Almost three weeks of glorious P90X workouts have already gone by. The fourth week is sort of a recovery week; there’s less emphasis on muscle building and a greater emphasis on total body workout. I’m not looking forward to it; this coming week will include two yoga sessions. Why did it have to be yoga that would repeat twice in one week? Couldn’t it have been any other workout? Really, any other workout at all would have been preferable. Read more

I’ve survived the first two weeks of P90X. 14 days. More than 15 hours of workouts. More protein than I usually consume in a three month period. How do I feel? Pretty good about myself. I think, with these kinds of extreme workout/diet programs, if you don’t bail out after a few days, you’re probably going to stick it out. Read more

What’s the hardest part of P90X? Is it the dieting? Is the exercise programs? It may be that the hardest part of the program is not breaking it, at least not while trying to lead a normal life. This past week we had house guests: my wife’s cousin, her husband, and her two young boys. Now, as you may know, when you have guests over, you don’t usually tend to eat as well as you normally do, you certainly don’t worry about your usual fitness routine, and you probably don’t concern yourself with your eight hours minimum sleep every night. But I had to do all of those things. Read more

So, how can I sum up day two of P90X in one word? Plyometrics.

What’s plyometrics? It’s jumping exercises designed to make you burn calories fast, improve performance and sweat buckets.

And boy did I sweat. It sounded like someone turned on a faucet and let it pour over my exercise mats. Every time I bent over, a river of sweat rolled down my head and face and onto the floor. To put this into perspective, I was working out in my cool, dry exercise room located in my basement; I don’t sweat this much when I’m running a 5k outside underneath the sun. P90X builds in 30 second water breaks approximately every ten minutes in this 50 minute long video, and thank god, because without them, I’d be passed out somewhere between minutes 16 and 17. Read more

Now that I’ve committed myself to getting healthy, I’m tracking how well I do. I’m tracking my calories in and out. I’m tracking what kinds of foods I eat, what types of exercises I do. And I’m tracking my water intake.

I didn’t realize just how poorly I was doing with water. I was drinking, at best, 2-3 glasses a day. I should be hitting around 8 glasses a day, especially now that I’m working out a lot more, sweating a lot and needing the extra hydration.

It isn’t just about hydration either. I’m dieting, at least until I see some weight loss, and while I do that, I need to feel full. Drinking a glass of water means I won’t feel like I’m starving while I’m waiting for my next meal time. I have to get used to eating a normal day’s worth of calories. For too long, I was eating 50-75% more than I should have for my build. My body has been used to all of those extra calories, and until I get used to the reduction, I need the water to keep my from tip-toeing back up to the kitchen and searching for snacks. The water also helps keep headaches at bay; I have a tendency to get headaches when I’m dehydrated.

And my biggest challenge: stay from the diet sodas. Oh how I love to drink diet sodas. I get bored of water. It’s plain. There’s nothing in it. I like flavor. But diet soda? I could drink that all day. But have you ever noticed what happens when you drink diet soda? You’re in the bathroom every five minutes. You get headaches, and you have bowel problems. It isn’t good for you. I don’t care if it has the word “diet” next to it. It’s bad. The fake sugar, the dyes, all the other junk they throw in for flavor, it’s cancer in a bottle, and it’s best to stay away from it.

Water, pure and simple. Get a water filter and keep the water flowing. I fill up a big bottle of water, which I know is the equivalent of 4 servings of water a day. I drink it gradually as I work at my desk, as I workout, as I eat my meals. Then when it’s empty, I fill it back up. Now I’ve only had to fill it twice, and since it’s right in front of my all day, I keep drinking it, and I’m guaranteed to get my 8 cups of water a day.

And as for the diet soda? I dumped what I had down the drain, and I refuse to buy it. I don’t need it.

The New Year is a time to reflect upon the past year. In 2009, I let myself get out of shape. Terribly, horribly out of shape. I can’t remember the last time I was this bad. And now with 2010 here, it’s time to turn back the clock and reverse the damage I’ve done to my body.

First of all, I need to lose weight. I’ve been steadily gaining weight around my mid-section. This is the worst place to gain weight. Larger waists increase your likelihood of heart attack, and though I’m still young, if I continued on this path, I’d wind up like my grandparents; I’d die before my time from heart disease. No matter how poorly I eat, I never seem to get really fat, but that doesn’t matter, if I’m eating all the wrong foods filled with saturated and trans fats, and I’m not exercising enough, I’m doing damage to my heart.

Secondly, I need to get back in shape. I was a born runner. Like my daughter, I was walking around 9 months, and shortly after, I learned to run. And I never stopped. To the frustration of my parents, I ran constantly, no matter where I was. I loved to run. Now however, running even a couple miles wears me out. And worst of all, I hate it. I hate running. I can’t stand being out of breath. I can’t stand the ache in my lungs, the burning feeling in my throat, the tension in my body, and the overwhelming desire to stop. Everything in my body is telling me, “you’re going to die if you keep running”, and for the first time in my life, I’m listening. In order to get back in shape, I need to ignore that voice telling me to stop, I need to push through the pain, and I need to rediscover my love of running.

And lastly, I need to find a diet and exercise routine for life. There are two phases in this plan. First of all, I’m going to push myself really hard to lose this extra, get in great shape, and  get back where I once was. But then I also need to discover how to stay healthy. I can’t let myself go again in a year or two and start this all over. I need to find a diet for life, one that I will stick to, one that is somewhat enjoyable so I don’t go crazy after a few months and indulge. I need to find an exercise routine I also enjoy, one that keeps me fit without making me worn out, without making me hate exercise. This is going to be the most challenging part of this.

So, in summary, my New Year’s Resolutions are to lose weight, get fit, and stay that way.

Kip

Do you ever feel like it’s absolutely impossible to eat well and exercise during Christmas? I’m surrounded by cookies. There is hot chocolate everywhere. It’s cold, so I don’t want to run. I want to stay snug in bed all morning. I don’t want to eat salad. I want a Christmas ham, or duckling, or goose, or a suckling turkey with all the trimmings and smothered, absolutely smothered in gravy.

This Christmas is going to be Hell. It has to be the worst time of the year for someone trying to get healthy. I know I’m not going to be perfect this holiday. The goal is to be moderately successful. If I don’t binge through the holiday, I’ll have succeeded. If I work out at least three times a week, I’ll have done my job. It’s going to be hard just to accomplish simple goals like that, but I have to.

The nice thing is after Christmas, there’s not much I have to worry about. I don’t eat candy on Valentine’s day. So what is there? But barbecues this summer. And it’s actually pretty easy to eat healthy at a barbecue. Nope, only Christmas and Thanksgiving are my truly, dreaded holidays because the amount of food is gluttonous.

Kip

I think the best thing I can do, this early on into the blog, is to set a goal for myself. My favorite way to get in shape is to run. So, my plan, which might be a lofty one, is to run a half-marathon this summer. My completely out-of-shape body just cringed in pain as I typed that. I think I can do it. But I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have to start eating right. I have to come up with a real exercise regiment. And I need to look into a half-marathon training program.

Here’s wishing myself good luck.