Day 2 of P 90 X - Plyometrics

Today's P 90 X was plyometrics, which I'd honestly never heard of before and I'd DEFINITELY never done before. Basically it's jumping, squatting, twisting, kicking, bending, lunging, and every -ing that puts the maximum load on your quads, glutes, calves, lungs and heart. I'm going to have to do this one a few times, I think, before my cardiovascular system understands what's going on and stops rushing up to the mid 150's within the first 30 seconds of the exercise. Fortunately, the majority of these exercises only last 30 seconds each, and like the narrator says as you're about to start jumping and sweating your heart out, "You can do anything for 30 seconds."

Sounds reasonable...until you try jump frog squatting twice forward and twice back for 30 seconds - those were some of the longest seconds in my LIFE!

But with all the breaks and pause-presses, I got through it. I'm even wondering if I could do a light-weight version a few mornings a week to get the blood flowing. We'll see - it was hell to get through for the first time but it's good stuff :)

Today's Menu - Protein, Oj, Protein and Oj - and some Milk!

As for food today - I had a *minor* problem on the food front. The refrigerator broke over the weekend, and I didn't want to go grocery shopping until it was fixed again, and so I've been relying on protein drinks and powders and smoothies for the past couple of days. Today's menu was:

breakfast: kashi cereal, almond milk, 1 oz cashews

pre-workout snack: 1/2 cup OJ

post workout: 2 scoops whey protein, 1 cup OJ

3pm snack - sugar free latte (which pretty much counts as a cup of skim milk)

4pm snack - 4 whole grain crackers with home made guacamole and salsa

**I feel like I should make something up that I ate between 4pm and 9pm, because I know I'm not supposed to go 5 hours without eating BUT that's what happened and I'm a truth-teller so I'll tell it like it is :)

9pm: 3oz beef filet, 2 cups salad, 1/4 cup home made yogurt dressing, 6 oz pineapple

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I got a food processor today. LOVE the food processor, and I left mine up in NYC where I spent the summer. I went to Bed Bath & Beyond last night and the least expensive food processor they had was $99. I don't love it that much :) So I went to Wal Mart today and bought a Black&Decker for $30. Came home and made fresh salsa, guacamole with greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and also some yummy dressing. Of all the things I make in the food processor, I think I like the dressings the best. I really haven't found a store-bought, low-fat dressing that doesn't taste DIET. The dressings made at home taste considerably better to me.

Tonight's dressing experiment featured...

My Nameless But Yummy Low Fat Salad Dressing Recipe:

1 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh basil
1 tsp. lemon zest
a TON of garlic cloves (put in as many as you like; I happen to love garlic so I think I put in like 6 or 7 and it came out *really* garlicy.
One semi-spicy long skinny orange pepper - I don't know the name of it. If you do, please leave it in my comments :)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegarette
Salt and Pepper to taste

This is how I work in the kitchen. I almost never use a recipe. I open the fridge and the cupboards and think "Hmmm, I wonder if it would taste good if I put THIS in there..." Since I'm often cooking just for me, and my housemate who's also making efforts to eat healthy, something that tastes slightly "I'll never make this again but it's sort of edible..." doesn't go to waste.

The dressing was QUITE strong with all the garlic and the pepper but I think I would make it again, probably with a tiny bit less garlic. Right after I threw the balsamic in there, it occurred to me that the whole concoction could turn brown and visually unappealing, but that didn't happen.

Okay, so now that I've itemized everything I've eaten so far today, I think I'd better go eat one last snack before bedtime; with the crazy plyo workout I don't think I've eaten enough.

I'll be back tomorrow to write about my next day on P 90 X and hopefully my eating will be healthier, what with the refrigerator fix it man having been here late this afternoon to get the kitchen back on track