I'm on the road again, and this time I've decided to be even more structured about my workout plan. I've come a long way since my first few trips over a year ago, and have since realized that while I'm here in Cyprus editing I don't have any of the normal every day distractions that I do back home: no errands to run, no shopping to do, no cooking for myself, no house cleaning, no social distractions (well, hardly any)... You get my drift. It's just working, eating and taking care of myself.
I realized that while I could force myself to just plow through entire days of work, I am much more productive when I take breaks mentally and take care of myself physically. In fact, this work-travel scenario is ideal for a boot camp: I can make myself workout twice a day! As I mentioned in the past, I've been limiting myself to workouts that don't involve any equipment. So I loaded up my laptop with my P90X videos (the ones that didn't call for weights), Podcasts and my running buddy, the Nike+ enhanced iPod.
Here I am one third of the way through my trip and so far, it's going swimmingly:
Day 1:
- Woke up far too early (jetlag)
- Morning (pre-breakfast): Did 24 minute pilates routine from a podcast (Fit for Duty: Pilates is the podcast) - Verdict: could feel it wake up my body, could feel my core working, not my favourite workout though... Will keep searching for another good pilates podcast. Suggestions greatly appreciated!!
- Evening (pre-Dinner): Did Yogamazing podcast: 25 minutes of Yoga for Back and Shoulders. It was a decent one, not brutally hard but made for a first day of jetlagged working out.
- Woke up far too early (still jetlagged!)
- Morning (pre-breakfast): Yogamazing Podcast: 25 minutes of Yoga for Abs. This was good, could feel the results, that super satisfying ab burn. whoo!
- Evening: Kenpo X (from P90X). Good tiring sweat-producing workout. YAH!
- Still woke up a bit on the early side despite having stayed out till 1am. Soooo tired :(
- Morning (pre-breakfast): 15 minutes of Yogamazing Podcast: Heart Openers. Just going for stretching here. Since it was Sunday, I decided it would be my day off from working out since it's usually our most productive edit day (what with my director being stuck with me all day) but felt I needed a bit of a stretch from my many hours spent at the computer.
- Early morning: Back on track! Got to bed a bit earlier and had a pretty solid night sleep.
- Morning (Pre-breakfast): Cardio X (from P90X). I was FIRED UP! I love this workout! I felt all worked out and awesome afterwards and absolutely scarfed down my breakfast. (which by the way is the typical Cypriot Breakfast: tomato, halloumi cheese, olives first, then a slice of toast with some homemade fruit preserves and a slice of Anari* cheese on top. Yum!)
- Midday (pre-lunch) - 8 minute Office Stress Relief yoga session from Yoga Today Podcast. Feels good... My neck, shoulders and back were getting a bit pissy from all this editing.
- Evening (pre-dinner) - Yogamazing 17 minute yoga for neck and shoulders & Yoga Today Deep Core Strengthening for 10 minutes.
So the working out is going according to plan. Meanwhile, the eating part is pretty much going as expected: I mean clearly, it's a great thing to have a fabulous Cypriot cook (my director's mother) preparing meals for us all the time, but everything is so yummy, I seem to be eating quite a lot. At least her style of Cypriot cuisine is chock full of veggies and salads and is generally quite healthful. Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.
*God, I wish we had Anari in the states. It's basically the leftover whey water from making Halloumi (which gets all the fat), so it's kind of like a super fresh ricotta, a bit softer with slightly bigger curds, very low fat, pretty high protein, which makes it an awesome healthy breakfast cheese.
3 comments:
I have a question about the P90X workouts. My husband and I are looking into getting them, but can't find answers to our questions. Do you have to have gym equipment or are free weights enough? and how long do the majority of the workouts take? Are we talking hours or under an hour per day? Thanks for any answers!!!
Hi, Erin -
To answer your questions:
1. You do not need gym equipment, free weights are fine. The only piece of extra equipment you might need is a pull-up bar. There are several on the market, but it all depends on how your interior doorframes are constructed. My doorframes were never right for such a thing, so I use resistance bands. Those don't go the distance, as I pointed out a while ago, but they might carry you through most if not all the full program.
2. The majority of the workouts are 60-75 minutes (most are 60 minutes, 3x/week you add 15 minutes of Ab Ripper). The only one longer than that is Yoga X, which is 90 minutes.
Just a side note on Yoga X - for a long time, I only did 60 minutes of it since that was all the time I had. BIG mistake - that last 30 minutes is a real test of strength, agility and balance, as well as a hard-core reality check (the Twisting Half Moon pose says, "I laugh at your definition of 'fit,' grasshopper.")
Hope this helps.
wish we had Anari in the states. It's basically the leftover whey water from making Halloumi (which gets all the fat), so it's kind of like a super fresh ricotta, a bit softer with slightly bigger curds, very low fat, pretty high protein, which makes it an awesome healthy breakfast cheese.
p90x
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