End of April update
Wow!! I can’t believe I went for three weeks with no sugar/sweetners what so ever. I really believe this is a turning point for me in accomplishing my goals. The first three days were horrible. Not only did I not eat any sugar, but I also gave up my three-cups-per-day coffee habit. Once I got passed the sleepiness and head aches, I felt wonderful–like this was how I was supposed to eat all along.
The first week was really tough and I probably ate way more than I should have in order to keep from feeling like I might cave into temptation and have something sweet. Second week still seemed pretty long, but third week was rather easy–almost enjoyable. This has taught me the vicious cylce of eating sugar leads to craving more sugar. It has also taught me to scrutinize the labels more carefully as sugar and yeast appeared in so many things that I never would have realized if not for this diet.
I have also changed to a morning high intensity routine instead of lifting in the afternoon. I recently read Jillian Michaels (from biggest looser) first book. The nutrition wasn’t all that new, but two weeks into the training routine, I love her exercise plan. The plan is an hour workout four days a week with cardio on Saturday. You do a 5-minute warm up and (sometimes) a five-minute cool down along with a 50-minute circuit routine. She has grouped the exercises so that each one is an upper body coupled with lower body. She says it makes you work harder to have to supply blood to muscles on opposite ends of the body. She also incorporates flat out cardio conditioning like jumping jacks and jumping rope each day. I did not realize how out of shape I was because a minute of jumping jacks would have been relatively easy 6 months ago but they are pretty difficult now. Oh well I am glad that I am working up to again before actually going down the dojo and finding out. Had to switch to 5:30 AM workouts because her routine requires such a variety of equipment with no resting in between. I would be impossible to access that much equipment in the evenings.
