Still Going Strong

This is week 4 and I'm still going strong in the gym. Yesterday, I had an awesome workout which started with an endurance spinning class. For those of you who know spinning, endurance is the one where you pretty much sit your arse down on the bike for the entire 45 minutes. It's really a great fat burning class and builds your cardio base. I prefer interval and strength classes because I get to get up and simulate hill climbs and it's not as butt numbing, but endurance is good because it forces me to be disciplined in a different way by staying in that seat.

After spinning, I did a great upper body workout. I was totally stoked because I was working out to my favourite tunes on my new IPod shuffle. Wahoo!!!! My husband gave me that as my birthday gift this past weekend (nope, it wasn't personal training lessons as I had thought, but it was still pretty damn good if you ask me!). Before this, I didn't have any kind of portable music player that I could bring to the gym and I have to say, somehow, having my own music made me feel like I was more in my own world and that made me super focused on my workout. Nothing like a little Aerosmith, Collective Soul, Pearl Jam and selected others to help me get my gym groove on! I got some great assisted pull ups in (still working at 40lbs assistance but I'm planning to reduce that soon) and I did chest, biceps and triceps. Some other gym goodies that I got for my birthday this past weekend were weight gloves and some chocolate flavoured whey protein powder. I think it's really cool that my families are recognizing and actively supporting what I am trying to do, and their gift choices prove it. I got some other great non-gym related stuff too :)

The eating has been pretty good overall, but there are still some changes I have to make. Why are sweets so damned addictive? I'm sure I've said it before, but I believe that sugar is as addictive as any drug out there. I have definitely been better in the sweets department but those cravings just don't go away. It does feel good though when I can discipline myself to "just say no" and it makes it a little easier the next time. My latest "better for me than chocolate" concoction has been plain low fat yogurt with a teaspoon of vanilla and either fresh strawberries or a low-fat crunchy granola bar mixed in with it. Yummy! If any of you guys have some tried and true sweets replacements that are working for you, I would love to hear about them.

So all in all, some good progress I think. I have been getting some comments that I look like I am slimming down, so that's good news. I think I will have to take some photos again, probably after week 6, so that I can compare them with my before shots. I just hope I will notice the differences too. Ok, off to do some marking (statistics assignments for the class I TA at the university....yipee!) and then off to bed.