P90X pre day 1

Before I began P90X, I went through the diet book and studied all the recipes. I made a master list of all the items needed to buy at the store with quantities. Some of the recipes are for multiple servings, so I calculated how much I needed to get for 2 servings, for myself and my partner. This was very overwhelming but I reminded myself that this is a new way of eating and a new way of living, so it is time to stretch myself. I began getting excited about cooking new things and trying new recipes. I never really cooked much and if I did, it was the basics like pasta, mac n cheese, toast, Eggo waffles, scrambled eggs. Not much cooking involved. There are soups, sauces, salads, and main dishes in the P90X recipe book. I realized that we could buy what we needed for 3 weeks (phase 1: fat shreader phase) for some items and not for others. For example, soups and sauces can be frozen and lettuce would go bad. I had it my head that we would prepare for beginning P90X (fear of starting I guess - being locked into this program) by cooking for a whole weekend and prepare all the food for 3 weeks, seperating out all the meals with the portions and freeze them all so we never have to cook again for 3 weeks. All of these thoughts become overwhelming and I realized that we just need to start. So we went to the grocery store (actually 2 stores as one didn't have everything) and we bought what we needed for 1 week worth of supplies. That was plenty, we filled the baskets, there would not have been room for more than 1 week's worth of food in the house! The decision was, if we needed anything, we would hit the grocery store in the middle of the week if we needed to for the couple of items we run out of or need. For some reason, this decision was anxiety producing for me at first but I gave in. I had this perfect image of being able to go to the freezer, pull out my meal for the morning, noon, or night, pop it in the microwave and go. I have since realized that this is just not realistic and I am learning life changing things here. I can cook a recipe and if it needed a slight adjustment, like less cooking time on the Lemon-Dill sauce, or more salt or something in the Butternut Squash Soup, then we could experiment with making adjustments during week 2 when we have to make the recipes again, as the diet plan for weeks 2 and 3 are almost identical. Now, I have switched my thinking to excitement to get the practice to make recipes again. Now, it still holds true that items can be made in advance like when I know I will be away from my kitchen all day the next day, I can make everything for the next day, pack it up in tupperware and take it with me. This seems to be comforting to know that I have that option. Also, soups and sauces can be made for the week in advance if I want to too. I didn't need to pressure myself to make 3 weeks worth. When it comes down to it, I knew before I started that if I am going to do this P90X thing, that I want to follow the diet and not stray. So some items like cookies have gone to the neighbors ASAP to avoid temptation. So, without any more excuses, we started cooking and I figured, we will learn as we go. I will update my experiences here about the diet and cooking.

We watched the entire Day 1 exercise DVD the day before we started, so that we would have an idea of what we were in for and how we would prepare. We had one exercise band and were trying to figure out where we would secure it. So we decided we would throw it over the shower frame and do those exercises in the bathroom and pause the DVD when we go do that. We knew from watching the video that we were in for it, but watching those fit bodies on the screen, I knew I was ready. Plus the excitement of making new foods in combination with the exercise was very exciting. Our living room is not the biggest, but the DVD shows they are sensitive to the limited space. It is easy to just push the coffee table out of the way and just go!