Day 30

Alrighty...it's been a while since I said hello to the 'ole blog.  The workouts have been going pretty good.  I've missed a couple here and there, but I feel like I've been doing much better than in the past as far as that goes.  I'm down a litle over 7 pounds after 30 days.  I was hoping for more like 10, but I'll be happy with 7...it's just a number.  The main thing for me is that I feel better.  I fit into my pants a little better...I like how I look in the mirror a little more.  I see progress.   I'm not to where I want to be yet, but I'm on the right path.  The last week or so I've been slacking on the nutrition part...and I know that's one of my main challenges, so I have to focus on it all the more.



Here's a couple before/after pictures:

Day 1

Day 30

Day 1

Day 30

Day 1

Day 30



You'll have to excuse the poor formatting...me and the computer are not seeing eye to eye on how I want this to look :)





Week 2

Today started week #2 on the P90X2.  Seems to me that posting updates once a week is good. I have a hard time keeping up with the blogging every day, but a once a week "how's everything going" type update sounds reasonable to me :)

Things I LOVE about P90X2: 

• I rarely feel sore.  No, really!  The stretching and (especially) foam rolling is absoltuely amazing.  You can really work whatever areas are knotted up and get the knots out before you get sore.  There was one day my hamstrings were tight, so I foam rolled them and they felt fine afterwards.
• Having 2 days off.  It might be kind of a "duh" statement, but having 2 days off is easier than having 1 day off.  You only have to work out 2 days, then have a day off, then 3 day then a day off.  It makes it so much easier to make yourself do the workouts knowing you're close to a day off.  With P90X, working out 6 days in a row, I found it far to easy to skip.
• How much better I feel about myself as a person. I feel so good knowing that I'm getting my workouts done, and I'm doing a pretty good job sticking with the nutrition piece.  I've even had 2 times where I got home from work at night and really did NOT want to do my workout, but I made myself do it anyways...makes me feel good to push through the temptation to skip.

I'm sure there's more things, but that's the main stuff I'm enjoying. I was SUPER stoked with tonight's workout, X2 Core.  I made massive improvement in almost every move.  Some of it is just figuring out technique, but a lot of it is me getting stronger and pushing harder when I want to give up.  The nice thing with a workout like P90X2 is you can measure your progress in performance.  How many could I do last week?  How many did I do today?  Over time the visible physical progress will happen, but for now I'm more than happy with how I'm doing.

Ball of Sweat

Look at that!  2 days in a row of posting on the 'ol blog!  Probably don't get used to it :)  Today was Plyocide...in P90X, I actually really enjoyed Plyometrics...and I had done Plyocide with my wife, just not all the way through since she was working out and I was watching the kids.  Man oh man...what a workout!  I actually like this one better than Plyo in P90X.  Tony does more of the "fun" stuff...like where he calls out at random what you're supposed to do.  Having to listen kinda keeps your mind off your legs screaming at you and your heart wanting to explode (maybe that's just me).  Plus I want to say it's a little shorter in length...50 min. or so, I think.

I'm really feeling good about myself as far as the P90X2 goes...I've done a pretty good job in keeping with the nutrition plan, and I've done my workouts.  Granted, it's only Day 2...but for me, it's really about getting it done one day at a time.  I have so many battles with myself everyday.  I'm really a mindless grazer when it comes to food...if it's there, I just eat it without any thought.  Like I mentioned yesterday, I made up a tracking sheet for my food and put it on the fridge.  I think seeing it frequently really helps keep me in check.  But I still have to constantly tell myself that munching on those crackers or eating whatever tasty thing I see isn't going to help me get to my goal.  It's a mental balancing act...win the battles moment by moment, day by day...all the while keeping my end goal in sight to help me win the battles.  I'm also happy with myself that I haven't even tried to talk myself out of doing a workout...I'm pretty good at that.  I think it's REALLY going to help me that you get 2 days off a week in P90X2...for me, it's Wed. and Sun.  So that day off can be my prize for working out 2 or 3 days in a row.  I had a really hard time working out 6 days in a row with P90X.

Moral of the story:  I'm feeling good about myself, and I wanted to share that with you :)

And here we go!

So I started doing P90X2 yesterday.  I'm pretty excited about doing it.  The last year or so I've been sooooooo incredibly bad for working out.  It's pretty pathetic.  I had the hernia 2 Octobers ago, and the surgery about a year ago.  Ever since thing I just haven't been working out.  I started Insanity when I got the OK to workout after my surgery, and I did a marathon...but I pooped out with the Insanity, and I didn't really do as well with the marathon as I wanted.  After that (beginning of last May), I basically haven't done anything...the occasional workout, but certainly nothing consistent.  Then in August we had our 2nd kid...so that was an amazing excuse to not do anything.  Now I'm more or less a stay at home dad; I work part time in the evenings at Olive Garden.  I really thought it'd be super easy to get my workouts done since I'm home all day, but no...my son naps really consistently, but the girl...not so much.  The only time that I have that is convenient to do my workouts is when I get home from work and both kids are sleeping...I just have to make myself do it since working out generally doesn't seem that awesome.

One thing I've learned about myself (okay, I already knew it, but it's been highlighted)...I NEED to work out.  If I don't, I get fat.  I'm not one of those people who is genetically blessed with not being fat.  In the last 15 months since I had to give up P90X due to my hernia, I have packed on 40 pounds.  You read that right...40...I'm basically back to where I was when I started P90X in the first place.  So like I said...I NEED to work out.  I think stepping on the scale last Saturday and taking before pictures and doing measurements (and seeing my 'after' pictures from 15 months ago when I looked way better than I do now) is definitely providing me with the motivation I need to work out when I get home from work at night.  I know I can get where I want to be...I just have to put in the work. 

It'll be great that I'm doing P90X2 with Joyful...granted she's doing it early in the morning, and I'm doing it at night...but at least we're doing the same program together so we can help eachother out.  And I think that being home pretty much all day will help me out with trying to eat properly...the nutrition thing is as much, if not more, of a challenge for me as getting the workouts done.  I made up a tracking sheet for myself and hung it on the fridge so I can make sure I'm doing what I need to nutrtion-wise everyday and staying on track.

Well I have rambled on a lot, huh?  I'll stop now.  Chances are very good I'm not going to update this blog every day...but I'll do my best to do it fairly regularly...my pretend audience can help keep me accountable with staying on track for the next 89 days :)

Today's Workout/Goals for the New Year

Would you look at that!  I managed to work out 2 days in a row!  Today I did Shoulders and Arms with Joyful.  It felt really good to actually do a "real" workout, and actually finish it!  It helped that it was upper body, so it barely affected my hernia.  I got the occasional sensation, but nothing to worry about or anything.  I decided to be a wuss and use 10# weights for everything.  For some stuff, it was really easy, for some stuff it was fairly hard.  10# on some of the tricep stuff is tough! 

I'm really trying to make a point of actually doing what exercise I can do every day.  It's so easy for me to use my hernia as an excuse to not do anything, and that doesn't do me any good.  Sure there are days where I actually hurt bad enough that exercise would suck really bad...but most days, I could do something.  We own a LOT of Beachbody workouts, and I bet there's something we have that I can do pretty much every day...my original plan for the New Year was to do Insanity...that's still the plan once I'm back to normal after my surgery.  From what I've read, it looks like it'll be a week after my surgery and I should be back to myself...so I guess probably starting Insanity the beginning of February.

I'm going to do the Lincoln Marathon this year.  It's in May...so I'm going to be using Insanity to do most of my training for that.  I've made it my goal that by the time I'm 35 years old, I'm going to qualify for the Boston Marathon...which means doing a marathon on 3 hours 15 minutes.  Step one of accomplishing that goal is getting my marathon time solidly under 4 hours.  I should be able to do that just fine seeing as how my Omaha 1/2 Marathon a couple months ago was 1 hr 51 minutes.  So I really want to use Insanity to get my Lincoln Marathon done in like 3 hours 45 minutes.  If I start Insanity the beginning of February, I'll have the whole month of April to work on my running, since the marathon is the beginning of May.  I'll have the cario/leg strength part down already, I'll just need to get my knees back into running...thankfully since losing my P90X weight, running is WAAAAY easier on my knees.  They say for every pound you lose, it's 4 pounds of pressure off your joints.  Plus, I really want to get a good time in Lincoln so that I don't need to do a full marathon in Omaha...that course is too hilly for my liking.  Doing a half marathon there is plenty for me :)

So that's really my main goal for the year, athletically...have my hernia surgery on January 20th...start Insanity February 1st...start running when I'm done with Insanity...do the Lincoln Marathon in 3:45 or better.  For goals after that, I guess we'll see.  It'll depend somewhat on how the Lincoln Marathon pans out for me...it'd be kinda nice to start another round of Insanity after the marathon, but I guess we'll see :)

Stretchin' It Up

Joyful and I did X Stretch tonight...it was quite nice.  We were going to do Plyometrics, and I was just going to do what I could, but we decided like 5 minutes in that it just seemed like a bad idea to do that tonight, so we changed to X Stretch.  Tony says in it that "it might just be what the doctor ordered", and sure enough, it was glorious.  It's just an hour of stretching everything from the neck down.  Kind of like Yoga, but not hard...just nice and relaxing.

We had a fabulous Christmas time this year.  It was Isaiah's first Christmas, and it was fun watching him with his presents...though he really didn't want to go to sleep tonight.  I tried to not be overly gluttonous, and I think I did a decent job of that...especially considering my lack of will power.  I could have done a lot worse :)

well, it's something...

So my working out has been super hit or miss the last while due to the hernia thing....I'm starting to slightly regret pushing back the surgery to January, but I tell myself that financially it'll be nicer...I do miss working out on a daily basis, though.  I get in a Shakeology workout here and there, but it's hard to stay motivated when my ability to workout is dependent on how my stupid groin feels.  Someone once said at a Beachbody thing that it's way easier to stay on track with your exercise and eating habits if you follow a specific program, and it's so so true.  Not that I've ever been good with the eating habits part even when I was sticking with a specific program, but I did pretty good...and it was so much easier to be dedicated to working out when it was habit.

Tonight I attempted the Yoga workout from the One on One series.  For those who don't know what the One on One series is, you should click here .  The Yoga is fun and crazy...and that coming from a guy who really doesn't care much for Yoga.  Tony has some new moves that are pretty ridiculous.  Some I can do, many I can not...but how awesome would it be to get to where I could do it?  I think that's one of the things I really like about P90X (and presumeably its successor, MC:2)...it's got stuff for you to work towards.  Sure right now I can't do Crane or some other pose, but if I work at it, eventually I will be able to.  That way you can celebrate the little milestones.  You've got your 30, 60 and 90 day stats, and you've got the "ability milestones" as you are able to do things you couldn't before.

Sadly I had to stop my (surprisingly) enjoyable Yoga time about 30 minutes in because my hernia was feeling weird and I didn't like it.  It's not so much that it hurt, it just felt weird and made me feel uncomforable...so I stopped.

I need to make a point of being better at exercise this week, especially with my challenges of will power around yummy food.  Joyful and I have done a good job of just not having stuff in our house that I shouldn't eat...but we're going to my mom's on Christmas Eve, and I'm sure that will be a potential for gluttony if I'm not careful.  As I mentioned once before, I work out obviously because it makes me more fit and healthy, but also because I like to eat :)

I'll try to do a better job of blogging...it's been a while since I wrote anything...but just in case, have a Merry Christmas!