TurboFire: Day 37

Just finished my first week on the TF regular schedule last Friday. So far the regular schedule isn't too much different from the prep except for that I'm doing some form of cardio almost every day in combination with other workouts. Had my first HIIT workout last week - it was excellent. It was so short though, I hope that I exerted enough to make it worth it. Had another one today that was a little longer. I reached a milestone though last week in successfully finishing Fire 55 EZ without stopping. I couldn't believe that I did almost a straight hour of high intensity cardio without taking a break. It was a great feeling and I felt amazing afterward. The nice thing about starting the regular schedule is not only the HIIT workouts which are short but intense but also some new regular cardio workouts with different music and different moves which are refreshing. Definitely not bored yet.

Still having some trouble with my knees and ankles. I read on a message board that some people do the workouts barefoot because of joint issues and apparently that works, but the basement floor isn't really adequate for bare feet - it's basically a dusty cement that I can't ever seem to sweep clean. If I get those exercise tile mats then I'd definitely try it barefooted. I've been trying to do some wall squats at the suggestion of my coach to strengthen my quad muscles and in turn strengthen my knees. Still having pain though in my right knee. I've been doing most of the modifications in the workouts to help with that.

Nutrition is still going well. I've tried some excellent recipes from skinnytaste.com that have turned out well, including a shepherd's pie. I went over probably close to a couple hundred calories though on Saturday though due to lack of food with adequate nutritional value in the house and a late night trip to a bar. Oh well. Just gotta get back on track. I'm going to try a recipe for pea soup with ham this week that I'm excited about too - got a lot of fiber in it so it should fill me up. I think Joe and I are going to go out to Houlihan's or something for Valentine's Day tomorrow so I'm going to try and save some calories for that. Still at 1600/day, which feels probably about the lowest I'd be able to go and still be filled up throughout the day. With that being said, I'll be excited to be able to bump it up a little later in the program, and then eventually even a little more when I reach my goal and can get into a maintenance phase. In my 6th week and still going strong!

TurboFire: Day 31

So, Sunday marked the end of my first 4 weeks of TF. I completed the first 4 weeks of the prep schedule and did not miss a workout (6 days a week). Well I actually missed one on the day I drove back to MI from NC but I made it up last week. I was nervous for my first weigh-in, because I've been more dedicated than ever to fitness and nutrition and I had to believe that it was paying off. So, I hopped on the scale and it turns out that I lost 2 pounds! I was hoping for 3 and initially had some mixed feelings, but I am happy with it now after thinking about it. The prep schedule was certainly more exercise than I had been doing, but it wasn't intense enough to warrant more weight loss than I had. There were weeks where I only had to do straight up cardio twice. Some of the workouts were very short (strength training for 20 min). So I shouldn't be surprised that I didn't drop a ton of weight. I'm just happy I lost really anything. I'm excited to see what the next 30 days of easing into the regular schedule will bring. It's cardio every single day, and sometimes combined with those shorter strength training workouts. I had my first HIIT workout yesterday. It was only 15 minutes but it was intense. It's 40 seconds of hardcord 90-100% exertion followed by a 30 second break. The thing I'm worried about is the intensity on my knees and ankles. I workout in the basement on a concrete floor and it's pretty tough, since I have poor knees anyway. When I get some more money I plan to buy some kind of padding for the ground. My mom says she has some kind of rug that might be a decent substitute until then. But, I got some good suggestions from my coach on how to strengthen my quads so that my knees will be stronger. I taped them with duct tape today and that seemed to help a little too. I was surprised that my ankles started to become sore though...I've never had problems with my ankles. It's probably a combination between the concrete ground and bad shoes, but I don't have the money to drop on some cross trainers, which they recommend. I'm using running shoes that I've had for about 5 years. I'm going to look for an old ankle brace that I think I have lying around somewhere and take some ibuprofen regularly and see how that helps. Hopefully it will.

The food arena is going well. I'm still aiming for about 1600 calories/day and sticking close to that. I started making steel cut oats with buckheat and blueberries for breakfast and only about 3/4 c. of that (about 200 calories) fills me up for over 3 hours. My dad recommended that I make a batch of it and refrigerate it for the week, which I did. Here is my recipe, adapted from my Dad's:

2/3 c. steel cut oats
1/3 c. buckwheat groats
4 c. water
2 T. agave or sugar
1 c. blueberries (I use frozen)
Cinnamon to taste

Bring the first three ingredients to a boil in a pot and then simmer for 20 min. Remove from heat and add blueberries, agave, and several shakes of cinnamon to your liking. Serve or refrigerate.

When I refrigerate, and I scoop about 3/4 c. of it into a bowl and heat it up with 2 tablespoons of unsweetened vanilla almond milk and 2 tablespoons of sugar-free maple syrup. I still haven't been able to make it as good as my Dad does, but it does the job and gets me powered through my workout.

And omg. I discovered unsweetened vanilla almond milk. It's my new love. I had bought almond milk before but didn't know really what to do with it and it ended up sitting in the fridge too long and I had to throw it away. I have been substituting 1 c. unsweetened vanilla almond milk in my iced coffee and it's amazing, and it's half the calories of how I made it before with 1/2% or skim milk. I've also been using it my smoothies and it's been way tastier than regular milk in my opinion. I made a smoothie with 1/2 c. low fat vanilla yogurt, 1/2 c. frozen blueberries, and 1/2 c. unsweetened vanilla almond milk and the flavor was incredible. I also made some low calorie cookies with it too yesterday and those turned out good too.

Joe and I also made turkey and rice stuffed peppers on Sunday night and those turned out amazing as well. I got the recipe from skinnytaste.com which has awesome recipes with a calorie breakdown. It makes it easy to track on myfitnesspal. There are also some really good looking clean recipes from ohsheglows.com that I want to try as well.

Tracking calories has been a lot easier in the last few weeks, and my hunger has decreased because I think I'm changing things around. I'm eating a bigger breakfast with more fiber and protein and I think that sets the tone for the rest of the day. I was actually under my calories by 150 last night and I wasn't even hungry. Although, of course I took this as liberty to still eat, but I knew I didn't even need to. But generally I haven't been eating when I'm not hungry. It's all about progress!

TurboFire: Day 26

It's almost the end of prep schedule! A few more days and I'm going to take my first set of measurements since beginning TF. I'm a little scared to weigh myself...I don't really want to do either but I'm curious and figure maybe I should just to see what is and isn't working.

I'm proud of myself because I took a weekend whirlwind road trip to North Carolina and back to pack up my long distance boyfriend and bring him home, and I still managed to do 2 TF workouts and count calories. However, I tried Fire 45 EZ there and I still had some bad breathing problems - I didn't anticipate this because Joe doesn't have cats so I didn't bring my inhaler - but I think I might actually have some legit respiratory issues because I was wheezing just as bad as I was before I got my inhaler and was working out at home. So I'm not sure what's really going on. For now I'm going to continue using my inhaler and then maybe at some point I should actually talk to my doctor. But because of this I wasn't able to complete the workout - I did about half of it but I decided I should quit because I wasn't able to get enough breath in and that didn't seem like a safe idea. Unfortunately I did have to miss a workout the day we drove back - it just wasn't going to happen due to being in the car for 17 hours. I could use that as my rest day for this week but then that's going to affect my starting of the regular schedule next week so we'll see. But, I was proud because we went out to eat a few times and I looked at the menus and nutritional facts online beforehand to see what would fit into my daily calories. I ended up having an amazing salmon dish at TGIFridays and a delicious oat and nut pancake/egg breakfast at IHOP. I also even counted calories on my 15 hour drive down there. The way back was another story though...I was in the car for over 17 hours (by myself) and was too delirious to track my calories. I think I was actually under my calories that day because we tried not to stop too much and I had a few protein bars and not too much else, so I'm not that concerned that that was a day that didn't get tracked on myfitnesspal. I have never been so exhausted in my life though - the drive down wasn't bad at all - maybe because I was so excited to see Joe - but the drive back was excruciating and I'm glad it's over. The drive down I think was good because I got in an amazing power breakfast courtesy of my dad at 5:30 am before I left, which tied me over for almost 6 hours. I didn't have that luxury on the way back.

Anyway, I'm pleased to report that I'm still on track with everything after going out of town for 4 days. I was able to do Fire 45 EZ today the best I've ever done - I still had to stop it once but I was able to hold off doing that until about the 9 minutes remaining mark. I felt great afterward. I'm even able to do more pushups too which feels good. I'm super excited to transition into the regular TF schedule and try some new workouts. I hope my knees are ok enough - they've been pretty sore since going away - I don't know if it's because my muscles are still all tight from being in the car or something. I did notice that both my knees were sore and my overall leg and feet muscles were really tight when I returned from my trip. They're loosening up but still not great yet.

I thought I'd leave you with some lovely pictures from my trip to North Carolina this past weekend:

Southwestern Virginia looks like a folk art painting in real life. This hill/mountain looked a lot more majestic in person:




A lovely photo of the wreckage in Joe's apartment:



Look I did TF on my vacation!




Delicious delicious food at Flaming Amy's which is like a tastier and cheaper Mongolian BBQ:



Taking a break from packing and playing guitar: