Day 20 - Sweetness

Today
I had a little taste of sweetness at breakfast this morning. Kim told me it looked like I might have lost a little of my spare tire and that was sweet. I don't know if its true or not but she said that from behind she could tell a difference. So, that's my honey. Anyone diabetic from reading this yet?


Anyway, still enjoying the diet... the new batch of fresh salsa was done with larger chunks of everything and a smaller portion of jalapenos and it turned out great. The piles of minced garlic really got intense as it sat overnight. Its a good thing I don't have any face to face client meetings in my immediate future.


Kind of hilariously, I have been, not stressing exactly (well maybe a little bit), but planning ridiculously far ahead for this trip at the end of the week. How to pack all the exercise stuff... will TSA be silly and remove the resistance bands if we put them in the carry on luggage... Google mapping the hotel vicinity to see if there is a grocery store within walking distance in case the hotel's food doesn't work... how many vegetables and fruit to pack... would we need ice packs for the fruit and again would TSA let us carry it on... and on and on. Worrying about an upcoming trip is not familiar territory for me. I really don't want to cheat at all on the diet so even the idea of doing so is really rankling me.


Workout
When I wake up in the morning I am stiff as a board (no libido related jokes yet)... my lower back especially seems to take forever to wind out. I can't say for certain whether its any better or worse than before at this point as its certainly an issue I've had for a while. So fingers crossed that as I gain muscle and shed fat that I do indeed begin to limber up. A larger worry is if I try too hard on some of the exercises, especially sit ups, and jerk myself right out of the running (again, no libidinous intent there). That aside, I can honestly say that aside from the occasional light ache in my right leg after the jump rope I'm physically keeping pace with the workout fairly well at this point:

1. Jump rope: definitely getting cleaner... still catching the rope or getting out of sync between the jumps and rope rotation but this was definitely one of the cleaner sets. After the first ~175 or so knocking out more than 100 at once is not yet achievable... Will have to continue visiting Amanda's blog for inspiration there.
2. Lunge: Kim and I have to stagger our workout a little so we don't need the resistance bands at the same time so this morning we realized that the amount of time it took to do the lunges was equal to almost the whole rest of the exercises combined. Definitely tough, laborious might be a better word, but weirdly I didn't get a lot of burn this time around. I think I had the form and general quickness OK, but no burn. Huh.
3. Pull-down: from looking at the illustration this appeared pretty straight forward. In practice it was a little more awkward than anticipated. If I stepped too far back then pulling the band just past my hips was almost impossible (and wouldn't have been sustainable for the full routine), but allowed my arms to be more straight at the start. Stepping too close to the anchor point and the resistance only came on about 3/4 of the way through and was quite intense for the midpoint of the exercise, but the bands appeared too slack at the beginning. Judging from the illustration I presume the anchor point to be roughly at eye level. Also, very difficult to ascertain whether I am involving my back at all in the workout. I presume so since my triceps weren't too badly strained. But definitely an exercise that I think I would like if I can get the form right. Might try a different resistance band too and see if that helps.
4. Push-ups: gotta say I am pretty pleased with myself on these. Can really get them all done quite clean and add one or two at the end of the last set to muscle failure. Feel really solid. Might be psychological too since I really want to improve my chest so I intensely want to get these right.
5. Tricep Dips: weird shaky left leg during this... that was bizarre. Maybe just one of those odd in-between leg placements. Quite difficult again. Plenty of grunting towards the end.
6. Forward Shoulder Raise: same as always. light resistance band, hard as hell all the way through...
7. Leg-up: thanks for the note on the last post Patrick... that went some way to alleviating my confusion on this. Definitely feel it on the tops of the quads just like last time. Really really difficult, but I thought for a moment there I felt some fleeting action in the abs. 

Patrick's email about not overdoing feels like it was targeted right at me. I can totally imagine stressing my body out so bad that I end up getting sick. Doesn't help that about a metric ton of pollen has flown in my window the past week so my allergies have been going berserk. Still, how to draw the line between good burn and overdoing it though...