Killer pilates

Brian gave me the "maximum burn" pilates DVD's for Christmas. I already had the MB Basics, which is a really nice workout--challenging, but not impossible. And over the break I did the MB 20 minute workout, which was just kind of odd--the pace was easy but some of the moves were more difficult. Last night I tried the third in the series--Maximum Burn Advanced Super Sculpting and Body Slimming. Or something. It was 50 minutes of hell. First of all, it was non-stop--she warns at the beginning that you should already be familiar with pilates before doing this because there's very little cueing. And while most of the moves were familiar, there were a lot of new ones that were insanely difficult, including I think four variations of the Teaser, which I still have difficulties doing at the most basic level, and something called the Swan Dive that I don't think any real person could do. And lots of push-up type things that I can't do even when I'm refreshed and rested. And after 20 Criss-Crosses (10 slow, 10 fast, and I hate every one of them) she introduces the *advanced* criss-cross that involves swinging your body over from side to side on your stomach. It was also 50 minutes, not the 45 the back of the box says (although in small print it does say the running time is 55 minutes) so when the 45 minute mark came and I was exhausted and shaky and it DIDN'T END I thought I had entered the twilight zone where I just had to keep exercising until my body collapsed. Five minutes is a long time when you had mentally budgeted your strength to last 45 minutes!

OK, so I exercised last night. And after finishing it and not being able to do a bunch of the moves, I had to remind myself that in September I felt the same way about the simple 20 minute workout that I now consider an easy workout for days that I'm not feeling up to much of anything.

Food yesterday was good for the most part--cereal for breakfast, almonds for snack, a modified Nicoise salad for lunch (Brian made it with leftover black eyed peas instead of potatoes and asparagus instead of green beans and it was really yummy, plus high protein and fiber and low fat with lots of vegetables), string cheese for afternoon snack, then a McDonalds grilled chicken salad for dinner with lowfat balsamic vinagrette dressing. I pilfered some of Connor's fries at dinner, and after the killer pilates workout I ate a couple dozen of the Bottle Caps that Katie gave me for Christmas--that was about 200 calories I really didn't need, but I was actually low on carbs yesterday for a change and I think I just needed to replenish sugar after working myself to the point of shaky muscles. I know, there's healthier ways of doing that, but the Bottle Caps were there and no one else was going to eat them!