Thoughts: Have you ever woken up in the morning and just felt strong, alert, and generally ready to kick butt at the gym?

That was how I felt today. I’m still getting up automatically right before 5 am because of the recent time change, so I feel like I have all the time in the world to get my workouts done in the gym these days.

I actually did my LL mini-goal push-ups between Body-for-Life lower body workout sets this morning, 20 at a time. It was a nice alternative to sitting on a bench with a bovine, vacant look on my face or pacing aimlessly around like the guys on the free weight floor with me.

I also discovered something funny about my brain and running–I start to get lazy and discouraged if I just pay attention to time, but if I set a distance goal for a certain amount of time, I will do whatever it takes to hit it. For example, today I was slacking off with a planned 20 minutes of treadmill time at a very tedious and slow 5.2 mph. I ran for around 10 minutes at this pace without much effort, but even though I didn’t feel out of breath or tired, I still wanted to quit out of sheer boredom. Thinking about the additional 10 minutes of jogging I’d have to do just made me want to stop. But then I took a look at the pathetic 0.8 miles I had covered and suddenly I WANTED to run faster. There was no way I was going to spend 20 minutes on the stupid treadmill without covering at least 2 miles. So off I went at 6.5-8 mph for the rest of the run.

So much for moderate, steady-state. I think I must be nuts sometimes.

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Nutrition (1200-1400 calorie low zigzag day)
1: Egg white and veggie pita (1/2 scoop whey with Creastack)
2: Thai chicken salad with apple
3: Strawberry walnut bar
4: Cottage cheese with spiced apples
5: Chopped BBQ chicken salad
6: Cottage cheese with strawberries

Supplements:
Multivitamin with iron
Calcium 500 + D
1 T. flax seed oil
1/2 t. GNC Creastack

Calories eaten and deficit for yesterday = 1305 / -1222 (target -700)
Water: 16 cups
Ratios: 44% carb / 41% protein / 15% fat

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Workout: (Another “insane amount of exercise” day)
7:00 am UBWO + Holiday challenge 20s + LL push-ups
8:00 am steady state elliptical (30 minutes)
8:30 am steady state run (5.2 mph-6.7 mph / 0% incline / 20 minutes)
3:00 pm walk (4.0 mph / 15 minutes)
8:00 pm OARS lower body and optional Ab Boot Camp

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The Awful Truth:
1. Didn’t get holiday challenge done yesterday. Fell asleep early!

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Brownie Points:
1. 100% workout attendance since May 31, 2004!
2. Got everything but the lower body OARS stuff done at the gym this morning.

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Short-term Goals:
1. Clean the apartment.
2. Do the laundry.
3. Go grocery shopping for potluck karaoke night tomorrow.
4. Do some cooking.
5. Take some pictures Saturday morning.
6. Avoid overly-salty foods today so I won’t look like I swallowed a blowfish in my photos tomorrow.