Day 23: Plyocide

Today was my second time using Beachbody’s new E&E pre-workout drink. I think that stands for Energy & Endurance. Did it give me either? I think so. I certainly pushed myself harder than I have in the past, but this did lead to me stopping to catch my breath more. Certainly got the heart rate up today! I like that the drink is primarily a ton of various B vitamins. Beachbody has some great supplements and the nutritionists who develop them seem to know what they’re doing. Side note: I’m so glad we have Shakeology again. I can’t speak highly enough of that drink!

This is the first time I’ve had the 4lb medicine ball for Plyocide. It was really nice to use for the weighted Mary Katherine Lunges; and I noticed that Tony is the only person on the DVD using the 8lb version. I felt that with the 4lb ball I could have better form. The other time I used the 4lb was for the squat jump move and it allowed me to go faster; unsure if I prefer faster with less weight or slower with more weight. With the squat jump move I again noticed that only Tony uses 8lbs and everyone’s going fast; so I guess that answers my question.

Sadly last night I failed at doing Ab Ripper. Never had a kid-free moment. Some nights are like that. Though I did get to take the kiddos in the double stroller for a 1.5 mile walk; that was lovely. I’ll shoot for Ab Ripper tonight. I may just have to do that on the nights I can, regardless of if it lines up with the nights I’m supposed to. I’ll plan on doing it at least 3 times per week and let life determine which days.

Days 19-22: X2 Yoga, X2 Balance & Power, Rest day, Chest + Back + Balance/ARX2… plus thoughts on motivation

This morning I read an article about the obesity level among nurses: 55%. Ridiculous for those who are in charge of the health of others. And a good reminder of why it’s important to do something. I can certainly see where a nurse, working long shifts on their feet, would find it difficult to eat nutritious food, eat proper portions, find time to exercise, and find time to get a solid night of sleep. On the other hand, I would think that caring for others in poor health would be a huge motivator to take control of the factors that you can (i.e. eating right, exercising, sleeping). My job is not long hours (40 per week… I choose to work 9 hr days Mon-Thurs and 4 hours on Fri). My job is not on my feet (I spend much of my time on the computer, sitting on a balance ball). My job does not place me directly with people who are sick or ailing. I do have difficulty managing the factors I can regarding a healthy life style. But I’m relatively healthy and I would like to maintain that. I don’t like paying co-pays to the doctor. I know from the past that the fitter I am the more energy I have. It’s important to me to be able to lift, carry, and play with my children. These are the things that motivate me.

It was a hard weekend to stay motivated, as weekends tend to be.

Friday I found myself asleep on the couch when my husband came home from work. But, he woke me, put in the Yoga DVD, pushed play and pushed pause. So I got up, changed clothes, and we worked out. I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted to do yoga less than I did on Friday. During the first stretch my body was crazy stiff. By the end my body felt all stretched out and happy. And that reminded me why it’s important to do the things you really don’t want to. Finishing was an accomplishment, but starting was the hard part.

Saturday my husband did his workout during the kids’ naptime and I did mine when they went to bed. As much as I used to love working out at night I’m now finding that the morning is better for me. Never thought that would be the case. At least it wasn’t as late as Friday night. I’m getting much better at the balance moves though my right side is still more of a challenge. Love seeing progress. I’ve come a long way in the past three weeks. Saturday officially ended week 3 and I decided I’m going to move on to Phase 2. I can always go back to Phase 1 if I decide more work is needed. Or there’s the recovery week option if Phase 2 leaves me too sore.

Sunday I was really happy to have a rest day. My daughter had a horrible night (teething) that had us up from 9-11:30 (wonderful hubby let me go to bed at 10) and 1:30-4 (I took this shift by myself since aforementioned hubby had to get up for a makeup workout in the morning). So glad there only ended up being one night of this! Despite being tired, Sunday was a nice rest day. I weighed myself and found that I’ve lost nearly 10 lbs in the past 3 weeks! But I was more excited about fitting into a dress that I previously could not; the last time I tried the dress I got the zipper about halfway up. On Sunday the dress was almost a little loose in some areas. Love seeing results!

Monday morning I awoke at 4:30 to start Phase 2. What may be the most challenging for me is that Ab Ripper X2 is done 3 times per week. That will make those workouts about an hour fifteen and I generally don’t have that kind of time in the morning; so I’ll be making myself do the 15 minute Ab Ripper in the evenings. I think once I get into this habit it won’t be a big deal. Once the kids are in bed 15 minutes isn’t that much. It’ll almost take me longer to get ready. Course, I can probably do Ab Ripper in my pjs on the kids’ play mat. Anyhow, the first workout in Phase 2 was Chest + Back + Balance. The chest moves are all also balance moves; once I get the balance down I think the chest will feel the moves more. Today I spent a lot of my time figuring out how to balance on 4 medicine balls or one stability ball and 2 medicine balls. There was a fair amount of falling today. It won’t take much to start seeing progress. The back moves were pull up/chin up type moves. Since (A) we don’t have a pull up bar in the living room and (B) I can’t really do a pull up without assistance I used the bands. Compared to the P90X One on One series, it was nice to have a band example for all the moves. I knew that the modifications I was doing were the proper ones to work the right muscle groups. I think I’ll like this workout a whole lot more when I get the form down. And a bonus is that plain ole pushups are going to seem really easy after this!

Day 18: Total Body/ARX

I actually made it through Ab Ripper! I mean I wasn’t able to do all the reps, but I had time to finish. Felt good about that. Especially since I’m thinking of moving to the next phase and that’ll have me doing Ab Ripper most days. Should be able to see improvements on performance with that schedule. There are some new ab moves that I really like and others that I find nearly impossible. Nice to be able to work on my weak spots.

Balance on my right side continues to be a challenge, but I’m doing much better than I used to and I feel great on my left side. I did experience some left wrist pain today that I couldn’t explain and it kept me from some of the medicine ball pushups to side balance; though I was able to get one on my right side without dropping my knee, so that was improvement. That was also a pretty awesome run on sentence. Oh, well.

Tomorrow I’m determined that my husband and I will do Yoga together. I kind of missed doing it last week. My wrist doesn’t seem to be bothering me, but then I’m not currently putting body weight on it. We’ll see what it thinks of chaturanga. An interesting side note, I used to feel that my left arm was much stronger and now I’m finding that my right arm actually feels better with higher reps. Perhaps this is due to having less range of motion in my left shoulder, or currently the wrist pain. Or maybe I’m becoming more balanced in my strength.

I’m signed up for a Warrior Dash in June. So, I’ll be needing all the strength I can gain. It’s only a 5k, but seems like it’ll be overall more challenging than the ½ marathon in May. If nothing else it will be more of a mental challenge. A Warrior Dash has obstacles along the course. So in addition to running just over 3 miles you also scale walls, cross rope bridges, slide down muddy hills, crawl under barbed wire, and jump over fire. I think it has a total of like 9-10 obstacles. Should be quite the morning!

Day 17 – Recovery & Mobility… and not quitting

I really didn’t want to get up when the alarm went off at 4:30 this morning. But I knew that my body would benefit more from this workout than laying in bed. I really think the foam rolling and stretching allow me to push the other workouts harder. It’s like my body’s reward for working hard the other days.

I saw a quote this morning that said, “Tired of starting over? Stop quitting.” I like that. Albeit the past two times I’ve ‘started over’ with my fitness it’s been because of pregnancy/childbirth. But, I can relate to the tendency to stop. It’s so easy to skip a day or choose a TV show and the couch. But doing those things once or twice easily becomes doing those things routinely. And TV shows suck you in so fast, leading you to believe that you can’t miss the next episode. At least I’m easily sucked into this. The funny thing is, when I’m hooked on a show I feel like I would be missing so much without it. Then when the season breaks or I miss a couple of weeks for another reason I realize that I really don’t miss the show at all and life is lived without a screen. I’ll admit I have favorite shows that I watch online, but I can do that without revolving my life around a network’s schedule, and in less time. I’m using TV as an example, but how many other things do we schedule our life around when they’re really not that important? Why do we find it so hard to set life goals and schedule our lives around activities that will help us meet those goals? They say that it takes 30 days for an activity to become routine/habit and only 3 days to break that habit. I don’t know that I buy those numbers, but I strongly believe that it’s harder to do something than do nothing. Unless, of course, one is trying to break a bad habit and replace it with ‘nothing.’

Anyway, that’s a pretty long rabbit trail to say that every day we make decisions. Little decisions with big long term consequences. I also recently saw a quote from Tony Horton that said something like, “Today’s goal: eat healthy and exercise. Tomorrow: Repeat.” I think that’s the start of not quitting. Everyday make a decision to do something to move toward your goal. Today’s decision was to get up with the alarm and treat my body to some foam rolling and stretching. My body’s already thanking me.

Day 16: Plyocide

This morning when I was getting ready I put in the disc and went back upstairs. When I came down to push play I found that Recovery & Mobility was in the player. Apparently that’s what I really wanted to do. But, I’ll have to wait for tomorrow to do that one. I put in Plyocide and enjoyed it. Love how much that one increases my heart rate. Several times today I had to stop and catch my breath. Also love that there are good leg stretches afterward; keeps the soreness at bay.

The sad moment was that I finished the last of our Recovery drink and the last of our Shakeology. Those aren’t good things to run out of. I think our new bag of Shakeology should be arriving before too long, but we’ll have to reorder the Recovery drink. I like treating the inside of my body as good as I’m treating the outside.

I’m getting really excited to see my 30 day pictures… especially since I still have 14 days until I take them. I’m seeing some results in the mirror already. Ridiculous! Pants are also fitting much better. Wearing a lot more of my pre-pregnancy non-maternity pants and finding them comfortable. Just need to get the belly skin to shrink back and I’ll be feeling really good.

Days 11-15: Total Body/ARX2, Yoga (rest day), Rest Day, Balance & Power, & Core

This blogging once a week or so may not be the best option. I like the decreased amount of time it takes but when I actually sit down to do it I’m overwhelmed by how much has happened and how many thoughts I’ve wanted to share!

On Thursday I was staying home with the kiddos and therefore had time to do Ab Ripper immediately after Total Body… or at least all but the last 3 minutes of it. The kids were sleeping when I started, then husband left and kids woke up. So, minus the last 3 minutes I did it in one session. It was nice that way but I just don’t usually have the time. I hate that I end up missing Ab Ripper when I want to improve. I think this week I’ll do that on my day off or make a point of it being an evening activity. Once I start Phase 2 Ab Ripper is done multiple times per week; here’s hoping that means the workout it follows is a little less long. Amazing how much 15 minutes can throw off a schedule.

I was pretty disappointed to not do Yoga this week. I intended to. Thought about getting up in the morning, but this is the one workout my hubby and I have decided to do together. Then he closed at work, making it so he didn’t get home until after midnight. Once I realized that I wasn’t going to wait up I should’ve done the workout, but I figured we could do it together on Saturday and that didn’t pan out either. I’ve justified the skip in my head since I did the Recovery & Mobility on my rest day. But still, would have liked to have done Yoga. I’m one of the few that actually like that discipline.

So Saturday became another rest day because my husband and I had someone watching the kiddos while we went on a real date. Great day. It’s pretty awesome to have one rest day on the weekend. Technically the rest day is Sunday, so if we do our workout on Saturday we have Sunday off. If we decide to take Saturday off we workout on Sunday. It’s a nice arrangement.

Sunday was the ultimate in reminders of how it’s hard to find time to work out when you’re a busy parent. I started my workout during my son’s nap. The husband was watching our daughter. About ½ hour in I decided I was tired of the crying. So, I laid in bed with my daughter while she ate and calmed. During this time my husband did the first ½ hour of the workout. Sometime after he finished our son finally sounded like he was sleeping and our daughter was quiet. So, I got to do the last ½ hour. When the kids went to sleep for the night my husband got his last ½ hour in. So not the ideal situation. But, those lovely kids are the priority. And we were able to push through and feel that we did something for ourselves also. It just took way longer than it should have.

Monday it was nice to wake up early and be done with the workout in one quiet setting. Week 3 is beginning and this could be the last week of this phase. I’m really basing that on how my balance on my right side is. I’m seeing improvements but I’d like to not feel like I’m falling all over the room. As balance and form improve it’s nice to feel other muscle groups getting the workout. Today left my glutes and inner thighs screaming at me. Interestingly, I haven’t felt that “worked out yesterday” major pain during P90X2. I would guess that it’s due to the foam rolling and the recovery drink. I’m certainly feeling like I’m challenging myself physically.

Some of the people I know have taken 2 week pictures and I’ve been super impressed that there are already visible results. But, I’m going to hold off until the 30 day pictures. Already halfway to that point!

Day 10 – Recovery & Mobility… plus thoughts on food

What a great workout! When it got started I was a little concerned. I’ve heard people complain that the sun salutations in X2 Yoga are too fast; I found that the sun salutations here were waaaay too slow. But, I guess they balance out. The speed of sun salutations does change their purpose (fast = cardio, slow = strength). Once we moved into stretches the routine was great. And the 20 minutes of foam rolling was amazing. My body really needed that today. After foam rolling Tony had us return to the same stretches we did before and it was pretty awesome to feel the difference. After more stretches, the DVD ended with corpse pose on the foam roller… wow! I think Recovery & Mobility should be a required workout for everyone. If you’re remotely active your body needs time to recoup and simply resting won’t massage and rejuvenate your muscles. Will I do this every week? Honestly, I probably won’t. Getting up early to do mostly stretching isn’t easy. If I’m waking early I want to feel busy. But, I will likely foam roll more in the evenings. It would be a really easy activity while playing with the kiddos. And when I’m feeling any sort of soreness I’ll definitely pop in the DVD on my off day… so maybe I will be doing it weekly.

And now for thoughts on food:

I’ve been doing better with eating healthy since starting P90X2. I admittedly haven’t been keeping track of what I eat or following the protein/carb/fat ratios. Breastfeeding continues to be my excuse, as I don’t want myself to feel hungry very often. It’s easy, and probably justifiable, to state that I’m making food for my daughter and I want to give her all I can. What I’ve changed is that I’m not allowing breastfeeding to be an excuse to eat unhealthy. After all, if I want to give her nutritious food I should want that for myself as well.

My biggest change food wise is that I’m eating a lot more protein. I don’t know that it’s the 50% of my intake as this phase of P90X2 recommends, but it’s more than before. I don’t eat much meat, so it’s been a challenge. Chicken and fish intake has definitely increased. And, thanks to some of the Beachbody recipes I’ve been having some great ground turkey dishes. It’s a blessing to have a husband who’s sticking with the meal plan and cooking all our dinners!

I had a funny experience yesterday. I was going to make myself a 100 calorie natural bag of microwave popcorn for snack and then thought that I do that a lot. I had a sweet tooth and decided that a chocolate milk would be a good way to cure my sweet tooth and get some calcium and protein. After drinking the milk I looked at its label. I should’ve had the popcorn! The chocolate milk did have protein but it also had 440 calories!! That’s a whole meal. In fact, the salad with chicken that I had for dinner probably had fewer calories. I will certainly rethink snacks in the future, or just stick with my popcorn. Morning snack has been a tangerine or two and I’m pretty confident that is good for me.

Some stats I read today from the Journal of the American Medical Association:

•About 69% of adults in the USA are either overweight or obese; that's up from 64.5% in 2000.

•About 42% of women over 60 were obese in 2010 vs. about 32% of women 20 to 39.

•31.8% of kids and adolescents, ages 2 to 19, were obese or overweight.

Why am I giving you these stats? Because this is why I’m doing what I am. I don’t want to be in the 69% or the 32%. Nor do I want my children to be in the 31.8%. My son will be 2 soon and I want him to eat healthy and play actively. I want both kiddos to see that mom and dad are healthy and full of energy. Who doesn’t want as much time as possible with their family? Ultimately my lifestyle will be a big factor in how long I will be around for my children (baring any tragedies, of course).

Days 5-9: Yoga, rest, Balance & Power, Core, and Plyocide

One week down! It was nice to get to the point where I had done every workout once. I feel like I have an idea of the big picture now. This first phase (Foundation) is supposed to be done for 3-6 weeks. I am now two workouts into week two. I’d like to be in this phase for 3-4 weeks and then move on.

The second time doing Core was better. There are moves that are still really hard and moves that are a little easier now that I have the form idea. Some moves could be done for more reps and on other moves felt like form was improving. There are a couple of moves that I do on my arms in plank instead of down on my elbows (sphinx) to ease pressure on elbows. I think this makes them harder, but it seems necessary for me. The Balance & Core workout had a lot of sphinx moves that I couldn’t alter (due to going between sphinx and plank).

Part of the big picture is understanding why Ab Ripper X2 is only done once a week: every day is an ab workout. Most moves are synergistic (working multiple muscle groups at once) and involve a lot of balance. I really think that my ability to balance is going to be what determines how many weeks I spend in this phase. I will need to figure out how to do Ab Ripper, both physically and time wise. Adding Ab Ripper to Total Body (the one day it’s on the schedule) is really pushing how much time I have in the morning before I need to leave for work. And I refuse to get up earlier than 4:30. Ab Ripper is about 15 mins, so I believe I’ll do it in the evening this week. Even nights where the kiddos are up late and/or cranky should have 15 minutes of time where I can squeeze this in.

My right hip was tight this morning. I spent most of the foam roller time on it and had to alter a couple of the plyo moves on one leg or with lunges. Thinking that tomorrow I need to do the Recovery & Mobility disc instead of resting. Should help those sore areas. Though I have to say that I’m not as sore as I expected. When I did the original P90X I spent the first couple of weeks with sore muscles. Between the foam rolling and Recovery drink I’ve avoided this!

P90X2 Days 3 & 4 – rest day, Total Body X2/ARX2

I thought about doing the Recovery workout on my rest day. Instead I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic. I also got told to ‘take it easy’ so I may not be giving these workouts ‘my all’ this week.

That being said… wow! Today was tough!! Total body does in fact work the whole body. I expected one move for upper, one move for lower, one core move, one cardio move… etc. Instead I got one move for upper, lower, and balance… followed by another. I liked the complexity of the moves but had a hard time working hard on any one muscle group, mainly due to balance. An example move: one legged chair pose (leg & balance) while doing swimmer’s curls (arms). I could have increased my weights but don’t know that balance could be maintained if I did so. Same with Warrior 3 bicep curls. Maybe when I’m feeling better I’ll push it more and see what I can really accomplish. But, today I found myself just trying to get my body in the right position for the move. Sometimes I would get my body in position and get out 1-2 reps before time was out and/or I was falling over.

I did discover that I can more or less do pushups on medicine balls. I don’t get super low, but I can do it. I could even go up to side plank on my left arm. Apparently my right wrist is weaker because on that side I had to drop my knee to turn and raise my arm. I think my legs may have also been wider than necessary for this move… but I did it! (Or at least I did it on my left side.)

I only made it about half way through Ab Ripper. My reasons were threefold: 1) it was hard, 2) I was running short on time, 3) the doctor did tell me to take it easy after all! An odd feature of the first P90X2 phase (Foundation) is that Ab Ripper is only done once a week. Not that the core isn’t worked every day, but still odd to only do that workout once. With P90X Ab Ripper was done 3x per week every week except recovery weeks.

Day 2

Plyocide done! Love this workout. I must've pushed myself harder than I have when I did it previously because there were several moves that I had to stop and catch my breath before they ended. Also, I need to get a 4 lb medicine ball. Previously I used a basketball for some of the moves but today I decided to try our 8 lb ball... that was way too heavy.

My body feels yesterday. These were tough workouts to do back to back. But then P90X2 isn't about easy!

The Start of a New Adventure…Day 1 – P90X2 Core X2

To begin with, I don’t know that I intend to keep up with the blog on a daily basis. I may, but my focus is in a new place. The blog will be part of it, as I fear that losing my imaginary audience may hinder my feeling of accountability. But I don’t plan on listing each day separately if multiple days are recorded at the same time. On a side (literally) note... hard to see my last "after" pictures... hopefully I'll be back there in the next 90 days. If you want current pics you're going to have to go to the post preggo blog: http://reclaimingjoyful.blogspot.com

I’m pretty excited about embarking on a whole new exercise program and my husband is joining me this time. We generally won’t be working out at the same times of day but we will be doing the same routines on the same days… at least to begin. One of the changes with P90X2 is that the schedule isn’t set in stone. There are three phases plus a recovery week schedule. Each phase is done for a recommended range of weeks. For example, the first phase is building a strong core and 3-6 weeks is the recommended time for this; recovery can be thrown in as needed. Therefore, my husband and I will be on the same schedule for at least the first three weeks and then it is dependent on how we are doing individually. Recovery weeks are all about Yoga and Stretching.

I plan on doing better with the eating portion of this program. And by “doing better” I mean that I’m going to acknowledge that there is an eating portion of the plan. With the support of my husband this should be easier. We’ll be eating dinner together every night, with all weekend meals together. So, I just need to focus on the lunches I bring to work and the types/amounts of my snacks. One challenge for me will be that I’ll need to figure out how breastfeeding factors in to my calorie/portion intake. Last night we had one last pizza splurge and now I’m committed!

I really want to lose weight and see my goals being met by the end of this 90 days. Day 90 will be April 7^th. I’ll be running the Lincoln Half Marathon on May 6^th. So, that gives me about a month to really focus on training for the run after completing P90X2. Presumably running will be easier with weight loss and strength building, but I’m happy to have a month of running planned to acclimate my legs. P90X2 allows for two days off per week (for me these will fall on Wednesdays and Sundays) and depending on how I’m feeling I hope to sneak in some short (2-3 mile) runs when nice outside weather beacons.

The first workout was good. I’ve done this one before but it was nice to have the workout sheets printed so I could write down what I could (and couldn’t) do. I have a ton of room for improvement and I’m excited to see how the numbers and comments change over time!