P90x Round 2, Day 22 - Yoga X

P90x Round 2, Day 22 - Yoga X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: 6" Subway Club, Baked Lays
Snack: Carrots and Celery, Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Peaches and Strawberry Jello
Dinner: Vegetable and Chicken Pasta, Dinner Roll
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
I am rather reluctant to commit to "recovery week" for some reason. I'm not sure what it is but it probably has to the fact that this week is such a departure from the other weeks in the program. The first round of P90x I barely ever did Yoga and when it came to recovery week and was two times in the week it pretty much ended up as two days I didn't do anything and that really threw off my momentum so for some reason I'm still apprehensive about the recovery week.

BUT, so far so good. I think that today's Yoga might have been the best Yoga workout so far. Usually this workout really feels like it drags on, but this time the first 45 minutes really zipped by. I've stopped looking at the clock as much as possible during Yoga and for some reason that really seems to help the time not feel like it's slow.

Diet went well today. I'm really thinking I can stay clean eating till this Friday and have some good progress, I mean it's practically Tuesday already so I can make it another 4 days without temptation. If I can't do that I've got bigger issues.

Running tomorrow morning again. This is my last week before I start Marathon training in earnest. All the work to this point has really just been pre-training and it's been tough so I'm really not sure what to expect once the mileage starts increasing. But so far I have been doing well on the longer runs so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Core Synergistics tomorrow. This sometimes stresses my back, so we'll play it cautiously.

P90x Round 2, Day 18 - Yoga X, Missed Run

P90x Round 2, Day 18 - Yoga X, Missed Run
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Orange Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Carrots and Celery, Baked Potato
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Cup, Oranges Fruit Cup
Dinner: Pepperoni Chicken, Garlic Green Beans
Unplanned Snack: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Snack

Summary:
What a dreadful morning. I haven't slept well at all for about 3 days and even though I went to bed at 9:30 I laid there and when/if I did sleep it was terrible.

So I woke up this morning exhausted and did my best to do Yoga. I got 45 minutes into it and during a break actually started falling asleep. So I called it quits and went to eat breakfast.

I was pretty much exhausted all morning until lunch and even after that I was tired.

I skipped my morning run in hopes that after work I'd have the energy to finish it them. But I proved to myself why I do my workouts in the morning because life happened and I didn't get my run in.

Weigh-in tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some sleep.

P90x Round 2, Day 11 - Yoga X, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 11 - Yoga X, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: 3 Egg Whites, 2 Pieces of Turkey Bacon, Banana
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Pork Tenderloin, Green Beans, Rice
Unplanned Snack: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Snack

Summary:
Yoga today was as hard as I had imagined it would be. Not only that but it was LONG. The fact this is an hour and a half without anything else to break it up is never lost on me during this workout. The fact that I've actually completed it 2 weeks in a row is testimony to how hard I'm trying to turn the leaf and give 100% to this new round. I get one hell of a workout doing Yoga, but it just drags on. Then when I'm finished I had to go out and run 3 miles.

Running today was tough. If I hadn't stretched out with Yoga I'm not sure I would have made it but I finished it. I'm going to be so glad to not be running tomorrow. I need the day off from this week of added running before Saturday's 5 mile run. I'm worried that I might be pushing the envelope some with the running and bordering on over-training, but I hope not.

Eating went well today. I didn't get to eat before I left the house and had to eat at work. I usually eat terrible at our cafeteria but today I went for 3 egg whites and turkey bacon which for me in that environment is a big step forward. I'm still sorta hungry all the time so I'm thinking of adjusting my intake upwards slightly next week.

Can't wait to weigh in tomorrow. I'm really hoping for a good number. If it's the same as last week I'm going to really struggle with the "why the hell am I doing this" demon.

P90x Round 2, Day 4 - Yoga X, 1.25 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 4 - Yoga X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Pineapple & Orange Juice
Lunch: Salad with Ham, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Mixed Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup
Dinner: Garlic Shrimp with Pico de Gallo over Rice
Unplanned Snack: Potato Chips

Summary:
I believe that I owe Yoga an apology. 3 months ago on my first week back on the fitness wagon I tried this workout. That experience did not go well. I was tired and the idea of a extremely long workout didn't appeal to me much. Every muscle I had was extremely sore and I lacked the basic core strength and flexibility to complete the workout. Overall it was an atrocious failure and as a result of that failed experience I developed a hatred for that workout and never tried it again during my first round of P90x. I did other Yoga on my Yoga days, but never Yoga X again.

Well today I did Yoga X. I went in with a fresh slate and the "I'm going to give this another chance" mentality and guess what. I finished Yoga X. Not only did I finish it, but I dare say I enjoyed parts of it. It's still a bit repetitive in the first half during the "strength" portion. I don't mind the workout, but it's frustrating having to start all over from scratch for every step of the series. It's still very long and I can tell that on days where I'm not feeling 100% motivated it's going to be a chore finishing a workout that long.

I didn't get to my running this morning and instead did it tonight. It wasn't the best run and it was hot and humid so that wasn't the best situation either. I went about 1.25 miles before I had to pee so bad that it caused me to cut my run short. I was a bit disappointed but I don't have any concerns that I could have finished 2 miles.

Meals today went as planned except at lunch. I went to eat with a friend and he didn't finish the chips that came with his lunch, next thing I know I'm eating potato chips. They weren't too awful nutritionally and the bag was only 130 calories with I imagine helped me to justify eating it at the time.

I haven't run the specific numbers on my new diet, but I know they are at or lower than where I want to be. I need to keep an eye on it overall because the last two days I've gotten pretty hungry at weird times and I'm worried that's going to cause me to crack down the line.

My back is kinda sore today. I have back and legs tomorrow. I'm hoping that I don't aggravate it any more.

Overall still feeling pretty good. Thinking I might weigh in tomorrow and make Friday my weigh-in day because Friday or Saturday are usually good candidates for "cheat meals" and I don't want those to throw off my weigh-ins.

P90x Day 39 Yoga

Today was not the best day for workouts. I got a yoga workout in, but it was short and wasn't that intense. Part of the reason was that it got started very late, it was after 8pm before I got started and I had already taken a benedryl and was sucking on a cough drop. I felt pretty good today actually, better than I've felt in 2-3 days, but after I got home from work I started coughing more and took some stuff to get over it.

So not the best workout, but I did get something done. I didn't run today because I just decided that I'm being unnecessarily aggressive on that front and I can just as easily run on Saturday and give myself another day or two of rest to finally get over this cough and illness. I've felt pretty good a few times since I got sick, and every time I go for a run I feel terrible the next day. So I'm erring on the side of caution for one day, it irks me, but I know it's the right decision.

My diet the last 2 weeks has been a little more relaxed than I would like it to be. I'm not sure if it's because I've been sick or tired or worn out. Whatever it is I'm hoping to replace that shortly and get back on the wagon. I have a feeling that my second phase results won't be where I want them to be, but the fact that I haven't missed a workout and have spent the last two weeks sick and tired will be factored in and I'll take not missing and workout as my saving grace. This isn't just a 90 day workout and then nothing, I'm hoping to keep this up for a long time to come. So I can't let the short-term detract from the long term.

Legs and back tomorrow. I'm going to take my frustration on my lousy workout today on that one tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

P90x Day 27 - Yoga

Not a very good workout for me this morning. I started my Yoga workout and got about 15 minutes into it and just couldn't get it started. I had alot of guests in my house from out of town for my daughter's birthday and they were all out in the living room living it up and it was just distracting. I'm a little concerned that the last 2 yoga days I've really not had a very good workout.

I weighed in this morning. For the first phase i'm down 7.5 pounds and about .5% BF. It's not entirely what I wanted I'll admit, but I'm pleased with it. I really struggled early this morning with "all that work for only 7.5 pounds" but I'm not surprised. It's hard when you start doing well to not just set that bar higher for yourself than is reasonable. I think I'll be pretty pleased if I can keep that ratio up and lose 25 pounds or in 3 months. I'm acutally more disappointed by the .5% loss in BF, but that could be any number of reasons for that electronic measurer I have. I might weigh in again tomorrow just to see if the number changes any.

This next week I'm suppossed to add in some running a few nights a week. That'll be interesting to see how that goes and I'm sure the additional cardio will help. My conern is that my eating will either leave me energy deprived or I'm going to have to increase my intake to balance out the new calorie deficit.

Anyways, one Phase down. I'm looking forward to getting back into the weight training weeks and see what Tony has in store for me for the next month.

P90x Day 11 - YOGA

Day 11 in the books. Yoga.

So Yoga is brutal. Those that have never tried it always think it's just easy and stretching. I know this because I was myself one of those people at one point. But Yoga is not this. It's brutal and uses your own body weight against you to remind you how out of shape you really are.

I swapped Yoga X out with the YRG 60 minute workout. It was crazy difficult and I was sweating loads before it was finished, but I was able to do almost everything in it. Unlike Yoga X where I just don't have the flexibility or the strength to get more than a fraction completed in that routine.

My Biceps are screaming today and I'm loving it. It's good to get a workout in and not be in agony. My lower back is still a little sore as it seems everything I do on any day of the workout involves my core and my lower back. I'm hoping that legs tomorrow doesn't do anything to my back that would gimp me up for the weekend. I'm hoping that I don't have to spend all this weekend laid up like last weekend.

Other than the above I'm feeling great today. I thought I could feel a difference in my pants fitting today, but with it not even being two weeks into it I thought I must be imagining it.

Looking forward to pressing play on Legs tomorrow.

P90x Day 10 - Shoulders and Arms

Wow, I almost didn't get today's blog in before my self imposed deadline. I'm only going to allow myself not to blog on days that I rest because I really have nothing to blog about then. An hour left in the day is just inside the deadline. Man that alarm is going to be early tomorrow morning.

Today was Shoulders and Arms. I felt like I got a much better workout today than last week. Last week I was so shredded from the Chest and Back day that I couldn't do much without pain. And after this disc last week I was in agony. But all those things are behind me now and while my arms are sore, it's the good "I got a great workout" soreness and not the "what have I done" from last week.

I will admit that I went up in weight on most exercises today, but over-reached on some workouts and had to humble myself back down to lower weights. But I really do like this disc. I'm looking forward to being able to do this workout with some heavy weights and really get those glamor muscles popping.

The only "injuries" I'm dealing with right now is that my lower back is really sore and the side where I blew out my disc a ways back is sore too. So I skipped Ab-Ripper today. I know that it's great for my core and that helps the back, but it's so tough to do right now that I just figured the added strain wouldn't help.

Diet has been pretty good so far. The only workouts I'm getting so far are the P90x discs. I'm not supplementing it with any additional cardio, so hopefully we'll see good results at the end of Phase 1. I'm eating alot more but still find myself hungry after a period of time which is good. I have to imagine that the furnace is burning more and I'm definately so far giving it a better chunk of fuel. I can't tell the difference yet visually, but I'm sure it's coming. I'm in such high spirits right now that I sorta doubt the mirror because I think my outlook is tinting my self-image. I know when I feel lousy I think I look lousy, so I imagine it's the same for good thoughts.

I'm looking forward to Yoga tomorrow morning. I'm going to try the 1 hour disc I have of YRG because I feel I can do that and still have it beat my butt for an hour. But I won't be standing on my head or twisting into painful positions. I think this will be a good workout. Once I can rock this, I'll bet I can just barely start to keep up with the Yoga-X dvd.

Looking forward to pressing play tomorrow. Even if it is going to seem way to early.

P90x Day 4 - Yoga X

So unfortunately today's Yoga-X was somewhat of a flop. I think I'm in a bit of a dip energy wise and the previous 3 days of soreness and dieting caught up to me this morning.

My wife had to nudge me about 10 times to get me out of bed this morning. I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep for another few hours. I still got up and gave it a solid effort.

Which leads me to Yoga-X. Or as it should be labeled Gymnastics-X. I like Yoga, in fact before I started P90X I was doing Yoga off and on. But I do not like Yoga-X. I felt like I was about to injure myself on several of the exercises, and for those that I didn't feel that way, I either couldn't do them or my arms were still to sore from yesterdays arm workout to hold myself up.

I'm currently viewing Yoga-X as a "I would someday like to be this fit", but I think next week I might substitute Yoga-X for another hour of Yoga with my other program. I think that might be better for me short-term because I can keep up with YRG yoga for an hour somewhat, but Yoga-X I ended up watching too much of it to get a crazy workout.

It's hard to tell what I can and can't do this week because my arms still hurt so much.

I'm really mentally tired right now. I might call it an early night tonight and see if I feel better tomorrow.

I'm terrified of leg day tomorrow. I haven't done it yet, but if it's as hard as the arm days, I'm going to need a wheel chair Saturday morning for Kenpo.

Not the best day today overall, but I'll press play again tomorrow.