Progress Pics

Ok so I didn't exactly do what I said I would, but I think this is a pretty close substitute. Instead of taking pics in the same dress, I have pics that I took this weekend in a different dress. You can still notice a difference.

The first set of pics are from my birthday dinner the weekend before I began the P90X program. That was my reason to pig out... And that I did. (Don't judge me!)

These pics are from August 16, 2010:

Clearly I had too much fun with the unlimited meats!

Posing with my uninterested God son

And standing up and stuffed at the end of dinner:

Now this is from Halloween weekend Friday October 29, 2010:

Sitting:

And standing:

I still have a major "muffinage" going on, so I still opt for the girdle backup plan, but I wore the same one at both viewings. Lol!

So far I am VERY pleased with the progress and I can't wait to start the next round. I actually had to push everything back a week because I was a major slacker last week (didn't do workouts some days and ate and drank way too much). I've decided to do a "redo" for last week and do week 10 over.

20lbs down (undisclosed amount to go!)
See ya soon...

Pupaturi

Going in for the LAST Month!!

Ok so I've been MIA for awhile. It's just been really hectic lately. I'm still doing my workouts so I'm proud of that. I've been hesitant to post because I still haven't taken the pictures with my birthday dress on. I keep forgetting to do it and since I promised I'd give a comparison with that dress on, I kinda wanted to wait until I took those pictures to do another post. Plans changed and I did a really cool interview about the P90X program so I wanted to share that. Here it is:

http://www.examiner.com/cardio-fitness-in-atlanta/is-p90x-for-you


I also wanted to talk a little bit about my progress between Day 30 and Day 60. Honestly, comparing the pictures, I didn't really see a big difference. I got soooo frustrated because the program is so hard! I have a goal and in order to reach it, something's gotta change. As I said in the beginning of the program, I haven't been following the diet plan. That MUST be my downfall... Who woulda thunk it?! So I'm going to change that up a bit and see what happens this last month.

My biggest guilty pleasure in the food department is CARBS!! Oh my goodness I could eat a plate of rice and be happy with it. It's definitely my comfort. I eat pasta more than a little bit. I told my friend that I tried to go on the whole wheat pasta, bread and brown rice thing, but she laughed and told me they are all still high in carbs. Dagonit! I thought I had something there.

I have to really limit the amount of pasta, bread and rice I consume period. I've been eating a lot of meats and vegetables lately. I do eat fruit oatmeal for breakfast at work every morning which is pretty high in carbs, and I've been going banana crazy lately and eating tons of grapes. I know these have a lot of sugar in them, but I see it as at least I'm not eating chocolate, cake and ice cream. Since I stopped eating so much carbs I've probably dropped another 3-5lbs so it's working!

I'm going to Miami in December and I wanna be hotter than the weather! I'm going to try REALLY hard to get the pics taken this week.

Crossing fingers for pics...

Suukot

Half Way There!!

I know, I know. You probably thought I'd given up by now. There's no way she could still be going after all this complaining! Well I am. It's been a few weeks since the last post. So sue me! :)

I've just begun week 7 which means I'm officially half way through the program and it's still tough as all hell. I've definitely gotten better at some things. Yoga is first on that list even though I still dread it.

My friend taught me how to make the recovery drink and boy is that a Godsend. Sometimes I crave it throughout the day but I know I can't drink it without working out thus it gives me a reason to workout. We have a weird relationship. They talk about the recovery drink at the end of each workout and I used to just ignore it, but apparently it really works. It helps your muscles to recover so that you don't feel like such a big blob of soreness the next day. Basically it's just a mega portion of protein. I got a whey protein mix from Walmart for like $15 and it's vanilla flavored. You can really just put it in water and drink it, but I think that would be a task more than a treat. I create a shake. My ingredients are frozen fruit and soy milk. My favorite combos are kiwi and pinapple or just plain sweet black cherries (since the mix is vanilla it takes like cherry vanilla ice cream). Talk about a recovery!! You're supposed to have it between 15-60 minutes after your workout. I get it made and digested within 10. Yep no shower involved. I can't resist!

Anyways I'm almost to my second set of pics and I think I will show a sample. I definitely won't post the sports bra pics :-/ but I took a picture right before I started this program on my birthday (as shown above) and as you can see, I had on a rather fitted dress. I think I will put it back on and show the comparison. That'll be in 2 more weeks. So I've gotten down 15 lbs but I had a little gathering at my place Sunday and ate massive amounts of pizza, cupcakes, wine and watermelon (great combo). That set me back about 5 lbs. I would have never thought that one night could do that much damage! Since I never paid attention to it before I guess I would never know. That won't happen again... Maybe.

Well til day 60...

Yakan sumba

I Can See Results Already!

Now I'm on my 4th week of the P90X program. This is the most difficult thing I've had to do my entire life, but when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. It's just my personality. Some days I reeeeally struggle with pressing play. Then I literally force myself to get my lazy butt up and do it. It's only an hour and it's for ME! Why not? I can spend countless hours doing nothing but watching tv or having useless conversations. I need this. I want this. I'm GOING to get this.

So for those of you who don't know, week 4 is SUPPOSED to be "recovery" week. I thought that meant that it would be a little less difficult. I'm laughing as I'm writing this because now I know how naive I was to even think that. Before I did core synergistics, I was a little worried and asked my friend what to expect. She said that it was tough, but I'd be fine. I think she didn't want to scare me because tough is definitely an understatement. I was all over the place and that was the first time that I chuckled when he mentioned a "bonus round". He gave the option to fast forward to the cool down and that's EXACTLY what I did.

I'm also getting a little better at the yoga. It still makes me pour down sweating more than any of the other workouts, but I think my muscles are getting a little more flexible. The hardest time I have is with the balance poses. Sometimes I get frustrated because I keep hobbling and tumbling, but in due time I'm sure that'll get better.

My absolute favorite part of each workout are the stretches at the beginning and end. Although some of them really do hurt, many of them feel sooooo good. I don't know how they come up with a lot of them, but they are heaven sent in the midst of hell. Well until I have some more torture stories...

Besos

P.S. I've lost 11 lbs and my tummy is really starting to go down. I was able to wear this amazing dress last weekend and BOY did it look great! More motivation. The pain is working!

I'm on week 3!

Hey guys,

Haven't posted in a little while from pure laziness and because the workouts haven't changed yet, but I wanted to give an update. I'm still going strong. Somedays I REALLY have to fight to push play (Plyo being the worst) but regardless I get it done. There are a few things that I wanted to talk about in this post so here goes.

A few more of my friends have been inspired to begin and they are having trouble with finishing the videos. My advice is to pace pace pace yourself and modify modify modify. The people on the videos are P90X graduates (probably a few times) and I'm sure they had to pass some intense trials before being selected to be on the video and even THEY have a hard time with it. Tony will tell you repeatedly to take breaks if you need them. If you can't breathe, take a break. If your legs are shaking and you're about to collapse, take a break. If you think your puny wrists aren't up to the battle of holding your body up while doing some of these exotic moves, don't break your wrists, modify it so that you don't hurt yourself. If you can't do the full push ups, modify them until you are able to get one or two in. This is an XTREME workout and in due time, you will be able to do what the rock stars on the video do. Just get through it. You have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. Please don't kill yourself because I'm not explaining to the FBI why I forced everyone to get in shape with P90X.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that Tony is an EXCELLENT instructor. It's in my nature to pay attention to every little detail and boy is he good! He will explain each move and tell you how you're not supposed to be doing it. Many times I've caught myself doing it wrong and quickly corrected it. He tells you what is acceptable to do instead of the full move. He will tell you how many reps you need to do for a certain look. He explains many different ways to do each move so that it is still effective and getting the job done. He's also kinda cheesy funny which I can appreciate. I still don't understand how he is able to talk through each of these exercises. He doesn't just say a few words at the beginning, he talks throughout the entire set of reps. That takes a LOT of energy and strength because I can hardly talk 5 minutes after cool down let alone during the actual workout. I really like this program and how Tony presents it to the viewer.

I am in my third week and my body is pretty used to the routines now, so I'm not in constant pain at work all day. I have yet to get heavier weights, but I'm planning on starting the next set with them. I also found a goal buddy and we have set year end goals for ourselves and a treat to go along with it. But we will take baby steps and have mini goals from now until then in which we will have mini treats. She is a P90X graduate and she looks GREAT by the way. My inspiration!

Until next time,

Polibky

Losing weight in my sleep?!

So as you all may know I'm on week 2 of the P90X program. Last night was my hell on earth Plyometrics. Some tough stuff. This time I definitely had to take a few breaks because I couldn't catch my breath well. It all worked out because I still finished the entire workout. I was also baking some chicken during my workout cause a girl still has to eat. :)

Afterwards I showered, ate and layed down for the night. In the morning before I got dressed, I decided to jump on the scale because that's now my morning routine. I saw that I had lost an additional 2 lbs from the evening before. I was so shocked I couldn't believe it! This totally made my day and tells me that the hard work is DEFINITELY paying off. I'm super excited to keep going and pushing myself because man is this tough. 7 lbs in a week and a day isn't bad at all!

Another thing I noticed is that I'm not AS sore as I was the day after the first plyo workout. Don't get me wrong, I still had a hard time getting dressed this morning, but the stiffness has worn off and I am able to move around a little more freely. I was even able to walk up both escalators to get to work this morning which usually I walk up the first one and ride the second one. I wasn't even out of breath. I can see it's working! :)

Keep pushing!

Kyssar

End of Week 1

I've been a little lazy with posting lately, but I had to tell about the last 2 workouts of Phase I: Legs and Back and Kempo X. I actually missed Legs and Back on Friday because I was pretty busy, so I did it Saturday morning when I woke up and then I did Kempo X later that evening.

Legs and Back like everything else is tough. This is a series of lunges, squats, excrutiating tippy toe routines, every muscle you can think of in your legs are being forced to work. There's one move that was the worst ever. I forgot the name of it, but the pain spoke volumes. He forces you to squat against the wall for thirty seconds. Again 30 seconds may sound like no big deal. What's a half minute right? WRONG again! And to add insult to injury, he makes you go BACK and do it again after a series of different painful leg excercises and apparently just sitting there wasn't good enough the first time. He makes you do it lifting one leg this time. 30 seconds on EACH leg. Just thinking about the pain makes me giggle. It's some tough stuff.

The next day I had to do Kempo X. This turned out to be a really fun boxing class. We were kicking major butt in my bedroom. Jabs, uppercuts, hooks, back kicks, forward kicks, three way kicks, etc. I didn't know I had so much pent up aggression and some people really got it. It was a release and to say I sweat would be an understatement. It was more like pouring. I couldn't wear my sweat band for my waist because I may have just passed out. I figured out that I'm not as poised with my left hand as with my right. When it's time to switch hands, it's really difficult and I felt really silly. Extremely ungraceful (bowing my head in shame). He does it slow enough for you to try to get your brain to get off the 3 shots of vodka it feels as though you just took, but soon after he picks up the pace and that's when all hell breaks loose. The workout was intense, but it was definitely a good time.

On Sunday I had a choice between resting or doing X-Stretch. I chose to rest because I was busy, but I will definitely do it this coming Sunday.

I'm also excited because I was able to convince a few people to endure the torture with me and they started last night! So now we get to share our funny stories and feel each other's pain. I even have my bestie in North Carolina along for the ride. I'm excited to see how long everyone sticks with it and of course the end results.

Week 2 here I go!

Küsse

Oh by the way, I lost 5 lbs! Yay me!!

Becoming One With The Land... Right??

Day 4... Yoga

I've always thought of yoga as a slow paced, breathe in breathe out routine that allows you to focus on a different, more intimate level while training your muscles to become more flexible by the different poses you must mimic. The things I've heard about yoga make it sound like the experience takes you on a wonderful ride in which your mind is utterly and completely blank and you can feel a sort of spirituality that only you can explain. A wonderful thing... Right?

WRONG!

P90X yoga is NOTHING like this. This is the longest video of them all. It is about an hour and a half. When I saw the timer when I first turned on the video, I wasn't intimidated because I figured this would be a good time. Sort of a break from the vigorous, tiresome routines I've previously endured. Let me say this one thing to put my fantasy in perspective. By the time I looked up and saw that 25 minutes had elapsed, I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it to the end.

This tooooootally changed my view on yoga. I usually wear a stomach belt that allows my midsection to sweat more during my workouts which will allow me to lose more inches there. By the tenth minute I ripped that sucker off so quick you would have thought there was a drive-by through my complex. I was literally pouring sweat from my face onto the floor by 20 minutes. My shirt was getting soaked and I was amazed.

Although yoga is not high intensity, your body is being pushed and twisted into shapes you didn't know existed and you're being forced to sit in those positions for 30 seconds and more. 30 seconds may not sound like a long time, but when your legs and arms are shaking because you're about to collapse from the strain, 30 seconds feels like a day.

I was really shocked that the yoga routine made me work that hard, but there was a good side to it. At the end of the longest hour and a half of my life, my body was stretched so well that the pain from the previous workouts had subsided and I was actually able to walk... Go figure. I was excited about that!

I believe that yoga, in time, will take me on this spiritual journey, but as I'm becoming one with the poses, I will definitely struggle to keep up and figure out what the hell I'm doing.

Legs and back next. I'm done with my expectations.

Baci

Can Someone Get Me a Wheelchair?!

Day 3 down...

So last night I did the shoulders and arms video. This routine was a compilation of weight lifting targeting the shoulders, biceps and triceps. I didn't have THAT much trouble with this video which definitely tells me that I need to get heavier weights. I had to do way more reps in order to "feel the burn."

Today my arms are a bit sore, but NOTHING in comparison to the pain I feel in my legs from the Plyometrics routine from Tuesday. I mean throw me a frickin bone here! I thought my body would be a bit more recuperated today, but I woke up walking like a zombie. If you saw me getting dressed this morning, you would have thought I got shot in the leg last night. I literally have to brace myself to sit by holding both sides of the chair and just plopping in it. At least I get a kick out of it.

I had a conversation with a soon-to-be P90X graduate and I've decided that the pain is going to be what keeps me going. This is because I know it's working. If I didn't feel anything, then obviously the workout isn't changing my body. This pain is good pain even though it may make me wanna take a valium and call it quits, I like it. The pain symbolizes change. I'm glad I have someone to talk to about it because she gives me encouragement to keep going. Push through the pain. It will all be worth it. It makes me feel good. The pain makes me feel sexy (however weird that may sound).

I had to do Ab Ripper X again after the workout and although it's only 20 minutes, it's still intense. There's this black guy in the video and he makes it look like he's taking a stroll through the park with his boo at dusk on a quiet, breezy fall evening with the wind blowing through his locks and cotton balls in his shoes just for the peace of mind it gives him. I mean this guy is TOUGH. Doesn't break a sweat. Well maybe he does, but he sure looks at peace with these excrutiating crunches. Either way I'm looking forward to getting better at them.

Tonight's yoga. I've never done yoga, but this shouldn't be too hard... Right? :-/

Kisses!

Plyometrics... What a ride!

Day 2....

I thought the push ups/pull ups were a challenge, but I had NO IDEA!

Plyometrics is a set of exercises used for agility training. This is fancy for saying you'll be jumping around your livingroom looking like a fool for an hour. It is TOUGH. Even when you modify it to what you are able to do. When you think of this training, just think BURN. That's all it is. Massive burning in your legs. It's an hour of 30 second intervals of jumping in different weird poses. Jump squats, run stance squats, airborne heismans, swing kicks, squat reach jumps, circle runs, rock star hops, military march, lateral leap frog squats and etc. etc. etc. It's INSANE.

I looked on my calendar and saw that you do not get a break from this routine the whole 90 days. This will definitely be a challange. The goal is to get your heart rate to a certain level oh and make you look like a fool while doing so. This exercise really makes me appreciate the fact that I can do this in the comfort of my own home because I would NEVER do this in a gym.

I must admit that I kept up to the best of my ability, didn't pause for any breaks and at the end I was extremely proud of myself. They make you feel good in the video for finishing because they are IN the video and struggling with it too, so they are proud of themselves for finishing as well. He says that this is the heart and soul of the P90X program and I can definitely see why.

I literally had trouble walking down the stairs this morning. Sitting and walking have also become a task for me today. The pain isn't bad pain. It's a pain of accomplishment, drive and a new beginning. A good burn. I'm excited for tonight's shoulder and arms workout along with the ab ripper x. My abs haven't fully recovered from Monday, but if they had, I guess it wouldn't be considered Xtreme.

Until the next time...

Bisous

Day 1 and Oooh It Burns

So I finished my first day of P90X and I didn't think it was that bad. I pushed myself until I couldn't go anymore and today I can definitely feel it. My first workout was Chest and Back along with a 20 minute Ab Ripper. The Chest and Back was pretty much a bunch of different pull ups and push ups. I thought I could use weights to simulate pull ups, but I realized that it doesn't give you the same back workout lifting weights as having to pull weights. I'm probably going to get a resistance band to get that full workout.

The first set wasn't that difficult besides the fact that I was doing push ups which I haven't done since I was in high school 6 years ago. Going back for the second set was definitely the challenge. You have to really push yourself to try to get as many reps as you did the first time if not more. I realized that I need to get some heavier weights because the 5lb weights aren't giving me that instant "burn" that he talks about.

The breaks during the program were a God send. I tried to keep up with the DVD to the best of my ability although he encourages you to take breaks as needed. He stresses that your number of reps aren't as important as your form. I tried to keep this in mind because my body will naturally be more inclined to do what is more comfortable which may not be working the proper muscle he is targeting. This is a challenge as well because the further along in the routine you get, the more exhausted you become making the form that more tough to keep up.

The Ab Ripper X is a whole new beast. Boy was THAT tough! He works parts of your stomach that you didn't know existed. Thank GOD it was only 20 minutes. At the end he said if you kept up, you probably did 340 crunches. I thought to myself geesh I probably only did about 20. I'm really looking forward to increasing that number.

Well it's Tuesday and I can definitely feel the burn. I'm sore throughout my chest and a little in my tummy. I've heard that the Plyometrics is a monster. Looking forward to that one tonight. Until my next post...

Ciao

Before Pics... I dare NOT show them now. :-/

So, I took my day 1 pictures last night and boy was I in for a hoot! It's crazy how one may create this self image which tends to be a bit distorted and in a better light than the bitter reality. When I took these pictures in my mirror, I was shocked to go back through my iphone to see what I had snapped. I thought it may be bad, but boy was that an understatement. I clearly have not realized how much weight I have gained over the years from being an inactive overeater which is hard for me to admit.

When I first saw the pictures I was shocked at my body's condition, but this gave me all the more drive to begin my fitness journey. I am too young to be in this type of shape. I don't want to suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholestrol and a number of other conditions because of a lack of exercise and caring for my health. I've always been a heavier girl for as long as I can remember. I thought it was baby fat and that I'd grow out of it. Well I'm 23 now and the baby fat has turned into adult fat. I've realized that it's not just gonna get tired of hanging on my waist one day because I have a boring life, get up and find the waist of someone else who is a bit more interesting. This fat is mine and it's here to stay unless I make a change. I am ready for that change.

I'm glad I could talk some people into doing this program with me. It will give us something positive to talk about. It will help me to move forward in my life. Having others for support may make the difference from going through a week and giving up, to getting through the entire program because you had those few people to walk through with at the same time. I am extremely excited to get started and I can't wait until day 90 is here. That's when I will show my before pictures and hope to see a great result!

I will try to do a few posts a week about how the program is going, my challenges and goals. I took a sneak peak at the first DVD "How to Bring It" and "Chest and Back". This is going to DEFINITELY be a challenge, but I'm ready to push push push and make it through.

I greatly encourage you to post your stories, challenges, questions, comments and concerns in the comments section. Now let the good times roll!