Nine days later and I am 2 pounds lighter!
While this may not seem like a major success, it is exactly what I was hoping for. My goal is to gradually burn 2-3 pounds a week until I reach my goal of 25 pounds (which will leave me weighing 140). At this rate, it will take me almost exactly three months which means I should be in shape and at my ideal weight by the middle of April--just in time for warm weather!
So, yesterday was my last day at the Y--at least for now--since my one-week trial membership ended. So, as a replacement, today I started P90X. I told my sister Jenni to pick me out the easiest cardio DVD in the set (and easy by P90X terms is still really hard for most of us). She selected DVD #11, "Cardio X". The guy comes on the screen and tells me we are going to do Yoga as a warmup for the first 10 minutes of the 40 minute workout. I started thinking this wasn't going to be as hard as I was expecting. Let me just say, Yoga is a LOT harder than it looks in the movies. You have to have serious endurance and strength to last very long doing it. Definitely the hardest warmup I've ever done.
The rest of the video got my heart rate up nice and high and actually made me sweat. You can ask anybody who knows me--I never sweat. I had to quit with about 7 minutes left in the video. I felt like a wimp, but I'm just not in shape enough to do the full thing yet. Maybe by the end of this week or next week I can finish it. I am not really doing the P90X plan which focuses on using all the 12 DVDs in the set in various orders to utilize muscle confusion to really make you ripped. I just want to use the Cardio DVD so I can keep working on building my endurance and getting in shape until I hopefully get a job and can join the YMCA and get back to my regular workout.
Things have been going well eating-wise. After a good amount of research, I purchased two cookbooks to help me eat better. I decided that my goal isn't really to eliminate all things delicious from my diet, become a vegetarian and only drink water. I still want to eat the things I love, just in moderation and hopefully in a more healthy way. I am really trying to cut out fast food and soda as much as possible and not eat things very often that are actually bad for me.
Cookbook number one is The Most Decadent Diet Ever! by Devin Alexander. This book provides over 125 recipes that are just lower fat versions of all sorts of foods we all love to eat including chocolate cake, burgers, pizza, pasta and more. Yesterday morning I prepared the Western Skinny Scramble which is on p. 40, minus the bacon. The recipe is basically just a concoction of eggs, peppers, onions and bacon all scrambled together. It was delicious. To be honest, it was the first time I have ever eaten just egg whites, but I really liked it and that reduces most of the fat content of eggs.
Cookbook number two is Cook This, Not That by David Zinzenko and Matt Goulding. It is a little bit more lenient about the fat content and calories in food and a book that I will probably be using more once I reach my desired weight and am focused on maintaining rather than losing. It is a similar idea as the first cookbook but has dishes like macaroni and cheese that wouldn't really be considered low-fat, but the recipe provided by the book is just a lot more healthy and low fat than the macaroni and cheese you would purchase at The Cheesecake Factory.
The idea behind both of these books is that you can still eat good food and food that you love and lose weight if you eat them in moderation, specifically if you are using these recipes to replace much more fattening versions of the foods you have been eating.
Since I love to cook, the worst thing to me about a "diet" or weight loss plan is losing the joy of cooking. I feel like I have to limit what I eat so much I can't even be creative with it or make it taste good, but this just isn't true. As long as I use self-control, eat in moderation and exercise, I can still cook and enjoy many of the foods I love. I am so excited about that.
