808 Fitness Blog

Wow!  I just did my first P90X workout and man was it a challenge!  It really is a very tough workout, but the really cool thing about it is that you can go at your pace.  You can do what YOU are capable of.  You don’t need to keep up with the people in front of you on the video.  Now that I have a better grasp of that, I think I’ll be able to better handle the future workouts and I’m super excited to see what my results will be like as we progress through the program. Will keep you posted!

I’ve always known that I don’t have the best nutritional habits in the world.  I LOVE chocolate and ice cream and pizza and cookies and cake and all that “good” stuff.  Thankfully, I don’t drink much soda because when I started going out with my husband we always shared a drink and he only drank fruit punch or some other kind of juice.

The thing is, the foods I like to eat and buy and know how to cook are all I really know.  It’s what I ate growing up.  It’s what most people around me eat on a daily basis.  I just never learned how to cook healthier types of meals and most of those fancy healthy recipe magazines contain recipes that have way too many ingredients or instructions for me.  Half the time, check that, most of the time the recipes contain at least one or two ingredients I’ve never heard of before much less know where to find in a grocery store.  I don’t now about you, but I don’t have time to figure all that out!

BUT NOW…we have the Michi Tier printed on a cool, travel sized card that I can easily take with me when I go grocery shopping.  We got this from one of the workout packages from Team BeachBody.

I decided to let our food supply in the house get down to the bare minimum then went shopping with the Michi Tier/Ladder in hand.  I found this chart so very helpful because it tells you exactly what kinds of foods to buy to help you make healthier choices than you’re currently making.  They say if you stay in tiers 1 & 2 you’d have the near perfect diet.  I don’t know that we’re ready for that yet, however, I’m pretty sure we can stay in the top 3 tiers more often than not.  Even if we slip into the other tiers every now and again while we’re getting started, it’s still a lot better than how we were eating before.  I think making any improvement, no matter how small, is a great way to start and will help us become healthier.  Eventually, we can do a little more and a little more and a little more until we’ve all but eliminated the “junk” food from our daily diets.  (Yes, I used to have some kind of junk food just about every day).

So, on my first healthier grocery shopping trip, I bought about $196 worth of foods from Tiers 1-3.  We think it would be ideal to simply stock the house with just these kinds of foods so that any time the kids want a snack (or we do) we know it’s a relatively healthy choice.  It was very interesting to see my shopping cart loaded with things that I would actually have to eat within the next few weeks.  If you stick with the upper tiers, you probably won’t be buying a whole lotta stuff that would still be okay for you to eat this time next year.  I’m thinking we may need more refrigerator space and less cabinet space since most things on “the list” (which we call it in our house) do not have much of a “shelf life.”

Anyway - our first few days of eating off “the list” has been easier than I expected.  I can still have bagels with cream cheese (lowfat) which I love.  We can still eat egg sandwiches (on whole wheat bread).  The kids are happy that I’m buying more fruits and yogurt which they’ve always loved.   I don’t think they even noticed that the yogurt had “no sugar.”  And now I have a good excuse to buy skinless chicken which is how I like it.  Others in the family like the skin, but now I can simply say that it’s not on “the list.”

The cool thing is that once I made the decision to stick with and buy food off this list, it’s been pretty easy to stay away from my normal junk food (cookies from the store, chocolate shakes from fast food places, etc).  Like I said, it’s not gone completely, but I’m finding it pretty easy to “say no” way more often than I could before.  I don’t expect to go from bag habits to perfect nutrition choices overnight (I don’t think anyone should expect that - you may be setting yourself up for failure), but I’m excited about taking small steps toward a healthier way of eating for our whole family.

Day 4 of our journey through the classic P90X workout program gave us a chance to do Yoga for the first time. Now, my husband and I were both athletes growing up. I played softball at the DI level and was pushed beyond what I ever thought possible during strength and conditioning there. My husband used to do crazy workouts for hours on his own during high school “just because.”

But this P90X Yoga, was our first time ever doing any kind of Yoga and within the first 30 minutes of the workout, neither one of us had ever wanted to quit a workout so badly! Total wimps huh? Quitting yoga!

But we didn’t quit. We stayed with it and were glad we did. Even though it was super challenging, it also did our bodies good. Just glad we get to do some other stuff before having to go through that again.

People are right when they talk about this workout program as “love/hate” - they hate it…but they love it. That’s definitely what Yoga day was like for me. My husband said that I should say that I hate it because then every time we have to do it I’ll dread it and it won’t be good if I’m dreading it. See…that’s why it’s nice to have a workout partner! They help keep you motivated, positive, and on track when you don’t feel like it.

Wow! I never would have really thought about it today except that my husband was making comments. I seriously had a lot of junk food and honestly wouldn’t have given it a second thought. The only reason I realize just how much sweets I put into my body was because my husband said something each time he saw me eat “dessert” or a “snack.”

I had…

• a Drumstick (ice cream)
• an Ice Cake/soft serve type treat
• a Creamsicle
• and it was our daughter’s birthday, so I had a piece of birthday cake too

When he saw me eating the drumstick he was like, “I can’t believe you’re eating that AND the ice cake.” I informed him that I had bought the drumstick for him, but since he said he didn’t want it, I was more than happy to take care of it for him.

Then he saw me start on the ice cake too and said, “You’re going to eat that too? Oh, that’s enough for today, no more for you. You can’t eat cake tonight.”

I told him that I had to eat cake - it was our daughter’s birthday!

But before the party came around we had some time to relax at home. The kids all asked to have a popsicle, so I grabbed one too. Didn’t even cross my mind that I had already eaten 2 other forms of ice cream for that day and was planning on eating cake later that really did NOT need to eat a Creamsicle at that moment. But I asked the kids to pass me one without even giving it a second thought.

Yet again, the only reason I ended up thinking about what I was doing was because my husband woke up from his nap and said, “I don’t believe you’re eating that! Didn’t you have enough today already?”

Now each time he said these things, it was very light-hearted and in a fun, laughing way so it wasn’t insulting or degrading at all and it REALLY opened my eyes to just how much junk I was consuming without even realizing it or thinking twice.

So, my question to you is…

Do YOU know what you’re eating?

I guess that’s why people do food journals. It’s an eye opening experience I bet (I don’t know because I’ve never tried it-I can only imagine). But if you’re looking to try journaling in your fitness journey, there’s a free online source to keep a food journal at Fit Day (see banner below). This can help you make better food choices each day and accelerate your progress along your fitness journey. Click on the banner below to check it out.