Damn You Stupid F'n Orange Chicken

I live right next door to a Panda Express. And every now and again the orange chicken calls my name. I hear it. It beckons me over. And within 10 minutes I have an order of double orange chicken and some other crappy sides and the world's largest diet coke that I'm dropping into my body. And then within 10 minutes after that, I almost always feel like crap. Weird. I wonder why. BECAUSE IT IS CRAP. But it tastes soooo good sometimes.

That's what happened this afternoon. Less than three hours before my session with Britt, I walked over to Panda (it was calling my name, I had no choice), loaded up on crap, finished working and then went to get my ass kicked.

And holy crap, did I get it kicked HARD. Today's workout really winded me. My heart rate was consistently high. In fact, it reached over 180 at a few different points during the workout- 183 to be exact. Which I proudly told Britt, hoping it was a good excuse to slow down. But no, that did not work. My average HR was 153. Gone are the days when I look down sadly at my heart rate monitor wondering if the thing is even working. It's working. And so is my heart apparently.

More than a few times throughout the workout, when I was struggling and wanting to give up, I just kept repeating "damn you stupid f'n orange chicken" and powered through. If I felt it was necessary to trash my body with that crappy food, I sure as hell was going to work even harder during my workout and that's exactly what I did.

Here was the kick-ass workout I did despite the shit sitting in my belly (and sometimes right at the back of my throat):

Set 1-
lateral bench step-ups with 10 lbs weights in each hand- when I powered myself up to the top of the bench, I had to lift my knee up. This was really difficult, but I managed to work through three sets of 15.

So imagine that image above, but with weights and a knee lift to top if off.

low to high cable wood chops


ankle band walk- as many as I could do in a minute (my butt was burning!)


ab exercise- you get in the push up position on an exercise bench. instead of doing push-ups though, you take your left hand and come down onto the arm (as if you were going into plank) and do the same with the right arm. then you come back up onto your hands one at a time. do this rep 10 times on each side.

Set 2-

lateral shuffles into medicine ball high to low twist thingys- shuffle down, do 10 twist thingys, shuffle back, do 10 twist thingys, shuffle down, do 5 twist thingys, shuffle back, do 5 twist thingys, shuffle down, shuffle back.

barbell curl into overhead press



single leg/arm balances


knee touches (or something like that) on the bosu ball
10 with the knee moving towards your head
5 with the knee moving across your body toward the opposite shoulder
5 with the knee going out (like you're a frog or something)

I could only find one picture. Note the bosu ball is upside down and I not only have to do this difficult ab exercise, but I have to balance too!

By the time I was done with the workout, I had to lay on the ground for a good minute or so to just try and catch my breath. Britt told me it was a great workout and that on top of it being a lot of weight, it was also an endurance day.

As an aside, while I was warming up, E! was on one of the TVs and I was watching one of the gossip shows and saw Guiliana Rancic on the TV. I look straight ahead and see Guiliana Rancic in the gym, about 30 feet in front of me working out on a some machine. When I went to meet up with Britt, I saw Guiliana waiting patiently while her husband Bill Rancic got a chair massage outside an exercise room.

Anyway...tomorrow starts the Game On Diet. I'm nervous and anxious and really looking forward to the amazing change this is going to kick start.

For my old habit I'm going to drop for the next 28 days, I'm eliminating all online gossip websites. No People, Perez Hilton, Just Jared, TV Guide.com, E! Online, Entertainment Weekly, no TV show spoilers...nothing! I've deleted all these sites from my saved bookmarks and made my last sweep through them tonight. Why I give a shit about any of this celebrity crap is beyond me. I guess it's a nice distraction from everyday life. And sometimes it's interesting. Although this is, sadly, going to be a challenge for me, I'm excited to get that much of my life back and focus that time and energy on being productive and thinking about myself, my family and my friends.

The new habit I'm introducing is to write in my journal at least once a day. I started a journal the first day of my senior year of high school and have filled most of 15 journals since then. I've been working on my 16th one for several years at this point. I have always loved writing. I have always loved having a journal. Although, at times, reading back through my journal has been a body cringing experience, I'm grateful to have these memories from times I barely remember. As my sister Kara once said about her own diary entries, I've disassociated myself with this lovable loser who posted about crazy things that mattered back when I was a senior in high school. But I also recognize that lovable loser who wrote cringe worthy things, is part of who I am today. And I need to be okay with that. (I'm working on being kinder to myself, can you tell?) So yes, I'm writing in my journal every day and I'm looking forward to it.

I'll write more about the Game On tomorrow. For now I need to get my sleep on.