You know, I always enjoy this workout, it goes by so fast. I probably say this every time and I'll stop saying it from now on. Haha. I've got nothing else to say, except it was a good workout.

Day 49. Rest day. Didn't want to do anything today, feeling really lazy! I enjoy my day offs.



Recovery week
Day 50. Yoga. It's already the end of the second phase, I can't believe it! I've been working on my body for almost two months now, that's crazy! My motivation hasn't been as high as it once was, probably because I feel it's more of a routine than anything else. I'm doing though and I have willpower to finish this, I have my goals in mind and so close of reaching the first one.
Yoga today was alright, not particularly that great nor really bad, just okay. I got through it.


There's something that I've wanted to say about P90X for awhile, just haven't gotten the chance (or remembered it). You shouldn't hit a plateau with P90X. However, if you do, either keep bringing it harder or eat a bit more. Don't go snacking but just have one more meal a day or something, like crisp bread or a fruit. That should help with the weight loss.

I mentioned to bring it harder. This can be pretty hard at times as you get comfortable with what you're doing. I know I forgot this fact for awhile, which is why I wanted to start doing pull-ups for instance. Use more weights or do more reps, at least each phase. Don't get stuck with what you're doing. I think that might also result in hitting a plateau. I had to remind myself to do this and that's why I'll start using heavier weights, do more reps and get better at pull-ups.

That's all folks!

Yoga.

Day 46. Yoga. What is up with me? I can't stand my own negativity this week at all, it drives me crazy! Yoga was good, even though I didn't want to do it but my man pushed me with it so I got through it and did the best I could do! It's so nice when someone pushes you to do something, especially when I need that extra little push. I feel like I'm not getting any better at yoga (probably also because of my mindset) which frusterates me so much. I just need to work on this even harder than any other P90X workout program. This week is almost done already, time goes by so fast! Nothing else to report.

Loosing motivation a little

For some reason it's hard to keep up with my blog these days, not sure what it is. 


Day 38. Back & Biceps, and Ab Ripper X.
Day 39. Yoga.
Day 40. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper X.
Day 41. Kenpo X.
Day 42. Rest.


Day 43. Rest.
Day 44. Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, and Ab Ripper X. Plyometrics.
Day 45. Back & Biceps, and Ab Ripper X. 


I cannot remember exactly what happened over the past week. I know though, that I'm losing my motivation a bit. I don't know. I guess I'm starting to think that this is old now and want to move on to something else, or it has become more of a routine than anything else. I haven't stopped yet, and I'm not going to, just a statement that I'm getting a bit bored with it. A few words of motivation would be nice to hear ;).

I was so tired on Monday that I couldn't bring myself to workout, so I had to do doubles yesterday. I don't recommend this to anyone! 2,5 hours of working out, believe me, is very exhausting. Another reason why that's not a good idea, is because you shouldn't do resistance training two days in a row. My muscles hurt a lot today.

Today was the first time that I used the pull-up bar!! I was amazed! It wasn't very pretty of what I could do but I did it anyways, even though it was with a help  of a chair. I felt great today. I also did 40 Mason twist's on Ab Ripper for the first time. I brought it today and I'm very satisfied now.

Next week will be a recovery week already, so the 8th week. Nonetheless, I'm on schedule, when it comes to losing weight. In fact, I'm a bit ahead according to my weight loss schedule. I'm now 88,0 kg (194 lbs). 3 kg (6,6 lbs) more and I've reached my first goal and lost 10 kg (22 lbs).

That's all I have to report folks. Enjoy your day!

Keep up the good work, Sara!

I've been writing my school reports, which is why I haven't found the energy to write here as I spend 6 hours writing on the computer already. Soon it'll be all done, thankfully!


Day 31. Back & Biceps, and Ab Ripper X. A new workout routine again, yay. No push ups in this one, there are a few pull-ups however. Since the pull-up bar that I have is way too high for me, I still use weights for it. For now, I'm using 3,5 kg (7,7 lbs) weights as I find it really hard to do more. Hopefully, soon I can use 4,5 kg (9,9 lbs).
Today's routine was a good one even though it was really hard. Some of the moves were really hard and could barely do them but I pushed through and I did the best that I could, as usual. Ab ripper was also a good one.

Day 32. Yoga X. Meh, today's workout wasn't that great. I feel like I'm not getting any better at this and it bothers me. Which might affect on the way I do the moves on yoga and what I think of it. But, oh well. It is what it is and I need to get through it.

As I might have told you before, I have started dieting and exercising so many times before, and at one point, I failed on my mission to lose all the excess weight that I have. Well, today, I was thinking about one of my earlier times when I tried to lose weight. It was in beginning of June '08 when I weighed 91,3 kg (201,3 lbs), I was doing Zumba (which is a great and fun workout, and I will get back to that at one point, if you don't know it yet, well google it! I know you'll love it :) !) and in the next 13 weeks, I got down to 85,0 kg (187,4 lbs). I lost 6,3 kg (13,9 lbs), which I thought was a lot for 13 weeks. I guess it kind of is. I was supposed to be off chocolate for the following year but then came Christmas and my parents, and the best Finnish chocolate ever..there goes my year off down the toilet. Also, you only get 4 DVDs with Zumba, one of which is for basic, so you can imagine that I got bored after awhile, I knew what Beto was going to say and when, which got really annoying in the end.

So, I stopped. Started eating junk food, having snacks every weekend, and quite a bit of chocolate. Actually, every day of chocolate (whether it was a Twix bar or more). So by the following April (in 2010), I was freaking out that I gained all of that weight back and even more. I was 98,9 kg (218 lbs). In 7 1/2 months, I gained nearly 14 kg (30 lbs)! That's a lot for such a short amount of time. When I realized this, I started working out again for the next four weeks, lost almost 5 kg (11 lbs), from 98,9 (218) to 94,2 kg (207,7 lbs). And stopped. My chocolate and candy addiction took over again. (There were also some other personal reasons why I couldn't/wouldn't continue working out.)

So, here I am today, six months later, been working out hard for a month and still going strong. Within a month, I've already lost 5,4 kg (almost 12 lbs)! I'm stunned, especially when I compare it to the 13 weeks in 2009! I've almost achieved to lose as much a weight in a month as I did in 13 weeks! This resulted me to think about my goals, overall and short-term. According to my BMI (which I don't really believe in that much), my ideal weight is between 47 kg and 64 kg (104 lbs and 141). I also read somewhere that according to my height, my ideal weight is 54 kg (119 lbs). (The latter weight has been haunting in my head...)

1st goal is 85 kg (187 lbs) [this is where I left off in '09]
2nd goal is 76 kg (167,5 lbs) [currently, according to my BMI, I'm in the category of Obese I. 76/167,5 is the limit for Overweight]
3rd goal is 66 kg (145,5 lbs) [10 kg/22 lbs is a lot to lose at this point]
4th goal is 60 kg (132 lbs) 


60 kg/132 lbs is my ideal weight, what I want to reach. Since I read that my ideal weight is 54 kg/119 lbs, at first it felt like it's so little but I guess it makes sense now. At this point, I don't expect to go under 60 kg/132 lbs as losing all that weight already feels so far away and a lot to do already! By the end of May 31st 2011, I will be 60 kg! 7 1/2 months to go to lose all of the weight I want to lose! This time, it really feels like it's going to happen, I'm soooo dedicated to this, it's unbelievable! Maybe eventually I'll get under 60 kg/132 lbs but that's not my main concern right now. 


I joined this Dutch website (I don't understand squat haha!), where I can put my plan and keep updating it. Where I got my BMI from and for instance, it gives me how much I'm supposed to weigh and when, so i.e. 12th October (last Sunday), I was supposed to weigh 90,42 kg (199,34 lbs) and well, I actually weighed 89,80 kg (197,9 lbs). I'm happy to see that I'm under what I'm supposed to be. I'll probably freak out if I'm higher (or I just need to work harder)!


In general, I've noticed that I've started to feel better about myself and just so much healthier. I just need to keep up with the good work, so I can finally reach my ideal goal!

Phase II is here!

Day 25. X Stretch. I didn't even sweat with this program. It was nice to do though, as my muscles were sore. I think I should try and do this once a week. I know it'd be good for me!

Day 26. Core Synergistics. After Plyometrics, I find this hardest! It's all about engaging your core, which is really hard as my core isn't that strong yet. I will get better though. I did the best I could and that's all I can do!

Day 27. Yoga X. Why have I started dreading Yoga lately? Oh, I know why, because of the first 45 minutes, it's all about strength and (what was it called?) Astanga salutations, Upward & Downward dog etc. I strongly dislike the Yoga Belly 7 that's on the program as well, I'd rather do Ab Ripper haha. Pulled through though (barely, had to be pushed).

Day 28. Rest day. Oh, how nice, a rest day! Even though this week hasn't been as hard as the first weeks, it's still nice to have a rest day. This day was totally dedicated to school work!



Day 29. Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, and Ab Ripper X. A new week, a new phase, new programs. Yippee! I'm excited. Until I do the program Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, oh boy was this hard! It's good, it's refreshing to do new things again, I was getting a bit bored with the earlier program! This program had so much harder push-ups, and I wouldn't be able to do them unless I did it the ladies way, on my knees. I get much deeper and more reps that way, which I was really surprised. I only did 10 reps per push-up (or something like that) but that's a lot for me, considering I haven't been able to do any push-ups before I started P90X! I brought it though and now my shoulders hurt. They'll probably be even more sore tomorrow. I feel like Ab Ripper is starting to get a bit easier on me these days. Overall, I'm satisfied of today's workout.

Tomorrow will be my 30th Day on P90X. I'm supposed to weigh and measure myself again. I'm a bit nervous about that. I have worked hard, and I hope that it shows. Since, I have a busy schedule this week at school (have to finish 4 reports by next Monday, I've finished 1 already), I need to spend a lot of time doing them. What I'm trying to say, is that I don't think there'll be a lot of updates this week. Maybe tomorrow, I hope. I hope, I have enough time to measure/weigh myself before school.

Last week of Phase I (already)!

Oh boy, time really has flown by and it's been almost two weeks already or something! Bad, bad me! Haha.


Day 14. Rest day.


Day 15. Chest & Back, and Ab Ripper.
Day 16. Plyometrics.
Day 17. Shoulders & Arms, and Ab Ripper.
Day 18. Yoga.
Day 19. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper.
Day 20. Kenpo.
Day 21. Rest day.


Day 22. Yoga.
Day 23. Core Synergistics.


I've been bringing it every day as hard as I could. I haven't always felt like working out but I try to keep myself motivated and not losing my focus. Last weekend, I had a bit of a fallout, bought a bag of wine-gums (140g). Also the chocoholic in me couldn't handle it anymore so I wanted to buy something with chocolate and I bought some muesli-chocolate bars. They're quite tasty actually. No more though, I really can't lose my focus of what I can and cannot have. Next time I'll have chocolate, it'll be after 90 days and December! I can do this! I really want to lose the weight - I've been working too hard to stop now, spent too much money on this and changed my life for this - I'm not quitting now!!

Other than the fallout, I've been eating healthy, well as  healthy as I can. Today I had very low-fat lasagna, made of vegetarian mince mixed with mushrooms, used skimmed milk and low fat-low carb cheese. Didn't use extra oil or anything either. It was actually quite tasty too!

This week is the last week of Phase I. I can't believe I've been at it for almost a month, it's crazy how fast time goes. I won't weigh myself nor measure myself until Day 30. Not because of my fallout but because that's what they recommend. I don't want to lose my focus if I haven't lost any cm/inches or kg/lbs. So, this week is actually Recovery week which basically means that you don't lift any weights.

I actually like the resistance training more than cardio. I don't know why. Anyways, today's Core Synergistics was really, really hard. Different kinds of push-ups and other hard moves. I guess my core isn't that good yet to be able to do this properly. I haven't done this workout before, so it was new, which probably also affected my workout and the reason why I felt it was hard.

No pain, no gain!

Oh boy, why am I so bad at blogging? This sucks!


Day 9. Plyometrics. This is by far the hardest workout in P90X! I don't know if I hate it or like it. I guess I just have to get better at it, get my condition better.

Day 10. Shoulders & Arms, and Ab Ripper. I can say that I'm getting better at push-ups! Yay. My arms are getting stronger, I love that. This morning, I woke up at 5am to rush to school, just to find out that the classes are cancelled! Why did I wake up at 5am then? At least I did my exercises, although somewhat poorly. I did the best I could that morning.

I have to make a correction at this point, I have been using 2,5 kg (about 5,5 lbs) weights last week. On Monday and a few of the exercises today, I used 4,5 kg (almost 10 lbs). No wonder it was so heavy to do the exercises! When I realized this, I switched to 3,5 kg (7,7 lbs). This will be the weight for now. Not sure, when I will switch it again.


Day 11. Yoga. I normally don't mind Yoga as I want to get better at it and eventually master it. That day though, I wasn't really feeling it. I wanted to quit within 30 mins. That would have been very weak of me, so I just pushed through. It got better when it started to be more about balance (you know the famous tree -pose). I was so over the "cardio" part!

Day 12. Legs & Back, and Ab Ripper. I can honestly say that today I really had an awesome workout (for once)! I gave my all! It helped that my hubby pushed me with Ab Ripper, that way I couldn't cheat, like I sometimes do. I did 10-15 reps on each of the moves and I really could feel my abs. I was shivering for like an hour afterwards. That is how I know that I worked hard.

I have been eating healthy, ate what we in Finland call "mince soup" (don't know how else to call it) with lots of veggies, lots of salad, the protein shake etc. I love cheese but I have given that up for now, I want to eat as much protein as I can, so I have chicken file on my crispbread. I have to say that I am proud of myself for doing so good. I don't really crave that much of the junk food/chocolate/sweets/etc. I have my goal in mind and I want to achieve it. If I keep it up like this, I might lose the weight faster than I think. I'm not getting my hopes up, I still have my 9,5 months to lose all the excess weight.

Alku aina hankalaa!

Day 3. Shoulders & Arms, and Ab Ripper. This was more for shaping your muscles. Pussy that I was, I only had (I think) 0,5 kg weights. Yes, I know that’s nothing. I could have changed the weights but I thought I’d start with this. Next time, I’ll add more weight to them. Ab Ripper was mad hard, over 300 ab exercises. So, needless to say that there were a lot of different exercises, each of them were about 25 exercises, only a few were 30 and 50. I tried to do 16 exercises, some fell through though. I really need to work on abs as I like the exercises the least.

Dutch Eierkoeken (eggcookies,
not sure what else to call them)

After my workout, I had a full day of school. I needed to hurry a bit, as I woke up a bit too late. Fortunately though, I did have enough time to get ready for school. We had a little break at school, so I go on one of the computers, and this guy who sits right next to me first ate (I think it was) a croissant (which didn’t bother me at all, but then he pulls out a bag of candy. I kind of started to crave for them. I keep eyeing on the bag, then thinking, oh I still have my two eierkoeken (=egg cookies, there’s only 92 kcal in one cookie) in my bag, so I eat one eierkoek, which was so much better! 

When I came back from school, I talked to my best friend on skype (who is also going to start with P90X!) , watched a movie and went to bed before 11 pm. I was really tired. (Which is why I didn’t write my blog yesterday..)

Nutrition:
Breakfast Cornflakes (43% fibres)
Lunch Two sandwiches with cheese
Early afternoon snack Eierkoek (egg cookie)
On the way home One of those high energy sports bars
Dinner Chicken shoarma with potatoes and green beans
Around 9pm A cup of green tea, with some sweetener, and my daily banana/banana fruit bowl (unfortunately didn’t have any apples left, so had to have just banana)

Needless to say, that I drink a lot of water during the day, not too much though. When I’m working out, I have 500 ml of a sports drink, to keep me going. Which I’ve found really tasty and helpful when I’m working out, it gives me extra energy.

Day 4. Yoga. Yoga has definitely been something that I really have wanted to start doing. It’s great that this is included in the program! The workout is about 90 min, the first 45 minutes is the more “cardio” part of the work out, it also concentrates more on the muscles. After that, is more about balance things for about 25 minutes, 10 minutes of ab exercises, and the last ten minutes is for stretching and meditating, just calming down. That’s what yoga is all about.

My condition is really, really bad, and at times the exercises  that I had to do were a bit too hard. I didn’t have the strength to do some of them, or I did them incorrectly. I didn’t feel as good about this workout, because I couldn’t do them, so I feel a bit like a failure. I did try all of the positions, and did do as much as I could. I guess I feel like I only gave 90% of me today. Not a nice feeling.

I guess part of it is because every single part of my body hurts. It’s nice to have that feeling, don’t get me wrong, that shows me that I have done something and done it right. It’s just that at times it gets a bit tiring because every time I move, it hurts. It hurts to get up, my back hurts, it hurts to move my legs; I probably have the biggest muscle pain on my thighs at the moment (which is nice as I really want to tighten my thighs!). I’m still not going to give up, even though my body is getting tired. The beginning is the hardest, like my title states in Finnish.

Nutrition (so far, I will update it tomorrow):
Breakfast A scrambled egg sandwich with only the egg white and banana
Lunch A bowl of 43% fiber cornflakes

That’s it for today.