Cheat Meal

As I mentioned in my last post, my Dad took me out to dinner tonight. Since I'd done so well with my diet and training the last few weeks, I had earned a "cheat meal" that could be anything except a big dessert or pasta. Should have been easy... right?

Funny thing was, I still scoured the menu for something that would still sorta fit the diet basics that I've been following. It's now stuck in my head that I want to go for maximum protein and minimum carbs while keeping an eye on fat content and making sure it's not too high.

We started off with friend calamari, which is a hit or miss at most restaurants. Luckily at this one, it was a miss. I ate a few (probably 5) pieces, but it really wasn't all that satisfying, so I didn't feel the need to eat any more. Dad and I left half of them on the plate, and it wasn't a huge plate to begin with.

For my entree, I ordered chicken bernaise, which was a grilled chicken breast covered with lump crab meat and bernaise sauce. It was served with steamed broccoli and green beans, as well as a side salad and warm dinner rolls (which I didn't touch because of the carbs). The side salad was covered in cheese, but I managed to just pick out the lettuce and eat that. Dipped my fork in a tiny bit of ranch dressing for a few bites, but that didn't do much for me either. The chicken bernaise was very, very good, but with every bite that had sauce on it, I couldn't help but wonder how much fat I was consuming. I guessed that there was about 3 tbsp of sauce on the chicken, and MyDailyPlate estimated that that's about 18.5 g of fat... glad I didn't know it at the time. I probably wouldn't have ordered it. On the other hand, at least I got a lot of protein with the chicken and the crab, the carbs for the meal were still fairly low and I got some nutrients out of the steamed veggies.

I guess the main point of this post is just that my cheat meal wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it should have been. I've gotten so used to this diet, and it's helped me to make so much progress so far, that this cheat meal just made me feel guilty afterward. Maybe other people really need a cheat meal or they would just go crazy, but it certainly didn't have that effect on me.

I'm weak...

...and my entire body aches!!

How's that for an intro to a blog? I had my second session with my personal trainer today, and the last part of the workout was a full-body push-up. Or at least that's what it was supposed to be. Starting with my entire body on the ground, she wanted me to push myself up. I couldn't. Not even close... not even an inch off the ground.

I told her I was weak, and she said "No no, that's good. You're going to look back on this day and say to yourself "Remember when I couldn't even do one full-body push-up? I've come such a long way from that."

So I decided that I should keep track of my progress in a blog, just so I can look back and be even more proud of what I've accomplished.

I'm training with Amanda Kenyon. She is a certified personal trainer, as well as a figure competitor. She is incredible. I learned about her through my friend Leslie, who trained with her last year before she took a trip to Mexico with her boyfriend. I saw Leslie's results in photos from her vacation, and that's all it took to convince me that Amanda would be able to whip me into shape too.

I first met with her about two weeks ago to discuss goals and our training plan. I'm going to be training with her for 30 minute sessions 4 times per week for the next 8 weeks. So that's 16 hours of hard-core workouts over the next two months. Yikes!

Before I actually started my training sessions, she wanted to work on improving my diet. I told her my biggest weakness was sweets, and particularly chocolate. She asked me to cut out sweets completely for two weeks, just to prove to myself that I really don't need them and to help stop my cravings. It's only been a week, and I'm doing fine without them. I get to drink chocolate protein shakes, and they seem to do the trick (not to mention, they actually taste really good). She also noticed that my carb intake was really high, so she asked me to cut my carbs to less than 140 grams per day. Add in some extra protein and a lot more veggies, and I'm already feeling lighter :)

My first workout session with Amanda was on Thursday. It was an intense 30 minutes of dead-lifts, lunges, ab work, arms and shoulders. It didn't feel too bad at the time, and there were only a couple times when I really couldn't move my body the way I needed to for the exercise. What I like about Amanda is that she recognizes when I've exhausted a particular muscle and then moves onto another one instead. She's encouraging, but not pushy, and definitely not the drill-sergeant type. I don't think I could handle that.

Friday I was incredibly sore in my shoulders, butt and the back of my legs. I just kinda felt like Jell-O. I woke up today feeling quite a bit better. Then I met with Amanda for another session at 9 a.m. We did a lot of arm work, more abs and some other leg exercises. There was one ab exercise that involved hanging from some arm rings and trying to pull my legs up and out in front of me, and I couldn't even move my legs up an inch. My abs are already that burnt out from the last couple of days. She also had me do "death drops" on one of the arm machines, and as she promised at the time, my arms are pretty much dead now.

Even though I'm incredibly sore (and probably will be for the next couple of days), I'm so glad that I'm pushing myself to do this. I'm eventually going to be in great shape, and will be proud to be able to call myself a Strong Blonde.