I Am Changing.

I swear I titled this post before finding this video and did not title it just as an excuse to post a Jennifer Hudson video.

But seriously how wonderful is she? SING IT, GIRL.

I know that I'm supposed to find strength within myself and all of that business, but sometimes I just need a little validation, alright? My big struggle in this chapter of the Former Fatties has not been staying vigilant. It has been the fact that I've been more vigilant than ever - and not really having too much trouble with that - and yet the scale stays the same. Everyone and their nutritionist can tell me that the scale doesn't matter at this point, but I can only run on faith for so long. I was beginning to need proof.

And then last night I video chatted with my friend Laura, who is currently on the road being famous, and one of the first things she said was, "You look thin. In your face! Your jawline!" I admit that when I first came up on the video chat screen, I thought the same thing myself, but I just dismissed it as craziness on my behalf. Hearing it coming from someone else, unprompted, was really what I needed to keep going at this point. This hasn't been all for nothing. In fact, I've noticeably changed my appearance in just a few weeks.

I've changed more than just physically. Mentally, I've gone from dreading working out to never really feeling like I've worked out enough. And I don't think I mean that in the distorted-body-image way. I mean that I've gotten fit enough that if I work out in the morning, I don't even have that "I worked out today" feeling at the end of the day. And I want to get it back.

And so we now enter my first "recovery week." Recovery weeks are built into both P90X and Insanity. They involve less super-intense cardio and weight training, and more yoga, core work, and stretching. The idea is to give your body a chance to catch up. The old me used use Recovery week as an excuse to only really do any exercise maybe one day in the entire week, and then fall out of the program entirely. Now, I worry that I'm going to get anxious for not working out enough. I never give these types of workout enough credit though until I actually do them and find them more challenging than any of my various jump-and-do-pushups DVDs.

And then after this week...I get to start TWO-A-DAYS! This means that I'll do one type of workout in the morning and a different type in the evening several days a week. YAAAAAAAAY!

OK who am I?