Week 4 begins

This is the 4th week of my new life as a commuter. Wow, already? I can proudly say that I have successfully packed my lunch every day. I'm becoming a prep master and crockpot queen. Meal planning has made my life so much easier and I feel accomplished with all the new recipes I'm trying. I timed myself doing prep this week. It took me a little over an hour to shop and about 2 hours to prep. Meal planning is usually an all week thing as I scan Pinterest for recipes to try, but the actually writing out takes less than an hour. So let's say 4 hours and I have meals for 7 days. How amazing is that?

I have variety. No cooking during the week. I'm satisfied. And less stress! I finally found a way that keeps me happy. And, I'm freezing some meals as well for the weekends I'm off traveling. I seriously wish I had a standalone freezer...sigh apartment living.... 

My workouts? Have been full of variety as well. I take classes at the Novartis gym, do videos from my trainer, lift at LA fitness, yoga, and walking everyday. I really gave up on following some sort of schedule because it honestly stressed me out more when I missed what was on the schedule. My motto now is get in some type of workout right after work. I need to move and sweat, when I get to a point where that no longer works, then I'll rethink it. I honestly think all the variety helps me build a stronger body since I'm not working the same muscles all the time. And by the end of the week, my body is toast and I hurt in places where I didn't know muscles exist!. I'm happy to report my calf is fully healed, so I'm going to try to ease in some running here and there. 

I've also learned the importance of rest. When I'm tired, I back off for an "easier" workout like yoga or a walk. Actually, I'd like to retract that, yoga is not easy, it just forces your mind to control your body in a different way. Trust me, I'm still sore after yoga, but it's a rest from the high intensity classes. I hope this leads to less injuries for me. 

So what's next? The body fat bet is still going strong. We've missed each other on weekends due to schedules, but I will have an updated number this weekend. I've also joined another challenge my trainer is doing. This one is 6 weeks and started today. I'm ready to rock this one out and hopefully win again ;) 

I'm struggling with not knowing. I have not been weighing myself and the body fat monitor takes another set of hands to push start. Plus weight is not entirely indicative of body fat. I have been lifting heavy and pushing myself on the cardio, starting to notice small improvements like not completely dying on the last 5 minutes of the stair master ( I know it means I need to bump the level up shhh!) and push-ups are starting to feel like I'm actually doing them correctly. So I'm working on that being enough and focusing on being consistent with the habits. Because this is the point where I would second guess myself and start trying to tweak things instead of waiting. I know the body never does what we want it to when we want it to and it'll release fat when it decides to. I have to wait it out and see what's on the other side.