Almond Milk: a few reviews

Hi All,


So as most of you know I've been experimenting with a rather stringent diet regimen lately that includes the restriction of "no dairy."  Sadly dairy is one of my favorite things since I love cereal, but I have been tiptoeing into the waters of almond milk recently.


As a general note, almond milk holds WAY more promise for me than any other dairy substitute I've tried.  Store-bought coconut milk is too thin and has an almost medicinal taste, soy milk tastes indescribably "off" to me, and rice milk tastes almost burnt.  Almond milk, however, is by far the closest non-dairy substitute I've found for actual cow's milk (at least skim).


A few mini-reviews:

• Trader Joe's Unsweetened Organic Almond Milk
• Solid choice.  A little thinner than cow's milk, but very close to skim milk.  The only real differentiation is that it has a somewhat toasted flavor to it, although it's not really off-putting and certainly isn't noticeable in a bowl of cereal.  There's also traces of what I can only assume is some sort of almond sediment.  Make sure you shake this up.
• Trader Joe's Vanilla Organic Almond Milk
• Not terrible, but this stuff is pretty dang sweet (and it's quite an "odd" sweetness at that)!  Not my cup of tea at all.  
• SILK Unsweetened Almond Milk
• I had already tried SILK's chocolate almond milk before, so I had a good feeling about this.  Easily the closest approximation of true skim milk in the bunch (both in terms of consistency and taste): highly recommended. 

Insanity Day 13: Pure Cardio (ugh, take this out of the rotation!)

Ok first of all, today was the big 2-9 on the 'ol birthday meter!  And what better way to start the day than with an early morning bout of Pure Cardio????


Katie and I were back at it again, and for those just now joining us (as they say) this is easily the toughest of all the Insanity workouts as far as the first month is concerned.  Just a beast!


Anyway, not much to report today since y'all should have a good idea by now of what to expect from this one: ~11 min of killer warmup; stretch sequence; and then 15 min of non-stop, 100%, keel over and try not to pass out, cardio intervals.  


Again, we have pretty much got this warm-up thing down, but today (because of the extreme resistance stuff I did yesterday with P90x) I was very very sore.  Doing "pushup jacks" when your chest starts off the workout already fried is not an easy proposition.  With that in mind, there were a few more of the pushup exercises than normal where I had to modify due to sheer exhaustion.  And I'm actually STILL sore as I type.  Oh well.


I do have to say though, as hard as this workout is, it gives you a VERY satisfying feeling after you complete it.  


Diet Update
Not too too much to report today, but there were still some pretty delicious items had throughout the day that fit the diet plan:

• Breakfast: green smoothie
• Mid-morning snack: almond milk & gluten free puffins
• Lunch: Udi's gluten free artisan bread, avocado, sliced chicken breast, mustard.  Delish, but a bit messy.  Those avocados do not want to stay on the sandwhich!
• Dinner: Katie took me to La Residence in Chapel Hill.  Scrumtralescent tuna tartare and pork tenderloin.  Pork isn't technically on my diet but is still "more" allowed than red meat
• Dessert: Katie made a homemade dairy-gluten free "ice cream" cake with peach sorbet, Pamela's cake mix, and caramel frosting.  Wowzers it was good!

Going Forward

Just as an update on where my little reviews will go from here.  Since the workouts don't really change for another two weeks, I'm going to take a brief hiatus and pick back up when the new workouts start hitting the schedule.  If I can make it that far :)

Insanity Day 12: P90X's Chest, Shoulders and Triceps (aka, too much cardio = let's do some P90x!)

Hey all,

So I had been warning of this, but the cardio overload is getting to me, and I can tell the upper body isn't getting near as much love in these Insanity workouts. To rectify this, last night I decided to swap in Chest, Shoulders & Tri's from P90x in place of Insanity's Cardio Power & Resistance. This being my first time to pretty much do a P90x and Insanity workout back to back, I can definitely tell a whole lot of differences in the way these two programs are designed.

Chest, Shoulders & Tri's is 1hr long, and rather than cardio it simply massacres your upper body with a seemingly infinite number of pushups, flys, shoulder presses, tricep extensions, etc. It was the first time in a long time that I've gotten that "pump" feeling in my muscles from exercise, and I like it! My arms and chest can barely move today, so even though Insanity has definitely been getting me in VERY good shape VERY quickly, there are still gaps in program in terms of its focus.

Plus, Tony Horton, in my opinion, simply does a better job of warming up and cooling down in a logical flow, whereas Shaun T's warmups are way too intense and his cool-downs jump straight into static stretching without taking time to let the heart rate come down.

In any case, here is a list of the moves from Chest, Shoulders & Tri's
(Any non-weighted exercises like pushups or dips is done to failure in terms of reps. Everything else is done as either 8-10 reps or 12-15 reps depending on whether you're looking to build muscle or just get toned)
- Slow Motion Pushups
- Shoulder Fly In & Out
- Chair Dips
- Plank Pushups
- Pike Pushups
- Side Tricep Rise
- Floor Flys (side moving pushups)
- Scarecrows
- Overhead Tricep Extensions
- Alternate Speed Pushups
- Y Shoulder Press
- Lying Tricep Extension
- Side to Side Pushup
- Pour Flys for Shoulders
- Tricep Extensions
- One Arm Pushups
- Weighted Shoulder Circles
- Throw the Bomb
- Plyo or Clap Pushups
- Slow Mo Throw
- Tricep Extension
- One Arm Balance Pushups (pushups w/ a yoga-esque rotation at the top)
- Fly Row Press
- Dumbbell Cross Body Blows


Diet Notes
I can actually say that 1) the diet is becoming a lot easier in terms of resisting temptation, and 2) it's helping dramatically with the results I'm getting from Insanity in terms of noticeable toning, etc.

Some of the goodies I munched on yesterday:

Sweet potato chips
Unsweetened Almond Milk from Trader Joe's with some multigrain Puffins (gluten-free)
cliff z-bar
An awesomely healthy yet delicious salad Katie made: greens, onions, some sort of oil based dressing, strawberries, nuts

Insanity Day 11: Cardio Recovery

So thankful for this!  The early morning cardio annihilations was starting to get to me.


Also, Cardio Recovery is a bit on the shorter side (~35 min), which ended up being great today since I ended up doing school related things (mostly AT school) from about 9am to 10pm.  As a recap of what this one is all about, there's no cardio, and it's mostly a series of stretches but also some deep power moves: squats, etc.  It's at times relaxing, but definitely tough on a few of the exercises.  Katie and I both had to come out of the held poses a few times!


For tomorrow I'll be doing P90x Chest, Shoulders & Triceps to shake things up a bit and give myself some more upper body work.  I posted about these way back in the day when I first did P90x, but I'll probably do a full review of the workout since I have somewhat of a new "audience" reading this blog.


Diet Notes
Breakfast: Green smoothie


Lunch: bowl of fruit, roasted almonds, Trader Joe's strawberry soy yogurt, gluten free sweet potato chips from Costco, turkey/avocado sandwich on gluten free bread (was actually quite delicious), Cliff Z Bar


Dinner: sea bass marinated in soy sauce in white wine and vinegar and mustard, encrusted with sesame seeds; cabbage, snow peas, carrots, onions with white wine and vinegar; brown rice

Insanity Day 10: Plyo Cardio Circuit (Katie's back!)

So Katie's back in action!  Mostly.


This morning Katie, after using the past few days to rest herself a bit to recuperate from the stitched finger, joined me on Plyo Cardio Circuit.  Fortunately my school schedule this term works out perfectly for doing Insanity since my first class isn't until 10:30!  And from experience, I can say that doing the workouts in the afternoon is much more of a gamble; you're tired from the day and don't want to work out, and after school is usually when the extracurricular activities creep in.


Anyway, today was another solid, butt-kicking workout, but I think I probably did my best job on this one yet.  Nailed the warm-up, and got a good bit of the way through the interval portion before I started taking breaks.  Unfortunately, Katie wasn't able to keep up the whole time because Hattie, our new canine companion, was being a nuisance, and so Katie decided to run her outside to go the bathroom while I continued on.  And, to keep from aggravating her finger, she had to modify some of the pushup moves, etc.  But that still doesn't make it much easier!


In any case, I can definitely see a lot more definition in my legs and abs, and it's only been a week.  Like I've said before, the upper body isn't addressed quite enough in the program, but I plan to switch in a P90x upper body workout on Wed.


DIET UPDATE
To help with my diet commitment, Katie picked up a bunch of overpriced, alternative groceries today.  It's no wonder that people eat fast food all the time...it's a great deal!


Anyway, some of the items I tried today were:

• Trader Joe's unsweetened almond milk
• Great alternative to dairy, it has a slightly toasted, nutty flavor, and is probably just a bit creamier than skim milk.  Not bad.
• Whole Fruit coconut fruit bars
• Delish!...however, I just glanced at the nutritional info and it looks like we just assumed they were non-dairy.  Dang it!
• Multigrain Puffins cereal (gluten free)
• I love Puffins Original, but I have to say these aren't my favorite.  Maybe some more exploring is in order
• Indian inspired tacos that Katie made for dinner (awesome!)
• corn tortillas, barley medley, onions, chicken

Although I have to point out that Katie was making a delicious smelling bread pudding earlier tonight that I can't eat.  It looked SOOOO GOOOD!!!! :(

Green Smoothie