Day 9

Beginning Date: April 30, 2007
Ending Date: July 20, 2007

Day 9 -

I skipped working out yesterday. We did such major hard yardwork over the weekend - both Saturday and Sunday that by yesterday morning I was physically exhausted and very sore. I also have a cold, which made getting out of bed seem even more unappealing. So I slept - and felt a twinge of guilt all day. I also did not do so well with eating. I missed my mid-morning meal and my mid-afternoon meal. I was outside doing more yardwork in the morning and didn't get inside until noon and by the time I took a shower and had the girls fed for lunch it was 1:00 - so I wasn't going to try to shove in two meals in a short time, especially since I hadn't worked out in the morning. Similar situation in the afternoon.

Today I did my LBWO. I switched to squats for my main quad exercise and lifts as my second. I totally hit a 10 on that and it felt awesome! Hamstrings were good - I'm doing romanian deadlifts for my second exercise and I found some tips on how to do it on the tracker website. I think I hit a 9 on those, but thats better than before. Calves - I'm still struggling with these. I did seated calf raises for the main exercise and hardly felt like I was doing anything - and I did 40,50,60 & 70, then back to 60. I'm going to have to just suck it up and do the one leg raises for the main exercise. I'm feeling good!

I looked at my pictures on the computer yesterday. I was pretty amazed at how fatty I am - like I have a layer of fat all over my body. My inner thighs are enormous and always have been. I wasn't upset after seeing the photos - I think I just saw me for who I am. It will be encouraging if I see some sort of changes over the next weeks. I just have this deep down fear that this plan works for other people, but for some reason it is not going to work for me - like I must be doing something slightly wrong, or like I just have so much to change that it isn't going to work. I need to just continue on and have faith that I will see some results and it will work. One thing I know, though, is that I'm not going to see hugely dramatic results at the end of 12 weeks - I may see a difference, but I'm not going to be 10% body fat by then. It is going to take several 12 week challenges to get to that point and I've committed to myself and out loud to Cornbread to do this for a year - maybe taking a couple of breaks here and there. I'm glad that I've tweaked my eating by taking out the cheese and cutting the portion sizes. I don't struggle with the food or the eating part, its all good for me.

And I enjoy my free day, but we aren't gorging ourselves like we did in the past. I find it to be a good excuse to eat ice cream and some cookies and pancakes. All things that we had been eating normally anyway, but on a more regular basis. Now I just make sure that I'm not eating any of it throughout the week knowing that I can have some on Sunday. And it is nice to have one very relaxed day of eating - I don't have to think about protein and carbs and what time I'm eating and if I'm eating all of my meals, etc. It doesn't bother me throughout the week, but it sure is nice to not have to think about it on Sunday, too.