Bulk Cooking for the Week and Body By Design

Yesterday I went to Costco to get groceries for the next few weeks. Costco has the best prices for organic chicken, ground turkey, frozen fish, organic produce, quinoa and eggs. As I've preached before, preparedness is the key to staying on track with a fitness plan, and so for me, buying in bulk and then making meals in advance is the difference between failing or thriving.

Today I staying in and did chores around the house. Listened to music and cooked up food for the next few days. Here's what I made today:

• Baked sweet potato cubes (EVOO, crushed red pepper, salt, cinnamon)
• Quinoa Bakes - an awesome recipe I found here. Great 10:00 AM snack.
• Turkey Meatballs (adapted from this) 
• Roasted asparagus

Quinoa Bakes with a ration of three berries each.

Turkey meat, spices, egg, oats, veggies, pre-mixing. Hand mixing grosses me out but it is a task which must be done. 

Turkey Meatballs, served with spinach, and a bit of sweet potato and leftover quinoa salad. BOOM!

I'm on day six of Chris Gethin's Body By Design program. This is a 12 week program and the same program I attempted earlier this year. I made it to week seven at that time, before things in my personal life got hectic (relationship break-up and subsequent move into my own place) and I soothed myself with socializing and libations rather than sticking to the plan.

The Body by Design plan mixes twice-a-day cardio sessions with three different phases of lifting. These first four weeks are really pretty basic, except that he has you do 15 reps which is fairly high for most lifting programs. It is difficult to select the correct weight for fifteen reps, I tend to pick to high. I can't wait until Phase 2, (weeks 6-8) because that is when you get to do squats and deadlifts. love Love LOVE!  By the third phase, (weeks 9-12) I'll be doing super sets. I never made it that far last time, so we shall see how that goes. 

I should finish my 12th week of the program Thanksgiving week, which is perfect. I am trying to decide what to do for December. I think I will just make up my own thing for those few weeks. I'll be in Utah for a week over Christmas, and besides that, it will be good to start another 12 week plan the first week in January so it will end on my 29th Birthday at the end of March.

It is September 9th, and fall is definitely on the way. The night have become much cooler, and the air is starting to get that fall smell. I love running in the autumn time. Which reminds me, I have to be up at 6:30 in the morning to jog before work. Then I come home a jog after, woohoo!