Took a day off, I guess you could have seen it coming after yesterday’s slanted entry. Was welcomed to work this morning by being sent to the single most distasteful piece of fitness dreck that I have seen since the old days when the pedestal girls used to do workouts on City TV while being filmed from underneath… You guessed it, “The Situation” has a workout video that drips with douchiness and rampant Italianism.
I literally dragged myself through this workout. Maybe I am overtraining, that did come into my mind again. Maybe I should be sticking to 3 on 1 off or 4 on 1 off. I don’t know but what I do know is that it is harder than ever to keep going through the workouts. Maybe my carbs are too low, maybe my GI intake is too low, I am not certain. When I look at my fitday though, it seems like I should be feeling better than I am. That is why I think maybe it is overtraining not out of whack eating. I am scheduled to do a major workout today, P90X chest shoulders and tri and it may not be prudent given that it will be my 5th workout in a row with a preceding set of several 4 and 5 workout stretches behind me. Trouble is, I don’t feel better when I don’t work out for a day and that scares me. I do realize now I think about it that my sleep isn’t where it should be. Maybe that is the issue, an extra 2 hours a night might fix me up completely. For now, I will soldier on with the CS&T today and see what tomorrow (rest day) feels like. I did shovel for about 25 minutes this morning too, at 530am which was an unexpected surprise.
BTW I was down only 1lb this past week, currently at 258.0
D61 – Due to be Back and Biceps P90X but I got the foolish idea that I would like to try out the Tabata protocol which according to Crossfit is:
For twenty seconds do as many reps of the assigned exercise as you can – then rest 10 seconds.
Repeat this seven more times for a total of 8 intervals, 4 minutes total exercise.
The score is the least number of reps for any of the eight intervals.
I had planned to do pull ups and double bicep curls and thought that 2 rounds of each would suffice so I did the folowing:
20s of pull ups +10 sec rest x8
20s of bicep curls (25lb) +10 sec rest x8
20s of pull ups +10 sec rest x8
20s of bicep curls (25lb) +10 sec rest x8
The whole thing only took about 20 minutes thanks to my iPhone  and my amazing WODTimer App which at $2 has been one hell of a buy. It does have a preset Tabata interval timer so I didn’t have to think about it too much. However, the timer is the easy part. The work, not the intensity but the sheer volume was the challenge especially when it came  to pull ups. I feel like I got a great bicep workout but since I am not totally proficient at pull ups yet I felt like I hadn’t quite got the workout I could have. We shall see how sore I am tomorrow.
Despite the fact that Nicole and I were both up all night, her with the cold sweats and me with what I thought was food poisoning I think I did a good job doing anything at all. I am now going to melt into the couch for a few hours.
Day 59 – Shoulders and Arms P90X Style. Due to my lingering injury I was unable to do anything close to my regular weights but there is something kid of liberating about doing hundreds of reps with a light weight. For each round where Tony encourages you to do 6-8 reps for size I opted to do 30 if I had time. It made for a nonstop hectic workout but the time flew and my shoulder actually felt OK even with the upright rows. I did some body weight dips which I was surprised at since i thought they would be too painful to perform. I think my shoulder is getting better fast, the pain is certainly less than half what it was 2 days ago which is a great sign.
My weight seems to have stagnated a little. However, this loss is totally different than any other weight loss I can remember. Usually when I am able to lose weight, I seem to shrink all over and end up as a smaller, lighter version of me. In other words, I don’t think my body composition changes much, I lost muscle and fat and end up being a mini me. This time however I find that my body fat is disappearing and I am really starting to see a change in the basic shape of my body. For once my waistline seems to have been the first thing to change and my pants are all falling off. It’s a bit weird, this has not happened before other than when I was at Western and got down to 11% fat but then again I was only 190lbs. I am hoping that this week is just a readjustment week which often happens after a certain amount of loss. Your body seems to take a breather before scaling down once again. It’s certainly no time to get discouraged since the Paleo lifestyle seems extremely easy to follow and is providing some amazing results. We will have to see what my official weight is on Sunday but as of now I am the same as I was last Sunday, albeit a slightly different shape!
It seems like forever since I did an actual DVD instead of messing about and mixing bits and pieces. Why not do a Max workout to get back into it then? Actually, the workout was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. I think I remember being pleasantly surprised when I started doing Insanity back in the day as to how much I enjoyed the workout, partly because at the time I wasn’t able to give 100% for the whole workouts so I was better off giving 75% for a longer time. At least that way I felt like I got a better workout. This one was only difficult due to the pain in my shoulder but aside from that it was quite a lot of fun.
I am getting concerned as to what I should be doing after I am done round 4. I don’t think that I can even really call them rounds any more other than it gives me a nice 3 month structure into which I can put my test workouts and see how they work. It’s hard to believe that my first round started in June of 2009, 18 months ago, and since this is round 4 obviously I suck at math. There was a failed attempt at taking P90X into the gym for a while there but the rest must just be poor adherence to the plan. In fact, when I check, this should really be round 5. See here:
Round 1 – P90X Classic Started June 19 2009
Round 2 – G90X Trying to take P90X into the gym Started Oct 19 2009
Round 2 Remix – Forget the gym, mix P90X and Insanity) Started Jan 30 2010 (Apparently I was in horrible shape)
Round 3 – P90x Insanity Hybrid. Started June 9 2010 after the baby was born. This was my decision to really start taking it seriously)
Round 4 – P90X, Insanity and Crossfit. Started Sept 29 2010. Also started eating Paleo Oct 11 2010. Big difference… huge!
I really took the first round seriously but I found that when I got to the end I had no continuance plan in place so I fizzled out with rest week and fell into the most common problem of all, post P90X laziness. My attempt to take P90X into the gym started in October 2009 and I claim to have been around 255lbs. My own records indicate that in fact I had been 252 during my wedding in August of 2007 and then ballooned to 291 almost exactly a year after that in September of 2008. So the fact that I thought I was around 255 in October 2009 was only because I had managed to lose some weight doing P90X. I remember I didn’t follow the diet plan at all and of course I had an excuse for that however I do recall that I lost a little weight during that 90 days. I started around 270 and dropped to about 255 by the end of the program.
Round 2 in both forms saw me get off track and although I was working out, I was apparently eating for two. My documented weight at the start of Round 2 after G90X failed was 272lbs. I had managed to gain an extra 2 lbs over and above my pre-90X weight. My weight didn’t move much and about half way through the round I hurt my back quite badly and was out for a while. I recall that the weeks seemed to slip by very quickly as I struggled with my next move and although my records have gone awol I can tell you from the frequency of my posting here that the time wasted as quickly as my motivation. I did have an injury, I did have a viral infection and I did still have to coach twice a week but add into that waiting for the baby to be born and the stress alone would have been enough to stall me out.
Round 3 and the baby may have saved my life. I went almost 2 months with sporadic and half-hearted workouts but then as the baby suddenly appeared along with her came my renewed sense of adventure and commitment. I built the decks, started my hybrid schedule and started to turn things around. Still no diet plan though. So I was back working out, looking after the wife and the baby, doing construction and enjoying being off work for 3 weeks. That short time really shot me out of the cannon when it came to my fitness. I quit the gym and committed to having all the equipment and motivation I needed at home. Since then it has been tough but consistent. Once my parents left after their visit in September I realized that in fact being fit at 282lbs may be OK for an NFL lineman, but not for a sedentary Network Engineer. So I jumped on the Paleo bandwagon and rode off into the sunset. 20+lbs later and I am still committed to the process and the diet and feeling amazing.
As you can tell, my “concern” about what to do for R5 is causing my mind to race. R4 has been very enjoyable and for the most part I get the biggest kick out of doing the Crossfit type workouts. So I may scale back the cardio to 2 days and let  Crossfit take the other weight days and the responsibility for bench on board for the remaining 4 days. I am only about 10lbs off being my lowest weight ever while involved with P90X and I have to be honest, it is not the workout that is doing it, it is the diet.
For all of you out there who are doing P90X or who are thinking about whether it will get the weight off you or not hear this… A typical P90X workout is 1 hour. You sleep 8 hours. What you put into your face during the other 15 hours is by far the biggest part of your success. Anyone can work out. Anyone! But it takes a smart individual to realize that stuffing themselves with fruits and veg and good cuts of meat will get them where they need to be. Put away the packaged food, eat only things with 5 ingredients or less and OH GOD I AM ON MY SOAP BOX AGAIN!!!
Just don’t try to kid yourself that you can do the workouts without the diet, you can’t possibly be that stubborn / stupid / weak.
By the way… that picture (the one of me at the top), everyone has one, should be on your wall along with your best picture to make sure you understand that the limits on your life are up to you. Only you can determine how far you can fall and how high you can climb.
If you have a big enough WHY, you can endure almost any HOW.
I literally dragged myself through this workout. Maybe I am overtraining, that did come into my mind again. Maybe I should be sticking to 3 on 1 off or 4 on 1 off. I don’t know but what I do know is that it is harder than ever to keep going through the workouts. Maybe my carbs are too low, maybe my GI intake is too low, I am not certain. When I look at my fitday though, it seems like I should be feeling better than I am. That is why I think maybe it is overtraining not out of whack eating. I am scheduled to do a major workout today, P90X chest shoulders and tri and it may not be prudent given that it will be my 5th workout in a row with a preceding set of several 4 and 5 workout stretches behind me. Trouble is, I don’t feel better when I don’t work out for a day and that scares me. I do realize now I think about it that my sleep isn’t where it should be. Maybe that is the issue, an extra 2 hours a night might fix me up completely. For now, I will soldier on with the CS&T today and see what tomorrow (rest day) feels like. I did shovel for about 25 minutes this morning too, at 530am which was an unexpected surprise.
My weight seems to have stagnated a little. However, this loss is totally different than any other weight loss I can remember. Usually when I am able to lose weight, I seem to shrink all over and end up as a smaller, lighter version of me. In other words, I don’t think my body composition changes much, I lost muscle and fat and end up being a mini me. This time however I find that my body fat is disappearing and I am really starting to see a change in the basic shape of my body. For once my waistline seems to have been the first thing to change and my pants are all falling off. It’s a bit weird, this has not happened before other than when I was at Western and got down to 11% fat but then again I was only 190lbs. I am hoping that this week is just a readjustment week which often happens after a certain amount of loss. Your body seems to take a breather before scaling down once again. It’s certainly no time to get discouraged since the Paleo lifestyle seems extremely easy to follow and is providing some amazing results. We will have to see what my official weight is on Sunday but as of now I am the same as I was last Sunday, albeit a slightly different shape!
