DAY 24: Promised Land of Fruits 'n Pasta / Rest = Muscle Building

Maybe P90x estimated it right. That one would not be able to complete the whole 90 days of intense workout without some break here and there. As week 3 is underway, I can't help but feel more and more tired. Although I decided to take a day's break, my recovery's taking more time. My legs by the ways a very SLOOOWLY getting better and it's somewhat pissing me off since I really fell in love with running – so liberating, so kiddish and invigorating... I only was able to walk Karly for 15minutes yesterday. Didn't wanna over do it. Walking won't put any strain on my legs and I could build back to an hour which is perfect for his daily walk. I know walking wouldn't shed any calories or higher my metabolism, but it's at least some extra exercise that I could do. Interval Running would have to wait a bit more.

Crescent, Warrior and plank postures, and some Yoga postures covered in P90X's Yoga X.

I started the Yunis diet! I'm on open meat, pasta, fruit, vegetables and white cheeses this week. Of course with specific combinations and gobbled down 2 big bowls of pasta and eggplant for lunch, and litterally ate A BOWL OF FRUIT at around 5ish, as some friends and I visited an amazing Arabic restaurant in Brummana. It was kinda annoying when everyone ordered Makanik (Armenian sausages), chicken liver with molasses (Kassbeh w debs el remman) and a LOT of bzourat, Grilled meat, Kafta, Taouk, Hummus and Tabbouleh... But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do... I do have open meat but it wasn't on that day – actually I had made my choice with the pasta, little did I know we were gonna go full-fledged Arabic that day.

Anywho ... with all that food I ate, full of carbs (fruit, pasta) – but with no protein shakes – I still expected to train hard. But that was not the case AT ALL. I had Yoga X that day. A lot of core work, still relatively easy though. 10minutes into the program, I paused the vid once. I couldn't hold myself in Plank (push up) position for more than 20 seconds; believe me, the other yoga positions weren't easier. I still cranked myself up and tried to continue, but once I had to lift my feet up in the air, or hold specific positions like Warrior and Crescent pose, that's where I dropped the ball.

 I paused the vid and lay down on the mat to take a break... and suddenly opened my eyes a couple of HOURS after! Sara woke me up to go to bed, I was exhausted again. It must have been the Chest/Back workout from the day before with all those push ups and chin ups. It was probably normal. I had made one mistake though, I forgot to supplement the diet with spoonfuls of Honey, to keep the energy going. As I told you yesterday, some honey mixed with water could work as a recovery drink (although I wouldn't use it in extremely intense training still), but I guess I could've tried it for Yoga. Oh well. I'm just gonna listen to my body and do it today instead (Day 25). One thing I learned from all of this is to "Pace myself and wait to recover"; always better than completely getting exhausted and ending up sleeping for the next 2 days ... It's a fact that muscles (any tissue) recovers and strengthens as you're resting. Plus, if you train muscle groups intensely, you'd peak up your metabolism which actually makes you lose fat as you're taking a break or sleeping! Rest is crucial for better development.

I know time is precious. I've only got 40 days left and it even seemed to me at some point that I have to kill myself to get there, but resting is even more efficient than over-doing it and that's what I'm going to force myself to do – from time to time.

Check this article on muscle recovery.
(To take it further, you could also read this article which gives good tips for building muscle , concepts that I'm following in this journey. Enumerates them clearly, point by point.

I'm gonna eat well today and prepare for a compensating kick-ass Yoga X session! Oh it will be grand!
I'll let you know tomorrow.



HAOUUUU!