Great success!

Woke up this morning after a highly successful day yesterday! On Monday, I had lots of issues with waiting around for the cable guy (long story short, I had to sit in my apartment for eight hours while they kept telling me he was on his way and not to leave) so I didn’t get to finish my arms workout at the gym, or go for a run. I made up for that yesterday by hitting the gym early to take care of some weight lifting, and I’m impressed with how much stronger I am already.

On the rowing machine, I can now sustain a level of rowing that equates to 900+ calories burned per hour. I wish I could put that effort into “distance per minute” terms, but I always forget to push the button to change the display to show distance before I start rowing, and then I don’t want to stop rowing to reach out and switch it.

On the triceps machine, I did 15 reps of 40 pounds, 15 reps of 50 pounds, and 15 reps of 40 pounds again. Last year, when I was at my fittest, I think the most I ever did was 30 pounds and I thought I was hot stuff for that.

My biceps and lats are still pretty weak, but I’m working on that. Still, I’m pretty proud of those strength gains in less than a week! Just goes to show what an intense schedule and regular exercise can do 🙂

On the food front, I did a pretty awesome job yesterday. For breakfast, I had an egg, a pear, and some steamed mixed veggies. For lunch, I treated myself to a falafel pita at Mamoun’s – but got it without the tahini sauce. I was pleasantly surprised that I actually liked it much better without the sauce – I could taste the flavors much more distinctly AND it didn’t drip all over me. I walked to a lot of my errands yesterday instead of taking the subway – I’d guess I walked about 3 miles in total. My errands included stocking up on healthy food at Trader Joe’s (lines were ridiculous – I think everyone else was taking advantage of vacation to stock up as well). I’m now set for meats and fish for a few months (I buy them cheap at TJ’s and then toss them in the freezer when I get home), as well as frozen veggies, so the only groceries I need to buy are perishables, which are pretty easy.

TJ’s is right next to a Tasti D Lite, but my new rules is that I won’t treat myself if I’m alone – there are plenty of opportunities to treat myself when I’m out with friends, and I’d rather indulge in the company of others so I don’t feel deprived. So no Tasti for me – I didn’t really need fro yo anyway.

My Hannukah party got cancelled because almost no one could make it, but my friend Josh came over for dinner and we caught up. I haven’t seen him in months, because he worked at Lehman in their investment banking division (which was crazy busy enough even before all the problems), and now works his tail off at Barclay’s trying to keep his job (110 hour work weeks are standard). However, with the slowdown of the holidays he’s working much shorter hours, so it was great to finally see him. I cooked dinner – Middle Eastern chicken pot with butter nut couscous – and kept myself super healthy by only eating the chicken/vegetables and not serving myself any of the butter nut couscous (I wasn’t that hungry anyway). With that and a few glasses of the delicious shiraz he brought over, I was set! For dessert, I defrosted and heated up the last of the leftover apple crisp from Thanksgiving, and gave that to him while I enjoyed a plain old apple, which was great. I really didn’t feel deprived at all, but I knew I had saved hundreds of calories just by avoiding the couscous and apple crisp.

As for my weight loss numbers:

Day 0 – Starting weight
Day 1 – Did not weigh in
Day 2 – Loss of 0.9%, cumulative loss of 0.9%
Day 3 – Loss of 0.5%, cumulative loss of 1.4%
Day 4 – Loss of 0.2%, cumulative loss of 1.5%
Day 5 – Loss of 0.3%, cumulative loss of 1.8%
Day 6 – Loss of 0.5%, cumulative loss of 2.3%

Looks like I’m on the right track! I miscalculated numbers before, but I’m shooting for a cumulative loss of 2.3%, which I think I can hit. However, we’ll see what damage New Year’s Eve does tonight…