Day 9

Today was a little tough ... for some reason, I woke up feeling incredibly weak. Not too sore, just trembly. It didn't bother me much in water aerobics or during my free cardio on a recumbent bike, but about halfway through yoga, my downward-facing dog pose got an unfortunate little quaver going on. I started cutting back to child's pose instead of doing down-dog, but then when I went to up-dog my arms started trembling. You know when you've worked a muscle to the point of fatigue and it gets that little wiggle going? That was it, except all over my body.

So I did what my body ordered and decided against sculpt for today - last thing I need is for my arms to go weak on me when I'm holding five-pound weights over my face. Instead, I came home and took a long hot soak, then a nap before I had to get up and go do my Pilates training course. Basically it's a four-week course that teaches you the Pilates moves so you can seamlessly join the actual Pilates class. It was alright - some of the movements came really naturally, and some hurt like hell. I didn't love it like I do yoga and water aerobics, but it was alright.

So I accidentally did something impulsive and loud during water aerobics today. We had a different instructor, a frizzy little hippie woman, and she was layering together different combos to work different parts of the body. One of them, the "Combat Combo," had a bunch of punches and knee hikes and ended in a hitch kick. I did it pretty well the first few times, but for some reason I abruptly added a yell when I kicked - totally didn't mean to! My taekwondo training all of a sudden kicked in, and I just yelled! Not just like a loud exhalation, but a pretty good, sharp, loud ki-yah! Surprisingly, the little hippie teacher loved it and decided that was the perfect addition to complete her combo. So by the end, all the little old ladies were ki-yah-ing too (some of them pretty begrudgingly, but still). I felt silly, but it felt so good to YELL! I always kick better when I yell anyway.

I can see even more of a change in me today - I've got a little less of a belly than I did this time last week. Even moreso, I can feel my body be more toned even when I'm not actively engaging the muscles to work out - the muscles don't relax and sag like they used to, they hold tight! I'm dying to weigh and see just what the change is ... in three days I get to do so =p The biggest change I noticed today is my calves. From the knees down, I no longer look overweight! My lower legs look good - still big, because I've got a lot of muscle there, but no jiggle or excess skin anymore. It's really exciting!

Also, being out in the sun for an hour every morning has added a little color to my skin, even with me wearing sunscreen. Maybe I'll have a tiny bit of a tan going before too long ... just so long as I don't overdo it! I'm a white little Irish potato - you put me in the sun, and I bake.

Food's been good today, I had more "potatoes" with lunch. I added some garlic salt to them, which made them outrageously good. Never thought Mom would tell me to quit eating my cauliflower and eat my damn lettuce wraps. Dinner was beer-grilled pork chops, which I actually kinda liked - the texture wasn't what I'm used to, and I didn't like having to search out and cut off the little bits of fat, but overall it was good. We've been having trouble with one thing, though - our recipes are so low-cal, I'm barely eating enough calories per day to keep my body out of famine mode! When we calculated up all my calories for the day after dinner, it came out to 765 calories. That's all. All day. Plus, I'd burned a good chunk of that already with my workouts! So we've taken to incorporating a late-night snack of some higher calorie but still healthy things to balance out that deficit - cheese, fruit, peanut butter, etc. How odd is that, that this diet is requiring me to eat more? Gotta love it.

I'm gonna call it an early night tonight, to be sure ... I'm pretty tired, and I definitely need my sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be fantastic - about a week ago, Mom and I planned out this Friday so I had something fun to look forward to if this week proved sucky. It's a full day and includes a massage, a movie, my free meal of the week ... and still all four workouts! We're beasts at scheduling things ;) I'll tell you guys all about it tomorrow, but expect a late post!