Just a quick entry as I enter week 4 of P90X.
I’m actually on week 5, but I missed a week during the labor day holiday so I decided to do week 3 last week.
This week is not a heavy weight lifting week. The focus is more on core exercises. I had a really long day and I’m supposed to be doing Yoga today.
I’m not a fan of Yoga, I have to admit. I see where it gives strength and balance, but it’s just not one of my favorite exercise routines.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. It didn’t seem to be me as the only one who saw the downword spiral as events were turning tough. I saw clients dealing with unfortunate events that were out of their control.

As I was getting through the latter part of the day, the challenges of the full days of work ahead started weighing me down. The last thing I wanted to do was watch Tony horton buzz around me with his chest and back workout. Feeling bloated and ready to call it a day, I popped th DVD in and made myself do day 1 of week 2 of P90X. This workout routine involved alot of pull ups and push ups.

I can do the push ups decently but the pull ups are gruesome. I can barely do 2 full pull ups right now. The guys in the movie were doing 30.

I am eating quite a bit cleaner.

My weight today is 225 lbs. Up 2 lbs from last week. Weekends kill me. I’m going to get better at that part.

So, despite battling through a tough day mentally and emotionally, I did Bring It today and gave it my best physically. Hopefully the results will show.

Well, this week is drawing to a close for me and I’m here to report that I’m still alive.

I started out this week as I normally do any other week. I’ve been eating healthier and had settled in on a 5 day workout split routine that I was comfortable with. 

On Tuesday, the clouds started moving, turmoil set in, I changed my plan for the next 90 days and I now find myself outside of my comfort zone.  I mean way outside my comfort zone.

P90X – that’s the difference. 

Week 1: I started P90X on Tuesday.  The reason for this is because I had already started my normal workout routine on Monday.  For a few weeks now, my friend Jason, had been taunting me into trying P90X.  I kept brushing him off because I like to take things at my pace (slow) and I figured P90X was a marketing fad that would soon wear off and then I’d hear about some other “Z Zone” product.

I borrowed the P90X videos and researched some regular joe’s who have been posting their successes with it.  I became convinced that this would make a great fit for my 90 Day Fitness challenge over at DailyBurn.com.

So, after Week 1, I can honestly say, I’m scared.  My ego has been shredded to pieces and I’m concerned whether I’ll finish this program.  It’s not that it’s tough, really. It’s just that I’m really out of my comfort zone. My body is being thrust into positions that I never knew existed and I’m having a really hard time keeping up.  I also get discouraged in the middle of some of the routines. 

Yoga. What’s up with that? I thought Yoga was a girly sport, if it could have even qualified as a sport.  But now that I’ve attempted, and I use the word attempted loosely, to do Yoga, I’m now convinced even more that it’s a girly sport. But not in the way you might think I’m suggesting. It’s just not normal for a guy to bend in all those directions.  Women, typically have better form than a man does in this area, I’m sure.  However, I’m now converted and convinced that Yoga is definitely beneficial in strengthening our bodies.

After all is said and done, I have to say I give myself a 70% grade for this week.  I completed most of the workouts, but I wasn’t able to keep up with those athletic folks as much as I wanted to. This proved discouraging. But I can’t help from imagining that there are other people out there who are starting P90X for the first time who might feel the same way.  All I can say to this is, Week 2 is right around the corner and we can be champions with our 2nd chance.  My goal is to make Week 2 better than the first. That’s all I can ask for out of myself.

Thankfully I have my wife right next to me doing the workouts too. She has embraced the P90X program plus the nutrition guides and I can’t say how critical that has been in keeping me motivated.  She dances circles around me and it kind of annoys me at times because I’m so out of shape and panting heavily, but I’m looking forward to the day where I can keep up with her step and move right along with her.

Here’s to week 2… I’m ready to Bring It!

Over the recent months I’ve been searching for a workout and nutrition routine that will help me reach my fitness goals. I love reading and seeing others who have reached their goals.  I get inspired when I see someone who has been completely out of shape, and then transform their bodies into fitness freaks. 

So, I started on BodyBuilding.com’s website and followed Kris Gethin’s  12 Week Transformation. This was a great beginner’s guide to help me get back into the mindset of a person who wants to get stronger.  Kris offers solid weight training, steady cardio, and some great nutrition tips in his videos.  I would take the videos on my iPod and watch them while doing cardio.  Unfortunately, I only made it to week 7 because I found myself wanting to adjust my schedule and not spend so much time in the gym.  I really like Kris’s program and may revisit it in the future.

I then went to a 5 day split because I wanted to focus more on specific muscle groups each day and spend less time in the gym.  I pulled a 5 day split workout from DailyBurn and was happy with this for a little while.

As the day grew closer for the DailyBurn 90 Day Fitness challenge, I was wanting to narrow my focus down even more for the 90 days.  My friend has been harassing me, trying to get me to do the P90X program for some time now. I kept dismissing it because I’ve found that when you tell people you’re working out, there are alot of people who don’t really listen to your needs, yet rather they just blurt out their own ideas.  Part of this is why I didn’t really listen to my friend.  He kept telling me to do P90X and I kept dismissing his beckoning.  After all, I really felt like P90X was the next marketing craze filled with too much hype and not enough delivery.  I thought it was going to be a guy yelling at me, while he’s dancing circles around me as I’m huffing and puffing, ready to puke my guts out.

Well, I eventually gave in.  I studied out the program and viewed some peoples’ progress on YouTube and decided that the P90X program would be a perfect fit for my 90 Day Fitness Challenge.

Fast Forward to Day 3 – today.  Let me just tell you I did shoulders and arms at the gym, which I’m glad I did because I love going to the gym and putting weights on the agenda.  I then came home and did the Ab Ripper X program with my wife.  Tony, the lead instructor of Ab Ripper X wasn’t dancing circles around me yelling at me.  Instead, my wife was keeping perfect form and keeping up with the folks on the video.  I felt awkward and it hurt. Did I mention it hurt? And that I felt awkward? Tony is actually a very forgiving instructor and he wants to make sure we do these workouts to our best of our abilities.

Needless to say, I’m pretty sore, but it’s a good kind of sore.  I’m happy with my choice of doing P90X and I’m glad my friend kept encouraging me to do it. I think he was right on the mark with identifying what I wanted to do in reaching my goals.

I’m ready to Bring It some more tomorrow.

Recently, I’ve become a member over at DailyBurn. This is a social networking site where you can track your nutrition and workout progress. There is a forum there and other like minded fitness individuals who can help you meet your fitness goals.

Quite a bit has happened for me in the last few months. I’ve been active in the gym and have been really changing my eating habits. So, I’ve been staying active and getting thinner, however, I’m still at my same weight that I’ve been in the past 8 or so years – 225 lbs. I’m not concerned about that, though because my body is changing and I see results when I look in the mirror – FINALLY!

Yesterday, Andy Smith, CEO of DailyBurn, issued a 90 day CEO challenge. The challenge, which is quite simple really, is to do SOMETHING that will make us all come out better people in terms of our fitness goals after 90 days. I’ve joined the challenge and will be tracking my progress here and at DailyBurn until the final day – November 17th. I have set some specific goals and have chosen a 90 day plan, which I will be writing about soon right here.

If you’re looking for some extra motivation and want a great site to meet people and track your progress, check out DailyBurn.

It’s been awhile, I know, but I’m not much of one who makes claims that I’m not able to verify myself.

When I last wrote, I wasn’t eating that well and surely wasn’t even working out on a consistent basis.  Therefore, I didn’t want to be hypocritical in my writings.

That being said, I’m happy to report some great progress that will hopefully be inspiring those of you who are seeking motivation.  That is the topic of my discussion today – Finding Motivation to Stay Healthy.

What Motivates You to Stay Healthy?

Do you have any motivation to be healthy?  You probably do, or you wouldn’t be here reading this website.  But how much motivation do you have? Is it enough to get you to make changes toward healthier eating?  Enough to get you away from the computer and into some form of exercise?

Somewhere, somehow, you’ll need to find the desire to get moving.  This desire was in me for the last 10 years, but there were always excuses that smothered my hopes.  “Too busy”,  “Not enough time”,  No energy”.  These thoughts come easy and are very hard to combat.  However, I found ways to break through and I’m going to continue the fight, and so will you!

About 4 months ago, I was battling a health issue that was ongoing for about 6 months before that.  After seeing multiple doctors and other professionals, I became desperate for a solution that never came.  Turning to the internet, I found out some answers that helped and eventually purchased a couple of books written by experts on the subject.  As a part of my healing process, exercise was encouraged by both experts.

I woke up with the desire that I would make myself go to the gym at least 5 days per week and focus mainly on cardio activity.  4 months ago, I weighed 225 lbs.  I’m 5’ 11”, and my ideal body weight is supposed to be around the 170 – 180 range. My goal is to reach 185 lbs.

For the past 4 months, I’m happy to report that I’ve consistently been to the gym and have almost hit 5 days per week.  Sometimes it’s been 4 days but mostly 5.  Over the course of 4 months, my scheduling has changed during the days so I’ve had to adjust around accordingly.

After 4 months of working out – cardio + weight lifting, can you guess how much I weigh now?  220 – 225 lbs fluctuating.  Discouraging?  Maybe. But I told myself that I’m not giving up. I’m not leaving this lifestyle change.  So, I’ve actually stopped looking at the scales because they can be discouraging if I focus on the weight loss number.

What IS encouraging, however, is that I’m definitely losing inches.  I see myself in the mirror and I’m transforming into a different figure.  The weights may stay the same right now, but my inches are coming off and that encourages me.

So… if you’re looking to lose weight or get stronger and you’ve become discouraged that the scales aren’t changing right away, take a closer look at yourself in the mirror.  You just might find motivation in seeing that the inches are coming off your body and you really are slimming down.

I woke up today (Saturday), and looked at myself in the mirror.  I was happier with myself as I noticed slimming.  It motivated me so much that I went to the gym and worked out my biceps and back this morning.  I usually take Saturday as a rest day, but I had missed that workout during the week this week.  Seeing the results of my efforts the last 4 months in the mirror this morning, I was encouraged to go to the gym and get that workout in this week.

Now I’m ready for a swim at the community pool later this afternoon with the family.

More activity = more weight loss.  More weight loss = more motivation. 

As promised, over the next few posts I will begin sharing some of the exercises and techniques I have learned.

First, some advice from my friend at the gym:

1. One of the most important things he told us is that “It’s all Mental” meaning we are each stronger than we think we are. There are several times he would increase the weight on a machine without telling us and we would be able to complete several reps.

2. If it doesn’t burn where you are working it and experience soreness the next couple of days, you’re not doing it right.

3. Keep your heart rate up. If you need to rest longer, make sure that you speed walk around the gym, hop on a treadmill for a minute, or do some Ab work in between.

4. If it hurts (not burn), stop immediately.

5. Don’t try to move your body in a way that’s not the natural movement. For example, twisting a way that your body doesn’t normally move.

6. You should always have a person to spot for you if you are working with heavy weight for your safety.

Obviously, when we refer to having Six Pack Abs, we’re referring to the all encompassing idea of having and maintaining better health and greater physical strength in our bodies.  Having a six pack (along with a donut every once in awhile) is just the benefits of a healthier life. 

Here are 5 keys that have helped me maintain the Six Pack Ab Habit…

1. Develop Friendships at the Gym – They will notice when you’re gone and ask, “Where were you?” It helps keep you in check.

2. Change Things Up – When you feel bored or like you’ve hit a plateau, use the elliptical machine instead of the treadmill or swim laps in the pool.

3. Choose a Healthy Diet – Most people think “diet” means to “starve yourself” of certain foods. The way it will be talked about here is actually defined as “a: food and drink regularly provided or consumed b: habitual nourishment”. The healthier you eat, the higher the desire to workout and the more you workout, the healthier you will want to eat.

4. Keep a Positive Attitude – Your Mind is a powerful thing. Don’t get discouraged by others around you that may be in better physical or cardio shape. Everyone is at a different level and it is very rare to feel positive when we begin to compare ourselves to others. Remember, you are doing this for YOU, not them. Focus on you and your goals.

5. Study Good Health – The more you read the better you will be at accomplishing your goals. It is so important to go to more than one source since there are many different opinions when it comes to good health. Choose what makes sense and feels right. (One that I have found to be very helpful is “Body For Life”. This book is great overall, putting together a good nutrition diet as well as a good workout program).

Here are 5 key areas I’ve been adhering to in making my six pack ab and workout goals become a habit…

1. Gym membership – If you’re paying for it, you’re going to want to use it!

2. Kid Care – Make sure that you have someone else watching your children. This allows you to focus and get the best out of your time.

3. Set realistic Goals – These don’t have to be where you want to end up. Just where you think you can start.

4. Set aside a specific time for your workout – Treat it like a doctor’s appointment where you would have to pay a $25 “No Show” fee if you decided not to go.

5. Track your workouts and progress – Length of time, what you did, calories burned…all of these things will help you see the progress before you see it in your appearance. (DO NOT weigh yourself as a tracking procedure…this will only frustrate and discourage. If you wish to measure your success, use a tape measure to record your waist, hips, thighs, etc.)

In my last post, I told you of my new 5 day a week program. Well, the other day I came home so excited, I had to show my husband…I had a new muscle! I know that sounds so funny because obviously we don’t just start sprouting muscles. Everyone has the same muscles but you can’t always see them underneath the layer of fat that so annoyingly sits on top of them. Anyway, my Tricep…I can flex and see a bulge pop out!

People that I haven’t seen for a while have also made comments about how much thinner I look or how much more defined I am.

It’s amazing…after working with this program for less than a month, I can already see some results! The best part is that I can also feel those muscles.