JCore Day 4

Hello there, pals and gals.  I meant to post this last night but I totally fell asleep in the middle of writing.  Here's how Day 4 went:

The Workout

Today was an off day, so I didn't do a JCore workout.  I did go to TRX class this afternoon, though, which was really good.

The Food

Pre- Breakfast:  I was extra hungry this morning so I grabbed a latte before work:

Breakfast:  Egg whites and avocado.

This is a recipe I found in Martha Stewart's Power Foods cookbook.  It looks weird, but it's totally delicious.  I added salt and pepper and onion powder and garlic powder and it was great.  I made the eggs using these cool thingos I found at the convenience store:

www.geteggiestv.com

These are cool because I can use them to make hard-boiled egg whites!  They are a bit difficult to clean, though, little bits of egg kind of get everywhere.  It would be better if I had a dishwasher, but alas.  I also had some blueberries:

But I was full from the eggs so I saved them for later.



Snack 1:  Greek yogurt with strawberries and cereal.

This was okay, but not particularly awesome.  I usually eat Greek yogurt with honey or maple syrup, and the strawberries weren't really sweet enough to make up for the lack of these things.  The cereal I used is like the Safeway version of Kashi GoLean, I think.  Also, can we just take a moment to think about how much more delicious 2% Greek yogurt is than 0%?  Just contemplate that for a second.......alright, great.


Lunch:  Sweet potato with chicken, black beans, and feta.

This was great and probably the best lunch I've eaten this week.  I love sweet potatoes so much.  I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that they're probably the best orange vegetable.


Snack 2:  Cucumber and hummus.

Easy.


The Dinner Ordeal:  Salad with chicken, currant tomatoes, butternut squash, and Caesar dressing.  I forgot to take a picture because I was too busy trying to be finished with eating it.  Here's the deal:

I grabbed this kit specifically for the cracked black pepper sauce, because I love things that are black pepper flavor.  For super serious if something says that it's black pepper flavored I will more likely than not buy it.  I legit just bought some black pepper flavored string cheese from Target today.  You're supposed to cook up your chicken, pour on the sauce and let it cook a little more, and then serve it with a salad topped with the accompanying dressing.  Here's the thing, though - as soon as I poured the sauce over the chicken in  the skillet the kitchen started to smell like church.  Specifically the part of church where the priest or whoever does his thing with the incense burner.  As you may imagine, that's not really a smell that you want to associate with something you plan on ingesting.  I kept hoping that it would get better, but it really didn't.  When I finally tasted it, it was very sharp and very spicy, with an almost bitter aftertaste.  I didn't like it.  I thought it was pretty terrible, in fact, and considered throwing it out and eating something else.

What saved it was the Caesar dressing.  The flavor of the dressing covered the flavor of the sauce enough to make the chicken bearable.  Still, it wasn't the greatest-tasting thing I've ever had.  A little later I had one of my new string cheese so that I would have a better pepper-flavored-item experience:

It was great :).

The JCore nutrition plan is really reminding me of the P90X portion plan in that each day you can have a certain number of servings of different food groups.  I’m starting to remember that I was having difficulty with getting in all of my protein servings with P90X, a problem that I’m having now as well.  The JCore guide book says that you can adjust your daily calorie limit up or down by adding or taking away a serving of a food group (except for fruit, for which you’re supposed to stay within the assigned limits).  I have decided to decrease my protein servings but I’m still having trouble getting enough, and often end the day with a serving or two still missing (or, as often as possible considering that I've only been doing this since Monday).  One thing I really like about the JCore program vs. P90X is that here dairy products are included in the protein group, whereas with P90X dairy was its own group.  This means that I can, and absolutely do, use things like milk and cheese and yogurt to help meet my protein requirements. 

Another thing I’m starting to remember is how expensive it can be to try to eat all of this protein daily.  Although I am getting a fair amount from milk and cottage cheese, I’m still going through a lot of meat (mostly chicken so far).  While I was doing P90X I had started to look into protein shakes as a substitute.  The problem is I don’t really love protein shakes.  That is to say, there are some out there that are pretty good, but in my experience they tend to be the ones that are also full of sugar.  For the rest, the best I’ve been able to say so far is something like, “Oh, this one’s not bad for a protein shake…”  On the other hand, I also don’t particularly like having a hunk of meat as my afternoon snack.  The JCore guide doesn't mention protein powder on the list of recommended protein sources, but I figure if I had a shake it would be sort of like if I were buying the Body-Lite shakes.  I don’t know, I’ll think about it.