Phase 2.

Here I am! I made it all the way to the second phase of this 12 week program. This phase has harder weight lifting exercises and an added 30 minutes of cardio afterward. I did it for the first time last night and it wasn't so bad. Luckily I don't have to do the cardio on leg days...But since you have to do cardio 4 times week - there's only one rest day per week. It's just 4 weeks so I can definitely do this. It's going to take a lot of diligence and persistence mentally to make these hour and a half or more visits to the gym 6 times a week....

The gym is an interesting place. In between sets people are just sitting around doing nothing. Well, nothing is when you try to pretend you aren't looking at the other people in the gym. What else is there to do? When I got to the cardio portion of last night's workout one of the guys in the gym came up to me and said "You're a machine - you know that?" I didn't respond but I looked over at the man on the elliptical next to me and he was also confused by that statement. I'm glad someone else heard it too. I didn't think I was doing anything spectacular...what an interesting place. Since I've been going for over a month pretty consistently, I'm learning the traffic and some of the people. The gym is like a little community. I've even been given a few tips when my form was off - which I don't mind at all. I'm doing all this by myself so it helps to know when you need to adjust. I don't want to do all this work and do it wrong. I want results!

The diet is pretty similar to phase one. I just have to flip the "dinner meal" of 6 oz meat plus one starch and veggies to a mid-afternoon snack and then eat the meatloaf muffins around dinner time instead. We're "phasing out" carbs earlier in the day. I don't really mind that much. I realized I was accidentally eating a gluten free diet for a month since I was eating brown rice or sweet potatoes with all my meals. Oops. 

I'm off to the gym for my second day of the double workout... Chest, Abs and Cardio...Let's do this!