Woo!

Oh man.  No exercise for me today.  Gotta love tourism conferences.

!

Nice gym, nice workout, nice breakfast ... helllllo VA!  Thank you Embassy Suites :)

You know what's not so nice ... ?

Traveling while on an exercise/nutrition plan.

Today I traveled to Washington, DC and may have allowed myself to have a sandwich with extra cheese to go along with two Cokes and two (okay three) cookies.  I realize I could have planned better, but too bad for me I didn't.

And.  I didn't bring my P90X DVD's.  This hotel better have a heck of a gym. 

You know what's nice ... ?

Working out on the weekend.  Honestly, what a concept!  This weekend I got up relatively early both Saturday and Sunday (despite going to bed late!) and pushed play with Tony.  This really set the tone for the rest of the day.

I know what you're thinking.  "Umm, so, is this the first time that you've ever worked out on the weekend? That's so sad."  Calm down, it's not.  But, when I can just workout right in my home, it's so easy to make it one of the first things on my to-do list which, in turn, makes it that much easier to commit to it.  And if I hadn't worked out over the weekend?  I'd feel bad.

So I get up both weekend mornings, have a nice workout, make myself a big breakfast, brew some fair trade coffee, read the newspaper and have two rockstar days.  Unfortunately Saturday I had a fall harvest party where I probably consumed the amount of calories (+ some) that I used up this morning, but that's aside from the point.  The point is, working out in the morning (when you have enough time to do it right) is quite arguably the best thing you can do on a weekend morning!  Seriously!

Seriously.  That's all I've got.

Sleep Beware: Arms & Abs (Day 3)

Typically, I disagree when people say they don't have enough time to workout; especially if that workout is being done at home.  "You have time to watch 2 hours of reality TV but no time to take care of your body?  You lazy little thing!" (or something more snarky). However, without proper planning, your whole exercise/shower/cook/eat evening process can easily consume your entire night leaving you with little time left for yourself/your family/your friends/your ______.  And that sucks!  You are getting this great new body and you can't even go anywhere and celebrate.  Lame.

Turns out this just takes a little planning - or in my case, lack there of.  I had a meeting on Tuesday evening and by the time I got home it was almost 9pm.  Out of respect for my lower level neighbors (and, quite frankly, because I was tired), I decided I would head to bed and force myself awake at 5am to take on Tony.

For night people, Tony is not quite (read: not at all) as funny in the morning as he is after you've been awake for several hours.  He also appears to be much more flexible than I am when it comes to some of the ab exercises (I can't keep my leg straight!) which is bound to ruffle the feathers of even the friendliest night owl.  But after you get warmed up, it's not so bad.

I am not dedicating myself to morning workouts because I know myself and I know how much I love seeing a 7 on my alarm clock as opposed to a 5.  However, I don't love taking two showers a day - especially since it is getting cold out and my skin is starting to get dry.  Two showers is not good for dry skin people!  No good at all!  I would weigh more pros and cons but I was up early and now I'm tired. The point is, it's not necessarily the workouts that take up so much time, but all the other stuff you have to do (or forgo) on account of the workout. Without proper planning, I can see how people say they don't have time for workouts.  They also don't have much for time management skills (most likely), but their point is noted and has the potential of being valid.

Food for thought of the day?  Who schedules a meeting at 5am?  Nobody I know but me, all my fellow fitness freaks and Tony Horton.  Sleep beware, we may be hitting the hay a little earlier.

Plyometrics - Day 2

Two points of note regarding today's workout:

1. If you live on the second (or third, or thirty-fifth) floor of an apartment complex, or you have not perfected the art of soft landings, or you occasionally tend to jump a little too far and bump into your chair ... look out.  You know that neighbor that you occasionally say hello to?  They will no longer like you as much. They may also be jealous of the wild and crazy lifestyle that you may or may not be having ;-)  Mums the word!  You don't know them that well anyway!

2. You know those people that can jump really high in place?  You are probably not one of them.  Enter: a new respect for these freaks of nature.

In other news, my salmon dinner is rocking tonight.  Bon appetite mi amigos! 

Day 1

It is luck that I only have three followers because my lack of keeping up with you all over the past month has been atrocious.  I apologize - no excuses.  But I'm back.

It's day one and after my workout my hands are sore, my abs are sore and my arms and legs are shaking a little bit as I sip my recovery drink.  Today's challenges were chest, back and abs.  This proves to be quite a turn-off if you suck at push-ups, pull-ups and everything similar like I do.  Regardless, I "pushed play" and while I had to pause the program 3 times and modify several of the exercises, I finished day one. 
 
Today's workout was really hard and I encountered three majors problems: 

#1 - My kitchen chairs clearly weren't designed to support decline push-ups or act as pull-up assistants.  Seeing that I can only legitimately do one pull-up on my own, I need the chair for support.  Tony's gym has pull up bars that you have to jump to grab, mine I can reach easily from my tip-toes.  This makes the issue of chair support a tricky one.  I felt like when I had my leg on the chair I was putting way too much weight on it.  Once I master that art, I will share with you. 

#2 - Unless I want to have constant floor-burn looking hands, I need those little push-up support things and/or a yoga mat.  The carpet is also hard on your hands for things like the dive-bomber and diamond push-ups.  There is a reason Tony's gym doesn't have carpet: carpet sucks. 

#3 - I need some more weights.  I have ten and twelve pound weights, but for some of the exercises I am going to need more.  I think I'll run out to the store and grab some today.  ($$$$$)

It's tough to start a new program and Tony definitely is not there to whisk you around joyfully like a bout of Jazzercise.  This shit is hard.  It's hard for the guys that are on the video and it's definitely hard for me.  But it's day one and overall, I feel like I got a great workout in today.  I can't wait to see what my body can do in a few weeks and months.

Signing off for now - but I'll be back.  So long as I can type.

Taking a Step Back

In my first post, I anticipated that I would start the P90X program on Tuesday.  Well, it's Wednesday and I still have not officially started the program for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that I'm lazy.  Okay, I'm kidding (I think).  Here are the big four (Final Four?):

1. I want to make sure I do the program correctly

I can hear you, my three friends, muttering "well don't we all."  Well, I hope so.  Turns out there is a lot more to P90X than opening the package and starting. One would probably assume this, but I thought I would just get it and start.  The first thing that tripped me up was the diet program.  As I mentioned the other day, I did a clean sweep on my kitchen but don't yet have the items I need to start my nutrition plan.  Since the nutrition plan and the workouts go hand-and-hand, I didn't want to start one without the other.  I mean, I might collapse or something.  Today I made my grocery list for the first week of the program and tried to brainstorm what I could do with the other half of a mango when my meal plan only calls for one half.  Can dogs eat fruit?

2. I hadn't signed up for all the extra stuff

I'm telling you, if you want to be overwhelmed with information and impulse purchases, Beachbody has configured a way to tempt you.  One of the support programs that I signed up for today is on milliondollarbody.com.  It's free (you can get the upgraded version for $2.99 a week) and you have access to things like message boards, newsletters, workout buddies, and my personal favorite: access to WOWY SuperGym, where you can schedule your workouts, track your progress, and be eligible to win cash and prizes up to $1,000 a day! Now that is what I am talking about.  I still have to figure out if I need to be an upgraded member to get some of the prizes ... more on that later.

3. I didn't do the warm-up stuff

Tony suggests that you watch the Bring It On! video and do the lower intensity workouts on that DVD to make sure you are "qualified" so-to-speak to start P90X.  I wasn't sure I needed to do this but what the heck, why not?!  So while I worked on getting my routine and everything else in order, I started by doing these low intensity workouts.  And, they worked out pretty well.  Play on words intended.

4. I hadn't taken my pictures!

This is the best part, right?  To check out people when they're overweight, out of shape, feeling like poop.  I won't lie; it's one of my favorite parts too.  But the best part, seeing the people weeks later when they are "absolutely ripped in 90 days!" (Sorry, I'll stop doing that soon).  But seriously though, it's cool to see a person's transformation ... I'm assuming it's even better when that person is you.  So, even though I'm not thrilled about it, I took some pictures today of myself (sigh).  Like Tony says, this is a goodbye photo to my old self.  So long suckers! 

Once again, bring on Day 90.

I have more of these, but for one, I don't even know how to flex my arms so they are at the same level, and two, I think it would be unnecessary to subject you to any more pictures of this sort.  If you really feel like you need to see the front, back, side and awkward half-side-flex photo, we'll negotiate that at a later date.

Toss the what?

I had today off from work so I thought I'd sit down and read through my P90X Bible (aka Nutrition Plan) and see what I have gotten myself into.  Everything was kosher (not literally) through the phases, approaches and nutrition levels ... but then we hit the TOSS THE JUNK section and it went downhill.  Turns out mac-n-cheese is junk. I know!  And then there was the whole bit on "bonking" that I had to read twice.

But, my three friends, I plan to donate most of my kitchen food contents to my (personal trainer!) boyfriend and make my mango-ginger sauced swordfish with gusto.  How do you like them apples?  (I can eat those!)

That's right. X-treme. 

Infomercialized: Third Time's a Charm

I think that I have been a victim of "I-used-to-be-in-great-shape-so-I-see-myself-as-still-in-shape" -itis for about two years now. I'm not positive that this is a common disease, but I'm pretty sure it is.  I'm also pretty sure it is called something else. 

I subconsciously self-diagnosed myself months ago, but reality hit me when I signed up to run a 5K with my brother, Kyle, over the summer without training before hand.  I don't know what kind of superpower I thought I had, but 5K seemed like such a wimpy distance, I wasn't too concerned.  Running up and down the stairs to my second floor apartment a few times a day would suffice for training.  I'd ask my brother if he'd been training over the phone while munching on a few chips and he would tell me he had been here and there but nothing too serious.  Great!  He wasn't overly committed either.  I'd be fine.

About ten minutes into the race my breathing started to resemble an offspring of Darth Vader and two days after my limbs still hurt.  A 5K?!  Come on, Kelly, get it together!  Kyle naturally ranked in his age group.  I happily accepted the finishers t-shirt (no need to communicate the time difference here).

At that point, I made a solid commitment to get myself back into shape.  Fast forward about 7 months.  Progress?  Medial.  Okay, progress sucked.  I got a new job, moved 20 hours away from home, and suddenly felt like many moments of my day were taken up.  Then I realized, I didn't have kids, I didn't have personal or family hardships to deal with, I was pretty healthy, I didn't even have a boyfriend at that point to mess around with ... I could make time.  So I started working out more regularly again, but not so much that I really saw progress.  Elliptical while watching TV, run around the block a few times, a couple bouts of tennis with some friends ... casual exercise.  I then started running regularly again and was doing pretty well until my hip started acting up.  I decided I needed to change my routine.

Go ahead and tell me you haven't seen the infomercial.  The one with all of these seemingly normal people suddenly transforming into Rocky in 90 days.  The first time I saw it I thought it was a scam.

But I would like to say thank you to Michelle R., mother of 7, triple-time viewer of the P90x infomercial.  I joined you, Michelle, in your infomercial viewing and by the third time, I decided that I too should buy it.  Not to mention all the people that praise the program online.  I have decided that people as a whole are generally pretty pessimistic these days. However, if something out there that can "get you absolutely ripped in 90 days!" (I'm still a little pessimistic - don't be offended by the touch of sarcasm), then Tony baby, I'm all in! 

So, barking dog at my heels, Visa in hand, I purchased my way into the badass beach club.  My box came in a couple days ago and I’m going to start the program on Tuesday, October 12, 2010.  I like to write so I thought I would write a blog not only to demonstrate my progress, but keep me in check.  I think the hardest part is going to be the diet, but I am committing to you (my non-existent followers), that I will give this program a try.  After all, I did pay almost 300 big ones (they tricked me into getting the pull up bar and bands ... and Creatine looking drink) when I could have just grabbed a bootleg version from one of my friends. In the interest of lawfulness and in an era where money is not a commodity, this, my new friends, is a commitment.

Bring on Day 90.

 Look at that!  My name and everything.  See Beachbody, I did order from you :)

My freezer prior to being P90x-ified.  Not too bad minus the two batches of ice cream and water bottle filled with vodka.