Wednesday, December 16, 2009

P90X: Day 11

I did Yoga X today. My flexibility has improved a little bit since last week, probably because of all the stretching and exercising I've been lacking prior to starting P90X. It's good to see that improvement, but I'm still nowhere near as flexible as Tony and his demonstrators. Of course, I don't expect to be... but there are particular things I'm just unable to do. For example, the entire Warrior Three set gives me problems. I modify the whole thing rather than just stand there, but I just don't have the balance or flexibility to be on one leg like that. Also, the pose where one leg is out in front while you balance on the other... Tony gets the toe lock in there and I can't even put my leg straight out like that! I end up just standing there on one leg, going between struggling to hold my leg up (a miserable attempt) or just pressing my knee into my chest and balancing. Other than the moves that involve that split-type flexibility and extreme one legged balance though, I'm pretty decent. Not a drastic improvement from last week necessarily, but an improvement nonetheless.

Also, I tried to change some of my eating habits that I talked about yesterday. I set alarms on my phone for every couple of hours, wrote down the food I was going to eat during the day, and calculated calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. It's pretty difficult to calculate all that with some foods, and it often involves looking up nutrition information either on the internet, or on my nutrition based apps for my iPhone. I have a couple of calorie tracking apps on the phone that work pretty good, and have incorporated databases with nutrition information on all kinds of foods. For example, I had hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Do you have any idea how many calories, grams of fat, carbs, and protein are in each egg? Neither did I. I'm pretty satisfied with how that went today, although in the long run I'd like to cut down on carbs, but that takes quite a bit of planning and I'll have to go shopping more specifically for low carb foods. I actually ended up in another pretty major caloric deficit today, but because I spread my meals out fairly evenly throughout the day, I didn't feel overly hungry at any point. In fact, I tried to eat more but was unable to. I don't think that's due to anything other than the fact that I'm used to eating more food later, which would explain why I'm starving right now. My biggest struggle is definitely going to be against eating late at night. So far, so good.

I'll try to keep my head out of the fridge for tonight. I have some things I need to take care of early tomorrow, including a trip to the financial aid office at school, and registration for classes. That will probably consume most of my day, and I have some preparation to do tonight and early in the morning. That's all for tonight, thanks for the support!

2 comments:

  1. You know what? I struggle with Yoga still...and I'm on my last week before recovery and ab work. Haha. I'm sure that one day, I'll be able to do it...and even like it...but for now...Man! I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to swear during Yoga...but those balance postures...well they frustrate me. I guess the key is to keep on trying and eventually we'll get it. Kudos to you for doing it! Did you find that Yoga was more difficult than you anticipated? It's definitely not for wimps! LOL

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  2. Well, I definitely get pretty frustrated during some of those postures too. I feel the same way. I try to remember that it just takes hard work and dedication, and even moreso it takes time... then I just do what I can. I didn't necessarily think it was easy going in, because I have heard from many females that it is much more difficult than you would expect. More importantly, I have done very similar things in martial arts, especially Kung Fu. If you watch some of the movements and stances in Kung Fu, it's the same thing. It seems all fluid and natural, and even looks easy sometimes... but if you try it once you'll realize just how wrong that assumption is! Particularly in the style of Kung Fu I practiced, which was Hung Gar (Tiger-Crane Kung Fu). It focuses on extremely low stances and is particularly hard on the legs.

    Again, the whole Warrior Three segment is completely beyond me. Others are just extremely difficult. My back and legs aren't as flexible as they once were, and that provides problems. Particularly after my back injury from the military, I need to make sure I don't hurt myself again. That's why I modify some things, and skip abs. ARX is extremely hard on my back for some reason, but I can do regular crunches and flutter kicks and other ab exercises that will condition my core to the point of being able to do ARX better. I do what I can though.

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