Food Struggles

Oof, I've eaten like crap over the past four or five meals. I'm really feeling sluggish and weak because of it. I must get back to eating smaller and healthier but I'm still so full from my IHOP breakfast that I just can't fathom eating anything else right now.  It's so easy to slip from eating well to eating poorly and yet so difficult to slide the other way.

Let this be a lesson to me, please. You'd probably never know it by looking at me but I think that food is something I've struggled with over the years.  It's a definite weakness of mine and I find myself (after the fact) eating out of desire and for comfort rather than hunger or need. I've only stumbled like this a million times and yet it feels inevitable that I will fail again in this regard. How can I struggle with something when I know better both intellectually and through experience?

I suppose that "the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

What about you?  Do you struggle with food?  Do you have any tips for overcoming this sort of thing?  Leave a comment and share your advice.

P90X Week 3 Shakedown

In case you haven't noticed, there was no shakedown post for week 2 on P90X.  Rest assured that we completed the workouts that week.  The short answer as to why no posting occurred is this: I AM EXHAUSTED.  

This program has me constantly sore and always tired.  I've literally fallen asleep at my desk at work at 8:30 in the morning at least twice since starting.  Granted some of the reason for my fatigue is that we're getting up to work out at 4 in the morning.  But I'm also generally in my bed and asleep by 9 at night so I'm usually getting a solid 7 hours of sleep.  

No, the main reason I'm so tired is because every single one of these workouts is leaving me in a heaping mass of jelly on the floor.  Doing that every day is...well it's tiring to say the least!

That being said, things are going quite well.  Week 3 is complete, all of my rep counts went up and some of my weight went up as well.  More satisfying is the way my clothes are fitting.  I haven't taped recently but my pants are much more comfortable than they were 4 weeks ago.  I'm not noticing a whole lot of definition yet in my upper body but I haven't taken a second set of pictures to compare yet.  Those should be taken this week.  Eventually, I'll move all of these posts over to a new portion of the site along with the pictures so that you can judge for yourself what the changes were.

This week is a built in 'recovery' week.  I use the term 'recovery' loosely because even though there are no resistance workouts on the schedule this week, there are still 6 hard workouts: yoga twice, core synergistics, cardio, kenpo and a stretching routine as well.  So yes, my muscles get to recover a little bit but we're still cranking out the cardio and body weight resistance exercises.

Next week we're taking a family vacation so it will be interesting to see how the workouts go in a new environment and on a new schedule.  I think we've got it all planned out miss only one workout and continue on the diet as well.  I'll certainly report on how it goes.

P90X Week 1 Shakedown

After one week down I'm really impressed.  P90X is a really great program.  Make no mistake, it's crazy intense, though.  All six of last week's workouts left me completely spent and extremely sore for at least 36 hours.  It's obviously well planned though, several times I noticed that the most sore parts of my body were the first ones stretched out in the next day's workout...I was grateful to say the least.

The diet portion of this program is going really well also.  Lot's of protein, very little carbs.  In my opinion the diet pales in comparison to the workouts though.

Here's the basic workout schedule for weeks 1-3.

1. Monday - Core Synergistics - This is a whole lot more than a core workout in my opinion.  It really works everything from the shoulders down to the quads with a good bit of flexibility and cardio work built in.  I should really say that every single one of these workouts has been a cardio beat down for me with each one pushing me up to at least 180 bpm at least once.  This one is about an hour long.
2. Tuesday - Cardio X - As the name implies this one is a cardio fat burner.  Honestly, my only complaint about this one is that it's not quite long enough.  So far this is the shortest of the complete workouts clocking in at 47 minutes.  It combines yoga, kenpo and plyometrics to get that heart rate up and keep it there for duration.
3. Wednesday - Shoulders and Arms/Ab Ripper X - This is the first true weight training workout of the week targeting the shoulders through a bunch of butterfly type lifts along with the biceps and triceps.  I used very little weight in week one as I just didn't know what to expect and wanted to at least try each exercise.  This resulted in a pretty good shoulders and triceps workout but a waste of time for my biceps.  I'm anxious to give this one another try.  I'm not, however, anxious to repeat the Ab Ripper X routine.  It's a killer for me.  It's obvious that my abs need a lot of work, several of the exercises were simply too difficult for my weak body to handle more than a couple of reps.  My abs are definitely a target area for improvement over the 90 days.  60 minutes for the Shoulders and Arms, 15 minutes for the Ab Ripper X.
4. Thursday - Yoga X - Three words: I HATE YOGA.   Ok, I'm mostly joking about this but this is by far the most difficult video for me to get though.  I'm nowhere near flexible enough to even complete about half of the positions and it's just very difficult for me to 'calm the storm' in this one.  All you manly naysayers out there need to know this though: Yoga Ain't No Joke.  This is the longest workout as well at a full 90 minutes.
5. Friday - Legs and Back/Ab Ripper X - This is a great hour-long workout.  My legs were sore for two days after this one.  Since we're doing the Lean version of P90X this is the second of only two true weight training workouts weekly and it's a beast.  I feel like I largely chose the right starting weight for the majority of these exercises, but I'm anxious to get to this one again on Friday.  Last Friday my pull up bar wasn't installed yet and so I missed virtually the entire back portion of the workout.  I can't wait to be able to start ripping off the unassisted pull ups...hopefully I can get to that point by the end of the 90 days because I'm sure not there yet!  The 15 minute Ab Ripper X is just an added 'bonus' for day 5...ouch.
6. Saturday - Kenpo X - I really enjoyed this martial arts based workout.  It was honestly a lot of fun and will really improve my balance, functional strength, and flexibility.  It really stretched out my sore legs from the previous day.  It's 60 minutes long but this one really flies by.
7. Sunday - This was a much needed day of rest!  I was almost ready to go again Monday morning!

The schedule will change to a 'recovery' week in week 4 (that 'recovery' week still looks pretty tough!) and then a completely new set of workouts starts in weeks 5 continuing through week 8.

Motivation is still high and we're seeing some minor weight drops.  We're definitely seeing some performance improvements already though so that's fun to experience.

What are you doing to stay fit?  Leave a comment and let us know!

P90X Kickoff

Gina and I just finished our first workout in the P90X Lean program.

Wow.

Today made me realize just how out of shape I really am.  I made it through half of the 'Core Synergistics' video and was completely gassed.  I got really nauseous and had to sit out a few exercises and watch my amazing wife push through.  She completely showed me up and completed the whole video by the way, she's a rock star.

Anyway, I'm sure there's some performance metrics that I could spout out right now to show how I'm progressing and I'll figure those out as we go.  For now let's just say that day 1 was really hard and I only expect it to get worse before it gets easier.  I'm feeling committed again now but I have to admit I questioned that commitment a little bit when the alarm went off at 4:15am and when my face was buried in our living room carpet at 45 minutes later!

Sit and Be Fit?

Most of us cannot get fit while working our day job. There are the lucky(?) few who get to do something active all day for a living and attain a tremendous level of fitness by simply showing up and doing the work. For those of us with a sedentary occupation, it's up to us to get off the couch after hours (or before!) to get our sweat on. My employer has introduced a new program that has the potential of really changing people's lives and increasing the general fitness level of their employees.

Check out Nuvita.

Yes, this program has tremendous savings potential for the employer by lowering the number of employee claims on their group health insurance. However, as an employee, I'm naturally more interested in what's in it for me. Here's a rundown of how the program works.

• Health Assessments - Each participant, there's about 40 in our current test cycle, receives a health assessment at the beginning of the 12 week program. They record body composition, blood pressure, cardiovascular health through a VO2max text, bicep strength, flexibility and the results from a blood panel. They use this data along with your age and gender to come up with what they call a Body Age and a Nuvita Age. The Body Age is similar to what you might have seen on Biggest Loser, basically how old your body is acting. The Nuvita Age is the lowest possible Body Age that they feel you can reach if you fully participate in the program. My ages, for instance, are a Chronological Age of 34, a Body Age of 36, and a Nuvita Age of 29. They'll repeat the complete health assessment at the end of the 12 week program to chart your progress.  Obviously the 29 sounds pretty good to me!

• Coaching - A Nuvita health coach walks each participant through the program. Using the results of your health assessment they create a fitness plan for each individual and monitor your progress. They also provide true coaching value in supplying health lessons and guidance in nutrition and lifestyle changes. My coach meets with us weekly.

• Exercise Tracking - Each participant is given a heart rate monitor to track their cardiovascular exercise throughout the 12 week program. Mine is a Garmin F70. You keep the monitor regardless of your level of success with the program. You simply wear the monitor when you exercise, it records your heart rate and times the exercise session and then uploads your exercise history to your myNuvita.com tracking website. Your weekly cardio requirements vary based on your health assessment results. The program also asks you log three mobility/strength training sessions per week.

• Nutrition - Your coach and the website also helps you to plan out a healthy meal plan including three meals and two snacks per day. You're also asked to log your meals within your website along with water consumption and whether or not you took your daily multi vitamin.

• Competition - To me the real secret to the success of this program is the competition factor. Each employee is assigned to a team of 5 to 10 other employees. You're competing against the other teams in the company for highest cardio time, best meals, strength and mobility workouts and general participation in the program. We haven't even officially begun the program yet and the trash talking has already begun! Of course, eventually this comes down to individuals doing the work, but having a team to support won't hurt one bit.

So that's how Nuvita works. Fire away with questions, I'll try to answer them and I'll definitely keep you updated on my progress.