Bed

Ok...Week 3 Day 2...and boy am I feeling it. I am so ridiculously tired today, that I can hardly function. I am definitely looking forward to getting my Lower Body Weight Training out of the way today at lunch so I can go home and crash after work. I've got to get more sleep, no matter what (a common theme in this blog it seems). Studies have shown that in order for your metabolism to keep humming along and for the muscles to repair and rebuild, that you must have 7-8 hours of sleep...8 being optimal. When you get 6 or less or even 9 or more (that's a lot of or's ), your metabolism basically comes to a screeching halt as your ghrelin (the hunger hormone) spikes to make you consume more calories. Your body thinks it needs more food to supply sufficient energy, thus you end up in a vicious cycle of not enough sleep and too much to eat. Ghrelin also spikes when your stressed due to our evolutionary make-up to the fight or flight tendencies, and I know that when I'm over tired, that it's easy for me to get over stressed. Thus, this girl needs to get some serious sleep.

Yesterday's guerilla cardio session was amazing....I ended up adding 4 more high intervals to my work-out, bringing my running up to 8.0 on the treadmill. I felt strong and I can tell my endurance is increasing...that's always exciting! As mentioned above, today is my Lower Body Weight Training which includes Abs...I look forward to this day as it only takes about 20 minutes or so in the gym where I can just hit it and go...it's almost like a day off ;) I also may be increasing weight today on some of my exercises, as I'm finding that I'm pushing through some of them too easily and I've got to keep challenging my muscles. Oh, as for stats, I'm down 8 lbs. since starting this program 2 weeks ago. My clothes fit much better and I'm feeling leaner...so far so good...the hard work is paying off.

On the opera side of things, I sang at an outreach concert last night with Opera Manhattan and it was a huge success. There were 3 other singers and we sang popular arias for a crowd of elderly folks who love opera...they were truly the best audience ever, and even sang along at some points. Its so nice to sing for such an appreciative and supportive group. We all had so much fun that we can't wait to go back and sing for them again.

Not much to say in the way of inspirational thoughts today...but that's my brain in a nutshell at the moment. It's hard to be clever when you can barely see straight. (I'm being a bit dramatic, but you get the gist).

Have a great day,
-Bex