Day 29

Today is day 29 of the 90 day P90x routine.  It's been rough, it feels a lot like when I first started.  Well maybe not exactly like that.  I can get through the entire dvd which I couldn't the first time. 

I'm just frustrated that I have lost so much.  The definition I had in my muscles in June is almost all gone.  I'm thinking that I may need to add some more cardio.  I'm not ready to go back to doing the doubles routine, but maybe I'll try to ride the elliptical three or four times during the week. We'll see.  I really just want to get back to where I was.

Diet has been a struggle.  According to the P90x diet I should be eating around 2,400 calories a day.  I'm sure I do that sometimes, like when we are traveling and we eat out a bunch.  Most days though probably not.  Today I've decided to try to hit no less than 1,800 calories and actually track what I eat.  I've been very slack in watching what I'm eating.  Time to get focused. 

Water needs to became a bigger part of my day.  I'm trying hard to make sure I drink water all day but it's so much easier to grab a can of Diet Coke.  I know it's not good for me but it's my downfall.  I'm working on drinking more water and less Coke but it's a work in progress. 

"Enjoy the journey as much as the destination."

I'm trying to remember this as I keep pushing play each morning.  Frustration gets the best of me at times but I know that I'm in the best shape of my life.  I guess I just can't be satisfied with that.  Now I want lean, defined muscles.  I guess there are are worse things to obsess about.  At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Back At It

This week has been brutal.  Last Friday we left home and flew to New York to take our son Eric to school.  Monday we flew home.  Quick, emotional, stressful trip. 

Monday also marked day one of my return to P90x.  I took about three months off because I knew we would be very busy and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to stick with a schedule that was one hour a day, six days a week.  Boy am I paying for it now.

I am so tired and sore.  The tired part comes from the fact that Monday we got up at 2:30 am (our time) to get ready and leave for the airport.  We got home, shopped and came home.  That put my workout time at 5:30 pm.  Very, very long day.   Tuesday I was up at 4:00 am to work out and then we didn't get home till around 11:30 pm that night.  I did get some sleep in the car but it was still a long day.  Wednesday I just couldn't get up early and so I ended up working out at 7:30 pm.  But I was up this morning at 4:30 am to work out.  I am running on fumes. 

I could hardly move this morning.  Yoga only lasted about 45 minutes and there were some moves I couldn't do because my arms or legs were shaking.  All I can hope for is that next week will be better.

Some lessons are learned the hard way and this was one of them.  Next time I know my schedule will be extremely busy I will modify my workout routine so that I can continue my weight lifting.  The cardio hasn't been that tough but I also rode the elliptical off and on over these last three months.  Proof that doing something is always better than doing nothing at all.

I've set my calories to 2,000 which seems really high to me but so far I haven't had any trouble meeting the goal.  I can thank Costco and their muffins for helping me with that one.  Hopefully next week will be better for my eating habits as well as my exercise routine.

Making Some Changes

As you can see I've made some changes to my blog.  Why?  Well first of all I would like to post more consistantly.  I like to blog but lately I just haven't felt like posting any of my baking projects.  Which brings me to the other reason I made changes to my blog.  I would like to finish out 2012 focused more on diet and exercise than my baking.

I haven't stopped baking.  Now that we are settled I probably bake something once a week but it's just typical baking.  Breads, cookies, pies.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I will have a cake to make in the near future and when I do projects like that pictures will be posted.  But since those projects are so spread out I end up not blogging for months at a time.

Exercise on the other hand is something I try to do at least three times a week.  Beginning October 1 it will be six days a week because I'm starting my third round of P90x.  That is something I can post about daily.

Diet, now this is a struggle.  I'm not always very hungry which isn't a really good thing if you are exercising regularly.  You need food to give you the energy to get through a workout.  So I have two goals over the next few months.  One is to eat enough good food.  Not just eating because I'm supposed to but eating food that is good fuel for my workouts.  Second is cooking smaller amounts of food.  Very shortly our household will be back to two people.  I still haven't quite gotten used to cooking for less but it's time to cut that back.

I hope you all will share with me your diet and exercise tips and recipes you enjoy.  I'll make sure to do the same. 

Remember:

It's not a diet.  It's a Lifestyle.

Make Exercise Part of Your Routine.

Like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.

Don't even think about doing it.

Just Do It!

Anniversary Present

Our anniversary is in February and this year I was quite proud of the present I bought for Bob. It was two tickets to six Seattle Mariners baseball games. We aren't sneaky about presents. I asked him if the tickets were something he would like (dumb question I know) and he thought it was great. He picked the teams he wanted to see the Mariners play and I bought the tickets.

In return Bob asked me what I wanted and I couldn't come up with anything. I thought about getting a new set of workout videos, like P90X2 or Insanity but I really want to go through P90x a few times before I change my workout. No great ideas so I let it drop. Bob would bring it up every once in a while but I was still at a loss so I just ignored him. 

Then last week I got an idea. I added an app to my iPhone so I could count my calories.  I've lost my appetite over the last few months and haven't been eating very well.  The app was suppose to help me make sure I was eating enough.  One of the products the app syncs with is a FitBit.  It tracks steps, calories burned etc. and then the information can be uploaded in to the calorie counter.  That got me thinking and I started researching heart monitors.  They talk a lot about wearing heart monitors when you do some of the cardio in P90x and I have always wanted to know how many calories I actually burned when I work out.

I found a heart monitor that you can use with your iPhone or iPad that will record your heart rate and also your calories burned.  I decided that this is what I wanted for my anniversary present.  It arrived last Wednesday while we were gone taking Nick to the airport so I couldn't use it until Thursday. 

It works great!!!!  I really love it.  I found that my estimates for calories burned during some of my workouts were right on.  Others I was really under estimating.  Now I'm looking forward to my workouts even more than I did before.  Plus I find that I'm pushing myself more now that I can see the number of calories I'm burning.  In the last two days I've burned over 1,000 calories.  There's no way I would have estimated that. 

Such an awesome anniversary gift!!!  Good Job Bob!! :)

8 hour Eagle Scout Cake

Friday night was spent making an eagle scout cake for a young man in our Church.  I agreed to do the cake a few weeks ago and then managed to plan a trip to Portland the first two days of the week.  Not a problem except that I had to be in Portland Wednesday and Thursday as well.  I got home on Thursday afternoon exhausted which meant I only managed to make a few batches of fondant before falling into bed. 

That meant I had to make the cake, cool it, frost, cover and decorate it after work on Friday.

I left work just a bit early, went to the store and came home to get started.

The cake was red velvet and the frosting was cream cheese.  Very traditional.  The only problem is that traditional red velvet cake isn't as movable as a sponge cake.  Sponge gives some as you move it.  The red velvet did not.  It was a challenge.  Bob had to help me stack it and it was still pretty scary.  

But it worked.  

While the cakes were baking (I made three layers) I made two batches of the cream cheese frosting.  I figured I'd have a bunch left over but I didn't want to take any chances.  Good thing because I used it all.  It was a big cake.  Then I had to finish the fondant, roll it out and cut out the design. Bob helped make sure the design was scaled correctly and had the necessary details.  Nick helped as I rolled out the fondant to cover the cake.  It was a lot and it took all I had to get it rolled out.  

We finished up around 11:30 pm just in time to take it up to the Church so it would be there for the celebration on Saturday.  (There was a baseball game on Saturday and we had to leave town around 6:30 am so it had to be there before we left town).  Next time I will make sure I don't leave town the majority of the week I'm making a cake.  I didn't like the feeling of being rushed.

Side view before we added the border

 Not to bad for an 8 hour cake.

90 days complete...90 more to go

I never thought I would be able to say I completed 90 days of P90x but I did. We bought the DVD's last summer and I made it through maybe 30 days but I don't think it was that long. Away they went to the shelf where I sort of forgot about them. I did have a reminder though, a pull up bar in the doorway to my kitchen. Didn't motivate me to exercise, it was just there.

Fast forward to December. For some reason I decided I wanted to get into better shape. I think it was because my entire arm waved when I waved goodbye to someone. I'm not sure if that was really the reason, but I took the plunge and bought; yes paid money for, an app to track my P90x workouts. That became my big motivator. I wasn't going to spend money on an app and not use it. I really can't tell you why the dollars I spent on P90x wasn't enough to motivate me.

Last Saturday marked day 90. I only chose to workout 6 days a week and missed only 4 workouts over the 90 days. I take that as a good start. If I were a braver person I would post some pictures but I'm not so all you get are some words that describe my results.

I lost 6 pounds which isn't huge but since I didn't start this for weight loss I'm ok with it. I lost three inches in my waist and hips and two inches in my chest. My arm and leg measurements stayed the same but they are more toned than before so that's ok too.

Monday I began my second time through the system but this time I plan to follow the doubles workout plan. I've also started really watching the nutrition piece as well which I hope gives me better results than round one. Maybe then I'll be ready to post pictures.

Baby Shower Cake

I've been looking forward to making this cake ever since I was asked to do it.

There are some really cute baby shower cakes out there and there was one in particular that I wanted to make, but unless you have a baby shower to make it for you're out of luck. So, I filed it away as something to try if the opportunity arose. Well, the opportunity presented itself!!

The cake was vanilla sponge with strawberry mousse filling and vanilla butter cream frosting. I thought it tasted pretty good and got the thumbs up from the party goers so I think it was a hit. Here's pictures of the finished product.

The base was three layers. I wanted to make sure there was enough cake for everyone to have a decent size piece. I was happy to be working with fondant again. It turned out pretty good this time. That was nice, no fighting with getting the cakes covered.



The pregnant belly wasn't filled with mousse because I was afraid to cut it, fill it and try to get it stacked back like it should be so I just covered it with strawberry butter cream.

This was such a fun cake to make, I did stay up pretty late Friday night to get most of it done, but that's because we are in the middle of baseball season and my Saturday's are pretty much booked until May. Short of leveling the cake, I did this one all by myself. I don't think Bob's too upset about missing out on the fun.

Next 90 Days

This morning's workout marked day 81 of my P90x program. Just 9 more days and I'll have finished my first time through. So far I've only missed three workouts. Next go around I don't plan to miss any. It's been a challenge with the traveling I do, but I've figured out how to adapt and make my workouts a priority.

So to the point of this post. What next? I want to go through another round of P90x before I try something different. I can't decide between P90x2 or Insanity but that's another post at a later date.

There are three options with the P90x system. Classic, which is what I'm doing now. Lean, which is mostly cardio with some muscle building and Doubles, which is a mix of muscle building with extra cardio. This is the workout I'm leaning towards but it would mean working out twice some days. (Explains the name) Most of the time I don't think it will be a problem because I get up early to exercise so I will have the evening to add the extra cardio. Traveling has me a little worried though. I could just skip the extra cardio but that defeats the purpose of doing the doubles option.

Of course I wait until the last minute to think about this. I have one more week of set workouts. I want to make a decision and get everything line out so I don't miss a day. I don't want to get out of my routine. I'm afraid if I stop I won't start again.

What to do, what to do?

Belated Pictures

I realized that there were several pictures I hadn't posted of projects I worked on between September and today.

This is a picture of some of the goodies I made for Christmas....

And the wedding cake we made for the Jackson's. It was vanilla sponge with mixed berry filling and cream cheese frosting.

And finally the birthday cake I made for my co-worker's daughter. This one was vanilla sponge to but with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.





I made another cake but I didn't take any pictures of it because it wasn't covered in fondant, just frosted and I didn't like the way it looked so I didn't take pictures of it. It was lemon sponge with blueberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting. The taste was good, but I'm not a buttercream cake person. Give me fondant any day. I just couldn't get the buttercream smooth enough.

This weekend I'm making a baby shower cake. I'm pretty excited about the design. I'll post pictures when it's done. This one is vanilla sponge with strawberry mousse filling and vanilla buttercream.

I practiced using mousse this weekend. I made a chocolate sponge cake with peanut butter mousse on one half and oreo cookie mousse on the other half. I frosted the peanut butter side with peanut butter buttercream and the oreo half with chocolate buttercream. I over filled the cake with the mousse so it slid a little but I thought it tasted pretty good. I've added those recipes to my list of keepers.

Starting over

So it's been a while. Yes I know.

I don't like excuses so I'm not going to fill space with reasons why I haven't posted anything since September.

Today marks a new beginning. I've changed my blog some and I've decided to post more than just pictures of my baking projects. Those aren't going to stop though so don't worry.

(I'm pretty sure I heard some gasps, wait maybe that was me)

Over on my Facebook page I've been posting a lot about my exercise routine and the progress I'm making. I think that I'm going to start included those updates here in my blog since I have to exercise if I want to eat the stuff I bake.

I also need to be more consistent with my blog updates. So I'm putting it down in writing that I will update this blog no less than once a week. It's in print now so doesn't that make it gospel?

Join me on this baking/exercise journey. I'd love the company!!