30-Day Shred, Level 2

Today I started the first day of Level 2 of the 30-Day Shred. I think this is Shred Day 11 and calendar day 17.

I think I died. I don't really remember much of what I did this morning. My DVD stopped working right in the middle of a strength exercise, and it took 4 full minutes to transfer it into the other computer and get it going again. During a 20-minute workout, that's quite a long break. Even with that break, I was still dying. I took full advantage of the need to watch the exercises so I would know how to do them. I can't even think of which exercises I did full-versions and which I did modified. I don't want to think of them!!

I realized that I really don't like to do hard things. Some people revel in the challenge and they want to push themselves to win, to beat the challenge. Not me. I just want to skate through, calm and relaxed and easy. Or, I want to improve so slightly that I don't even notice it getting harder. Not this sudden death by pain thing. I haven't written about it here yet, but one of my exercise goals involves a running race. I am seriously questioning that now. Races are hard! You HAVE to push yourself. I don't know if I have that much character yet.

I took my measurements this morning:
Neck: 12.5"
Upper arm: 11"
Ribcage/chest: 27.5" (-1")
Waist: 27.5" (-0.5")
Hip: 37.75"
Thigh: 21.5" (-0.25")
Calf: 13" (+0.25")
Weight: ? (no scale)

That's very little change. I am surprised about the loss of 1 inch from my ribcage. I may have had some back fat that I am losing, or maybe I am just not measuring consistently. I expected and hoped to get bigger calves, since mine are like toothpicks. I expected to see a lot of changes to my hips/waist.

I guess the lack of loss means that I need to consider improving my diet for real, instead of just talking about it a lot. To this end, I brought only the following foods to work today: green smoothie, really raw almonds, an apple, a tortilla (white flour, unfortunately), and Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad. I am having S'mores tonight (at least 1) when we go up the canyon. My new goal, as of today, is to limit myself to 1 treat per day. So if I am having the S'more later, I won't have anything the rest of the day. That had better be a very good S'more!!

Food over the weekend was not the best* and since I've been eating this way all along, that likely explains the lack of inches lost:

Saturday: 1 piece pizza, a carmel, strawberries, 2 eggs, 2 toast, bite hot dog, green smoothie, 1/4 funnel cake, corn flakes/strawberries/bananas/milk, chocolate covered ice cream bar, 3 big pretzels, 7(!) Fudge Stripe cookies.
Sunday: 2 pretzels, 2 Fudge Stripe cookies, corn flakes/bananas/milk, chocolate truffle (300 calories), part hot dog + ketchup, rocky road ice cream, butternut squash chickpea salad, potato salad, BBQ chicken, potato/butter/sour cream, and green smoothie.

*I refuse to beat myself up over poor food choices or assign extremely negative words to them. I think that's far more unhealthy than just eating them and moving on, or eating them and enjoying it!