Sunday Funday: Week 19 Review

I suppose this is the Thanksgiving edition of my weekly review, eh?  It’s been a weird week, with having the one day off in the middle of everything.  While I prefer the weeks with the days off and such, it’ll also be nice to get back to normal for a few weeks before the Christmas holidays come around in earnest.

Measurements:
Weight is a tick down, measurements were pretty much the same.  Things were going well and then I hit the Thanksgiving roadblock.  That’s okay — nothing went UP so I’ll take it.  Now’s the time to get serious, though, before all the good holiday food starts popping up left and right.

Workouts:
We got a new set of workouts which are different from what we’ve had so far.  This time around the workouts are set up as more of a progression — each week we are supposed to try and lift more in fewer reps to build strength. Personally, I’m a person who likes to push heavy stuff around, so I like those kinds of sets (of course, my lower back isn’t such a fan, though).  And the interval workouts up the ante as well:  a full minute of work with only a minute of recovery (see what I did there?).

Primal Experiment:
This has been okay.  For the first part of the week, I was really good.  Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been mostly good.  My roommate got a Belgium waffle maker at a black Friday sale and what can I say — it’d be rude not to eat what she’s cooking, right?  But really, aside from that, I’ve been pretty on target.  I think this is really going to help kick start some weight loss. 

I’m also considering tossing in another aspect of Primal — intermittent fasting (IF) — where you fast anywhere from 16 to 24 or 36 hours, but otherwise take in as many calories as you usually would.  IF has a lot of anecdotal evidence that it does a lot of good things for you, both physical and mental.  LE’s take on IF is here  — John Beradi, the top dog of Precision Nutrition, is a proponent of IF, though he says it’s just another tool that may or may not work for people. So – I’m curious.  More on this later.

Habits:
This week started a new habit of not drinking calories.  Aside from a few glasses of wine with Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve been good about this.  The next step will be seeing if I can ditch my morning Diet Pepsi to see if that plays a role in the sugar/carb cravings I still seem to be having.

Habit Log:
Weeks 1-2: Fish oil and probiotic
Weeks 3-4: Eating slowly
Weeks 5-6: Stop eating at 80% full
Weeks 7-8: Lean protein with every meal
Weeks 9-10: 5 servings of vegetables a day
Weeks 11-12: Make smart carb choices
Weeks 13-14: Plan MealsWeeks 15-16: Log all food
Weeks 17-18: Create a sleep ritual