Day 7 - Rest Day

I didn't get to do the X-Stretch today. I was just so busy all day, and this seems to an optional workout that can be done on your "rest day". I'll be sure to give it a try one of these weeks and will give my input.

Day 6 - Kenpo X

Woo! I love it! Kenpo X is a cardio workout, that I'm POSITIVE had me looking like a total fool, but sure got my heart beating. It's - like most of the DVDS - an hour long, and the first half hour just flew by, then the next 15 minutes or so seems to take FOREVER. Oh man, I was tired. BUT, I think this is the first P90X DVD I've been able to do without having to pause the DVD even once, and I MOSTLY stayed right up with them.

When it was over I was very tired, but felt great about having done it as well as I did. Good stuff!!!

Day 5 - Legs & Back

Good workout! Tough, but good! And I made it all the way through it, although at several points the thought of skipping certain exercises or ending early certainly DID cross my mind.

The Legs & Back Workout is essentially a lot of leg exercises (mostly variations on squats and lunges), with varitations of pull-ups interspersed throughout. There's a couple of endurance-type exercises where you basically get in a sitting position (but without actually sitting ON anything) and just hold it for a while....GEEZ it burns!!!

I didnt' know if I was going to be able to handle doing pull-ups again already, but with the aid of my reliable chair to support one leg and give me a little assistance, I was able to make it through it.

Ab Ripper X just didn't happen. I've gotta figure out what I want to do about Ab Ripper X. I'm thinking about doing it in the mornings, 'cuz after I've been lifting for an hour, the last thing I want to do is 15 minutes of grueling ab exercises.

Day 4 - Super Weak Yoga...

Okay, so today was my weakest day yet of the workout plan. Here's the deal: Yoga's really hard. I know, I know...I sound like a pansy, let me elaborate. First of all, the Yoga exercise is 90 minutes! Yeah, a freakin' hour and a half. Second of all, I'm still WAY sore. My muscles are still trying to recover from the initial shock of starting up such an intense program, and Yoga is all about slow movements and holding poses...and I just couldn't do it. I made it about 15 minutes into it and my muscles were just aching and shaking so bad there was nothing I could do it. I REALLY feel by next week so many of these exercises are going to be just SO much easier 'cuz I'll be healed up from the original muscle pulls.

On a bright note, today was probably my best day at following the nutrition plan. I had 3 meals and 2 snacks. Diet wise...very good day.

And as follow-up from the last two days utter soreness, I'm still quite sore today, but I now have ALMOST full range of motion back in my arms. Hopefully in the next couple of days we'll be there.

Day 3 - Shoulders & Arms

I am SO sore today!! My legs, back, abs, and chest are all sore...but in a good way. What's killing me still is my triceps. I obviously WAY overworked them or - more likely - pulled them pretty bad. I noticed in the mirrow today that there's swelling and light red bruises around my elbows...which explains why I can't fully bend my arms. Last time I started working out this same thing happened, though, so I'm not really worried.

To make matters worse, today was the Shoulders and Arms workout. It's basically 4 sets (then a bonus set if you're in shape for it) of 2 reps of 3 exercises (shoulders, biceps, triceps). I didn't do the bonus set...I felt pretty good to just get through the primary ones. My arms are still so sore that I really couldn't do much weight, but I still felt pretty good about it.

Ab Ripper X, once again, kicked my butt. I made it one or two exercises further into it than I did last time, though, so there's some improvement.

Today was pretty tough to follow the diet. It's weird, though, the problem isn't that I'm eating bad stuff, the problem is eating ENOUGH. I kinda feel like all day today I was just preparing for my next meal. Part of the problem, was that I slept in until about 10:00 today...I only ended up having 2 meals (and 2 snacks) instead of the desired 3 meals, but I wasn't ever really even hungry.

We'll see how eating goes tomorrow...

Day 2 - Plyometrics Destroyed Me!!

Yeesh! I wasn't even able to make it through the whole Plyometrics workout. I made it about 3/4 of the way and couldn't jump anymore...literally. My legs just gave up. lol. It's an amazing workout, though!

As expected, I'm so stinkin' sore today! What hurts the most (not entirely surprisingly) is my triceps. Even though I wasn't targeting them, doing lots up push-ups and pull-ups is going is work them as well.

Can't type much right now. Anyway, 2 days down...88 to go. lol.

Day 1 - Chest & Back

Well, today didn't go exactly how I hoped it would. The plan was that I'd workout in the morning, then be doing the diet all day. Well, my carpool informed me last night that they needed to go in to work about 45 minutes early today, and then I was unable to get to bed until after midnight last night, so I knew that waking up extra-EXTRA early just wasn't going to happen. PLUS I'd forgotten that today we had a luncheon at work that I needed to attend. I still did good about eating good stuff, but I didn't eat nearly enough protein to consider today a successful day at following the nutrition plan.

Due to the late hour of going to bed and the early hour of going to work, I decided I could either postpone starting yet another day or I could just workout in the evening. I chose the latter. So here I go to do my first-ever P90X workout...

*** 90 minutes later ***

...I think I'm gonna barf. Oh my goodness I'm exhausted. I was beat and my muscles all felt like Jell-O, then I tried to do the 15 minute AB Ripper X workout...I made it about 5 minutes it and was sure that if I kept going I'd be throwing-up all over the place. ...It seemed like a good stopping place.

I had to have a bench under me to assist in all pull-up exercises, but I'm sure that'll go away over time. The Chest & Back Workout is mostly a series of variations on pull-ups, push-ups, and dumbell raises. And it'll work you OUT. I can't believe how many reps the people on the DVD were doing. They're doing 30 while I'm doing, like, 8. It was crazy.

GEEZ I'm exhausted. And my back & neck hurt...they've been kinda sore for several days now, though, and hadn't been getting any better or worse, so I figured I'd just go for it. I think I did good at not doing much in the way of jerky movements or anything, though, so I don't think I did anything that would have exasperated any problem....probably just now my back & neck are sore & kinda swollen from exercising, so I'm feeling the pain that was already there even more now.

Well, day 1 is nearing its end. I mostly stuck to the diet, I worked out & then drank my P90X recovery drink (which tastes kinda bizarre, by the way), and I'm now gonna kick back for a while, watch some tv, & snack on a protein bar. Good times.

...so tired.

Ready to Rock & Roll

I'm FINALLY ready to start this thing. I ended up having to spend about $200 in preparation of the nutrition plan. Of course, a good chunk of that wasn't in the purchasing of food, but rather in cooking implements. I bought a blender, a George Foreman Grill, a spatula, a whisk, a few knives, a grater, measuring cups, measuring spoons, a food scale....just a lot of stuff that "normal" people already own, but since I've done so little cooking since I moved to this apartment I'd never bought any of them.

I even swallowed my pride & had my dad take the series of Day-1 photos of me. Yeah...it's not flattering. Definitely give me something to work away from, though.

The only thing I don't have that I still want is some sort of padding to put on the floor to help muffle the noise that my downstair neighbours will hear, especially for the jump-training workouts. Hopefully with my doing those on Saturdays it won't be super-needed, but if it is, it'll have to wait at least until next week.

Postponing a little...

Well...I guess starting a little bit later than I intended is better than starting and then immediately getting distracted and having to stop. Two issues arose that prevented me from starting the P90X program this morning:

1. I feel like I'm getting sick. Starting on Saturday I started feeling achy and had a sore-ish throat. Today I'm still achy and I've got sinus congestion going on. I'm pounding the Mucinex & Sudafed so I don't get too plugged up. Hopefully this'll go away without getting any worse.

2. Saturday I didn't have time to go doing my shopping...I slept-in late, then had plans that night. I still need to pick up all my healthy food (as well as some cooking implements that I need), and I need to buy a couple more things for my work-outs.

Not only that, but my chest is feeling all tight...I had this same thing about a year ago or so and it sounds strange, but it seems like it's related to my acid reflux...getting my acid reflux under control seemed to coincide with it going away last time, and in the last few weeks I've been having horrible heart burn.

There's actually a good thing about delaying a few days: If I start the program on Friday then I can do the Plyometrics workouts on Saturdays, which means I can wait until later in the day to be doing lots of jumping during normal waking hours and hopefully not disturb my downstairs neighbors so much.

Nutrition Plan Prep

I really got a chance in the last day or two to look at the nutrition plan. It looks like I'm going to be eating a lot! Right now I don't eat that much, but when I do eat, I eat junk food. This is going to be a lot of healthy food...and it looks delicious.

I've started putting together a shopping list for stuff to buy this weekend so I'll have food for the first week and I'm wondering how much I'm going to end up spending. I intend on sticking to the nutrition program to the letter; this means that I'm even going to follow their example meal schedule (early on, at least), so I'm going to be trying lots of interesting sounding foods. I just hope there's plenty of ingredients (such as spices) that I'll be able to buy once, then use for a long time. Unfortunately my cupboards are currently nigh unto bare, so I'm going to have to lay dome some cash to start up my nutrition plan.

P90X Intro

I watched the intro video to P90X last night. My 2 biggest concerns are pull-ups and plyometrics. It appears that a big part of the P90X workout is doing pull-ups...when I was in high school (and was probably in the best shape of my life) I could do 2 pull-ups on a really good day; I doubt I can do a single one now. The issue with Plyometics (jump training) is I've got downstairs neighbors...I wonder how they're going to handle having their neighbor jumping for an hour once a week...should I do it at 6:00am, when they're possibly asleep, or at 6:00pm, when they're probably sitting down for dinner or watching tv? hmmm...

We'll see how things go...

The Plan...

Well...let's answer some questions about what I'm going to try to do over 90 days.

Who: Me.
What: Follow the P90X fitness program, including both the workout and nutrition programs.
When: The plan is to begin Monday, January 18 and to continue for the 90 days that follow. That would make day 90 be Saturday, April 17.
Where: My apartment. One of the big selling points of P90X is that you don't need a gym membership. You can do all of the exercises in the privacy of your own living room.
Why: I'm dreadfully out of shape. I've wanted for a while to start exercising regularly and eating better, and I find that if I'm not doing a strict program, I have a hard time sticking with it.
How: I CAN do this...a few summer's ago I followed another 90-day program and with only a couple of slip-ups, I stuck to it pretty darn good. I found that if I was incredibly strict with myself that I really stuck to it quite well. Also, this blog should help me further keep my commitment, at the beginning I'll trying to update the blog as I experience aspects of the program for the first time...as it becomes more routine I'm guessing that my posts will decline in frequency, but I'll try to update at least weekly at a minimum.


Excercise Equipment I've got (or will have by the time I start):
-A set of P90X DVDs and accompanying documentation
-A pair of adjustable dumbbells
-4'x8' of interlocking foam impact flooring on which to workout.
-An Iron Gym Extreme Pull-Up Bar (this will be my bane, I'm sure!)
-A pair of push-up stands

Nutrition Supplements I've got (or will have by the time I start):
-P90X Recovery Drink mix
-P90X multi-vitamins
-P90X energy bars
-Whey Protein mix

A HIGHLY recommended part of the P90X system is that on days 1, 30, 60, and 90 you take a series of 6 pictures:
-Facing Forward, hands on hips
-Facing Forward, arms raised to sides flexing
-Facing Sideways, arms relaxed at sides
-Facing Sideways with Upper Body Twisted to Face Forward, hands on hips
-Facing Backward, hands on hips
-Facing Backward, arms raised to sides flexing

I do intend to take these pictures, but alas, I will not be posting these online, at least not until I've got a picture in which results are obvious...pictures of yourself in poor shape are far less embarassing if you're currently in much better shape. I figure by not posting them it lessens my shame and lessens what anybody who reads this blog has to endure.

Backstory

I'm your average, red-blooded, 6'2.5" guy. All my life I was a tall-ish, slender guy. A few years ago, however, at about the time I started to settle into the computer science program in college I started noticing a few extra pounds find their way into my daily life. Naturally, I started thinking about undertaking a fitness program.

I'd looked at a few programs and was talking about it with some of my roommates when my roommate, Coach, told me that the fitness program he really wanted to do was P90X. I'd seen bits and pieces of P90X infomercials, but hadn't really taken much notice. As his name suggests, Coach is a dude whom I trust when it comes to athletic stuff so I decided to watch an infomercial for the product the next time I came across one. Well, I eventually saw one (it didn't take long...even now just flip around the channels on the weekend and there's virtually always one on on SOME channel), and I was pretty impressed. P90X is an exercise & nutrition program designed to be done in your home by following along with some exercise DVDs and following a specific diet. The biggest drawback at the time was I really didn't have the funds to buy the program, let alone the gear to exercise at home and foods for the nutrition program. At the time I was a starving college student, so I opted for the cheap option of simply eating better and going to the school fieldhouse to use random exercise equipment.

Well...several years have passed now and I'm once again having the desire to start a fitness program. I'm now out of college, gainfully employed, and can afford to do it, so I'm gonna give P90X a go.