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.