P90X Lean - Calling All Carbs!

OK, I made it through all of 2 full days of the nutrition plan before I failed. Though, again, given how I feel about the low carb thing, I'm not really sure I feel that I've failed. I went to work, editing with my lovely friend Jess, who is a fantastic chef. I spent an entire morning watching and cutting footage of the women in Italy cooking delicious looking meals. Lunchtime arrived, and Jess served up what I'd normally consider to be an incredibly healthful and quite tasty meal: fluffy baby brown rice* with a garbanzo beans salad. Now, I see it as more than my one-carb allotment in just one meal. Later afternoon, we had gluten-free crackers with peanut butter. Yet another carb. And what about those nuts? I still haven't figured that one out. I'll go look right now.

Oh right - they're a snack... it's probably alright then.

So while this meal did not represent a full on failure, it did bring me back to reconsidering what I'm doing with this meal plan and with this entire workout. I've spent most of my time lately researching how best to eat for ultimate performance and recovery (for my cookbook, The Athlete Gourmet). While I think it's important to try out different nutrition plans as part of my research, I don't know that adhering to something I strongly feel is wrong is a good way to go about my research. That being said, I'm moving on to Phase Two of the nutrition plan: Energy Booster. Big E is going to stick with Phase One a while longer, so we'll get a side by side comparison.

Meanwhile, we both continue to love the workouts! Cardio X, the second workout we did, might be my favourite thus far. It wasn't however what I expected: it was a lot more anaerobic workout than aerobic. (Which leads me to believe that I'm going to have to supplement this workout plan with some running, in order to maintain my cardio endurance) But I really loved all the kenpo moves, the kicking and whatnot. And then, Tony pulled out the Dreya Roll again. Good fun.

The next day was the Shoulders & Arms and Ab Ripper X. The first wasn't too tough for me, I think I've been doing enough lifting with Maya to find that workout manageable. Ab Ripper was a brute though, and I've always considered myself an ab machine! So far so good - Looking forward to this weekend!

Countdown to Lean - 4!

So I actually spent more time yesterday reading the P90x nutrition plan yesterday and I realized I may have overreacted a bit... (shocking, I know!)

It seems that I would only have to try the 1-carb/day plan as long as it worked for me. If I found myself not doing well with only one carb portion a day, I could transition over to the next phase. Apparently the third phase is very high carb, for the endurance athlete. They explain that if you are already somewhat athletic when you begin, the first phase might not work, and as long as you try it for a day or two, you can move onto the next phase.

Well, I'll get off my high horse now and give this nutrition plan a serious whirl. In the meantime, since my horse is still right here and all saddled up, I'll get right back on it to bitch about this: what is up with Dean K and his neanderthal diet?!?!?! OK, some of the stuff he says makes sense to me, the whole eating organic, fresh fruits and veggies and lean meat. Avoiding refined sugars and simple carbs makes sense too. However, perhaps Dean was unaware of this, but there actually already is a neanderthal diet that was around a couple of years ago, near the height of the Atkins craze. It goes by many names, Paleolithic diet, Neanderthin, Eat like a Caveman... These diets promote completely avoiding grains, beans and dairy.

It's the reasoning that kills me! That cavemen didn't suffer from the plethora of ailments that plague modern woman. "Long live Neanderthal Man!" says Dean in his post. Well, guess what?! The average Neanderthal didn't really make it past his twenties, so it's no wonder he didn't get heart disease.

Bah. Anyway, I'm getting psyched to start the P90x - and not only is Tamsen doing it with me, but so is my husband, Big E. I created a google calendar for us (in red) and as Big E said when he saw it, that's a lot of red!

Today, Tamsen and I went for a little lunch hour run downtown, which was really fun, and then I had my tasty leftovers for lunch: butternut squash soup, a lettuce, garbanzo & sweet corn salad*, a carrot, and an apple. Delicious!

*can you believe we're still getting corn in our CSA box?!?

PS. Thank you, Dr. Weil!