Today, I did Instructional #1 for the first time in a few weeks, and my legs burn. Holding the stance with a much, much deeper knee bend and the uni-glute tuck (d’oh — I remember that now from the seminar!), I’m tired from only the first half of the workout.
The dog and I are going out to enjoy the 63-degree and sunny weather (in T-Tapp form, of course).
Oh, and if I weren’t consciously doing No-S, I’d have eaten at least two more times since breakfast. D’oh.
Duh. I forgot to mention what I’m planning to do workout-wise!
I won’t make any secret of it that I’m INSANELY jealous of Joy’s phenomenal inch loss since we both started T-Tapp. 40 inches. FORTY. As in, almost as many inches as my hips are around! Oddly enough, her results aren’t as visible in photographs, but hey — her clothing is looser. That would rock.
Anyway, then I reminded myself of this: Joy pretty much hit the ground running. As soon as she bought the book, she worked her way through doing Total Workout. Me? I was doing well to figure out PBS, and I finally said “screw it!” and waited until I went to the seminar and got the DVDs before hitting it hard. So, she has a month on me. Plus, we’re vastly different body types. I’m a slow loser. I know this. Anyway, point is, Joy pretty much did a full 2-week boot camp (that she didn’t even really need!) from the get-go. The only bootcamp I’ve done was Feb 21-24, the beginning of the Lent Challenge — AND that was my first experience with the full workout.
A second bootcamp was something I considered, but more experienced Tappers have convinced me to wait. That’ll probably happen with the beginning of the 60-day challenge. What I’ve decided to do until then is to focus on the Instructional videos until then. I’m going to start with a break from TWO (ahhhh, a break? I’ll go into withdrawal!), and alternate Instructional 1 and Instructional 2. And I’m going to crack the whip on myself for form. After a week (I think) of that, I’ll return to TWO, three days per week ONLY. TWO has gotten so much more difficult over the past few times (as I’ve worked form) that this is probably a good thing to do. Even if it’s not, it’ll still keep me working out almost daily.
Okay, I’m sorta kinda starting again. Yes, I’ve made progress, but it’s time to get serious.
While I’ve been faithful about working out for the past month, I have been rather awful about my diet. Now, I don’t mean rather awful in the “eating a pint of B&J ice cream in one sitting” manner (although I’ve been known to do that before, too). I mean rather awful more in the “giving in to horrendous cravings” manner. When I decided to add sugar to the Lent challenge, it was a breeze. Seriously a breeze. (Okay, except for the third day — I would have killed for some Starbursts then). But, I started eating every stinkin’ piece of bread in sight.
Bread? Huh? I’m not that person. When I crave foods, I crave rich and high-fat. If I’m craving sugar, chances are, it’s cheesecake. If I’m craving mashed potatoes, it’s because of the tub of full-fat sour cream that have been mixed in. So, anyway, I don’t usually crave carbs. But, stopping sugar, I wanted bread. And rice. And any other starchy carb I could find! Since I’m not seeing much (if any) in the way of inch loss, AND I’ve gotten used to having T-Tapp as a part of my life, it’s time to tackle diet in a strategic way.
Via one of the threads on the T-Tapp nutrition forum, I came across the No-S Diet. The what? Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. But damned, if it doesn’t make a ton of sense. It’s simple and sustainable. And, starting today, it’s how I’m striving to eat. Here are the rules:
The No-S Diet
No funny science or calorie accounting involved, just a few simple and mnemonic tricks for giving your willpower the upper hand.
There are just three rules:
- No Snacks
- No Sweets
- No Seconds
And one exception:
- Except (sometimes) on days that start with ‘S’
That’s it.
Since all-day-every-day snacking seems to have become an issue for me lately, this makes a lot of sense. I’m already not eating sweets, and this would give me *back* permission to eat them on the weekends. I’ll also have to stop eating seconds. Eating dinner last night (impromptu chili), it was SO good that I decided to have a bit more. And I thought about it, realizing that if I did this diet, that was a bowl of chili (and accouterments) that I’d skip. And you know, it’s okay.
So, here goes something. I feel vaguely ridiculous jumping on another “bandwagon” so quickly, but this is frankly just a habit redesign that I’ve long needed. And, this weekend, I fully intend to go find myself a Godiva truffle with milk chocolate and hazelnut.
Metrics…gotta have something to measure
Joy and I were talking about body fat content, and about goals (we both strive to be around or below 20%). I told her that I have a bf measurement scale, but that I don’t usually trust it. 35% just seemed high to me. 7-8 pounds have jumped on board the SS Allison since I started T-Tapp, but since my measurements have (mostly) stayed stable, I’ve attributed that to muscle gain, which is good. But in reality, that puts me back at my shoot-the-vanity-in-the-head weight of nearly 150. Pre T-Tapping, I was hovering at a (flabby) 142-143. Now I’m a firm 150. That’s okay (repeat to self as needed).
The bf scale has languished upstairs in the extra bathroom, since Mike has a lovely, sleek, modernish digital scale downstairs. I pulled it out from hiding, and here’s what it said:
150.4 pounds
37% body fat
WTF?!?
That can’t possibly be right. No, really, it can’t.
Well, yes. It can. I did the math. 20% body fat would put me at 124.5 — and that’s about exactly what I’d want to weigh if I have a lot of muscle tone. So, suck it up, gal. You’ve got 25 pounds of fat to lose if you want to hit that 20% goal! I’ll set my first goal at 32% — to make the math easy. So, my first goal will be to lose 7.5 pounds of fat. Whew. That doesn’t sound quite as scary.
Back to the No-S Diet, I’m looking forward to lunch. I’m going to fill my plate with a pile of seasoned, flavorful rice, chicken breast, and fresh asparagus. I will eat well, and then not eat again until dinner. So there.