Fitness Center Rants, Sprints and Low Carb Day Eats

First, some fitness center rants:

• locker rooms should not be hot. It's not fun to start sweating while I'm toweling off after my shower. 
• Patrons should clean up after themselves. Throw away your water bottle, put your towel in the basket.
• Don't hog the benches in the locker room. I don't know why more people can't share.

Rant over.

I love that I can walk to the fitness center. It's the best way to warmup. Today we were back to sprints. 20 seconds on and 40 seconds to recover for 10 minutes. It was awesomely HARD. I'm pretty sure when I did these the first low carb day, my elliptical was not working properly because it was kind of easy. 

Today's intervals sort of went like this:

1-3 - that wasn't so bad!

4-6 - oh boy, my legs are burning

7-8 - (willing timer to move faster) 18, 19, 20!

9-10 - I think I might pass out...

My legs were so toasted that I did the 30 minute cool down on the treadmill. Like I said, awesomely hard. 

Back at the apartment, I made time to work on those trigger points with my foam roller and the stick. I forgot to mention that anytime you do these, you should stretch after. I love that part.

What I ate on low carb day

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, pb&j rice cake, coffee

The best tasting meal is the one you have after a good workout. This is just one of my faves. I almost didn't have the rice cake because I was worried about the carbs in the pb&j, but then I realized how crazy that sounded.

Lunch: chocolate protein shake, turkey slices

The shake was disappointing having more carbs than protein. It's my own fault because I didn't do my homework before hand and just assumed it was good because it said protein on the packet. Lesson learned.

Snack: celery and pb, water

I guess I needed something a little crunchy.

Dinner: chicken breast and green beans, salad

I love my salads, even more with cheese and Ranch dressing. Avoiding dairy is part of this program, but I just had to. At least there were less carbs than the shake at lunch!

I think I did pretty well today. Under 50g of carbs, but also under in total calories. I wish I knew if that was a big deal or not.

What are your fitness center rants?

Do you prefer the foam roller or the stick?

Active Trigger Points, a Full Body Workout, and Regular Calories Day 2

After yesterday's workout, my problem knee was cranky. I think the cause is overuse of my quads. They've seen more squats and lunges this last week than in a long time. The overuse has activated the trigger points in my vastus medialis, probably because it's still a weak muscle.

I've had this happen before, so I know the self massage routine, (read about my pesky trigger point here) but this time I was also armed with peppermint essential oil. I rubbed it in and worked on my trigger points for about 5 minutes and then iced for about 20. I also found a great video with some vmo exercises. 

Fortunately, the knee pain didn't keep me from my full body dvd workout this morning. I replaced the high impact cardio portions with low impact alternatives and completed all the strength. I really liked it. The 45 minute workout looked like this: warm up, cardio, arms, cardio, legs, cardio, core, cardio, stretch. 

After the workout and some breakfast, we did some errands. My knee is still not happy when I walk, but I am totally happy with my linen dress from Gap. It was very comfortable and today it was near 85 degrees.

Regular calorie day 2 eats

Breakfast: protein pancakes, apple, coffee

I saw a picture of someone's protein pancakes online and woke up dreaming about them. So yea, pancakes (not dairy free...Greek yogurt). Soooo good.

Lunch: Kosmo toner smoothie, handful of grapes

We have been walking by this little healthy shop, Kosmo, for a year and were finally motivated to go in. The owner, "Alan" (he's Chinese) has been in Shekou for 15 years! He makes shakes, smoothies, and some food items. You can even buy protein in his shop. He modified the recipe to be dairy free: strawberries, soy milk, whey protein.

Dinner: chicken breast, green beans, water

I love a simple crock pot meal. Easy peasy and mrC cleans up!

While the chicken was in the crock pot, I decided to try a new recipe for peanut butter protein bars that I found on Run Eat Repeat.

Only I added two mashed bananas and 3/4 tbsp cinnamon Iike the recipe I already use (you can see it here). I could barely wait for them to cool off before having one. 

My calories and macros were pretty much on target today and other than my knee, it was a great day. I'm loving that I don't feel like I'm starving even though I'm eating less than I was a week ago.

Ever have active trigger points?

Leg Workout and Getting Settled

There is always a ton of things to do when we return from an extended trip away.

Turn the water and gas back on in the apartment

Restock the fridge

Order water bottles for delivery
Sort the mail and newspapers

Unpack and do laundry

Workout

I took full advantage of the comfortable morning weather for an outdoor workout. It won't be long before the high temps and humidity make this option less appealing. mrC and I found a nice little area with a breeze to do our thing.

It was all about leg strength using body weight. I could still feel some soreness from my last full body workout, but I was able to do most of the exercises. I only had to modify one that bothered my knee. And holy squat jumps and lunge jumps! My legs were jello! I don't even know how I was able to do a 20 minute walk after.

That was a nice amount of calories burned for a twenty-ish minute workout.

My grocery order arrived right on time. It is seriously convenient! This order was filled with mostly fruits and veggies (and a little Coke zero for my occasional caffeine craving).

When I had a chance, I took all the separate lettuce that I bought (iceberg, romaine, and red leaf) and created a little DIY mixed salad just like I buy pre-made in the US. I'm all about convenience.

What I ate for Regular Calorie Day

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with ham, pb&j rice cake, and coffee

mrC made this post workout breakfast for us. The eggs were extra good with the addition of Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Seasoning that I brought back with me. 

Lunch: dairy free protein smoothie, 3 turkey slices

This is my nice and pretty smoothie but before this it was a mad mess all over the kitchen walls. Long story short: stick with what works. Smoothie ingredients: frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries, almond milk, coconut oil, spinach and protein powder.

For the protein powder, I tried another sample from Naked Nutrition. I admit that I am partial to whey protein, but this brand has so many positives that make it stand out from others I have tried: one ingredient only, gluten free, non-GMO, grass fed in the USA. It's worth the money in my opinion.

Dinner: spicy chicken salad, water

I put that DIY salad to use. The only thing I forgot to buy was dairy free dressing, so I splurged with the Ranch that was in the fridge. 

Snack: grapes

I only ate these to try to increase my carb intake for the day. It didn't help much and I wish I had been hungrier so that I could've enjoyed them more.

I was way under my total calories goal for the day (but not hungry) and my macros were not quite up to par either. 

Tomorrow I get another try at it. 

Ever watched your smoothie ingredients fly across the room??

Today I'm linking up with www.marathonsandmotivation.com & www.ilkasblog.com. 

Airplanes - 12 hours = Low Calorie Rest Day

Traveling 12 time zones over a 24 hour period, but losing 12 hours is challenging when you are trying to following a nutrition and fitness plan. I ended up flip flopping days because it worked better.

We left the US on Friday morning (regular calorie day) and landed Saturday night (morning in the US and low calorie day). Since our meals were completely off once we boarded our flight to Hong Kong and there was no time to do the scheduled workout, it just made since to use the FRI/SAT travel day as a low calorie day. Are you confused yet? Yea, me too!

Eats from our 26 hour low calorie travel day

Breakfast: watermelon, scrambled eggs, coffee
Easy enough at the hotel before we left. We literally had to eat and run since our first flight departed Ohio at 7:45 and breakfast started at 6:00!

Lunch: grilled chicken salad, Italian dressing, water, and veggie chips

Fudrucker's at DFW does a good salad. I was still following regular calorie day at this point and trying to include starchy carbs with the chips. All of it was yummy!

Dinner: some lettuce and pork from airplane meal, water, and another serving of veggie chips

Airplane food is hardly ever good. It was all I could do to eat some of the pork and then I pretty much lost my appetite. 

Snacks: peanuts, water, pb&j rice cakes

While waiting for the ferry at the Hong Kong airport, I ate the peanuts that I snagged from the USO in Dallas. These held me over until we got to the apartment and I made some rice cakes.

After snacking, I went online and made my grocery order to be delivered tomorrow morning. Lots of veggies and fruits coming our way!

How is your appetite when you travel?

Traveling and Fasting

Fasting. I have only fasted a small amount of times in my life on holy days. They were never easy.

Today was my first fast day as part of the carb cycling/intermittent fasting program I'm doing. The purpose of doing the the plan is to reset my body and let go of some of the bad cravings I've developed, along with extra inches (haha)!

Breakfast: lots of water

Of course I woke up feeling hungry. My unsuccessful feast day plus the workout caught up to me. Lots of water seemed to help. Side note: It's also my monthly cycle.

Lunch: red raspberry herbal tea, more water

In between legs and after sleeping most of the one hour flight to Dulles, I made some tea. I'm not a big tea drinker, so I added a squirt of Stevia. This seemed to help with the hunger, but I was starting to feel hangry.

BROKE MY FAST: popcorn, water

I was a couple of hours early, but I was feeling bad, very tired (I slept on the second leg too) and I had a headache. I thought the popcorn was a pretty good choice given I was limited to what was in the hotel snack shop. 

Dinner: Shared nachos (with mrC and BFF), Laredo steak, broccoli, baked potato, water and coke. 

My BFF picked us up at the hotel and took us to Max & Erma's for dinner. Hunger, on top of knowing that we will be leaving all the amazing food options in the US made me over do it. The coke was the worst decision of all.

I thought I would do some yoga before bed, but honestly I was exhausted. Traveling, fasting, my monthly and a big meal was too much for me.

Today I return to China. My regular calorie day should be interesting and who knows what day Ill be on when I get there?!?

See you in 24 hours!