808 Fitness Blog

Okay - finally got these put together and uploaded to the internet so that I can share them with you.  Here are my Day 90 pictures for P90X (also my Day 0 pictures for INSANITY - more on that later).

People have been asking - how do you stick with it? I got tired just watching.  Honestly, I think it was a life savor to have workout buddies who wanted to do this with me.  At first it was just my wife.  Then my daughter…and my brother …and my father.  Each person gave me more motivation to push play and bring IT each day.

So, if at all possible…find a workout buddy, someone to hold you accountable, even if it’s just an online buddy through BeachBody’s WOWY (work out with you - free to join).

Next - stop watching the DVDs and psyching yourself out!  Do them!  Choose a day to start, put the first DVD in, press play and follow along!  You’ll never get started and do it if you just watch.  There are sooooo many ways to modify and make it do-able for you.  Give it a try.  You won’t keep up with the guys and gals in the video during Week 1 (unless you’re already super fit, but then, if you were, you wouldn’t be worried about starting)…and that’s okay because all you have to do is YOUR best each and every day.  If you do, it’s almost impossible NOT to get results and see improvements in yourself.

ONE THING for newbies - Get the Recovery Drink!!! It really, really does help (and tastes great)…you’ll go through unnecessary muscle pain without it.  Not that it takes away every discomfort, but it certainly DOES help with muscle soreness and with recovery.  We didn’t have it our first week and actually allowed ourselves to run out about half way through the program - big mistake!  We never let that happen again. Get yours HERE –> then click Shop Products.

ANYWAY - I’ll stop talking and get to the pictures! (click for larger view)

I haven’t got all the pictures uploaded yet, but here is a sneak peek at the Day 90 pictures for P90X

Remember, here is Day 0 and Day 60

And here is Day 90

What other workout program do you know of enables you to have a:

• 32-year-old guy
• his 32-year-old wife (mother of 5)
• his semi-out of shape 25-year-old brother
• his 12-year-old daughter
• his “not as in shape as he used to be” beer bellied 37-year-old uncle
• his “I have 7 kids” 37-year-old aunty
• AND his 55-year-old father of 10 dad

…all working out to the SAME program side by side at the same time, but modifying it so that it works for EACH individual.

It’s crazy, but very cool.  If you can keep up and push the reps and the weights - DO it.  If not, you can go without weights, do less reps, take longer breaks, etc.  You can have people at different levels of fitness, with different backgrounds all working out TOGETHER!  It’s very, very cool!

Doing P90X can certainly become a family event or journey just like it has for us.  Check out this picture!

Plus there’s a few people missing from the shot: me (holding the camera & one other person who just didn’t fit into the range of the camera).

Yup! We’re hitting the home stretch. Yesterday was Day 60 of P90X! We took a few pictures that we figured you’d want to see. They pretty much speak for themselves. My husband has lost almost 20lbs. I haven’t really lost any weight, but have redistributed it nicely. I’m noticing a LOT more tone everywhere that these pictures don’t really show that well. As you’ll notice, the Day 0 pictures are much clearer. My camera wasn’t working when we wanted to take our Day 60 so we just made due with our laptop camera. Not the best, but you can still see the difference. Hopefully for Day 90 pictures, we’ll have the good camera!

Well, without further ado…here’s what people have been asking for - pictures!

Does P90X work? When we say “Yes” we’re not just saying that. It really does get you RESULTS! So far, I’ve missed only one workout and Allen has not missed ANY. We are also trying to stick with the nutritional suggestions as much as possible, but probably could have done a much better job with that part (still getting results though). We’ve also found the Recovery Drink, the protein bars, and the Shakeology to be very helpful along the way as well. We didn’t start off with all that, but slowly added them in as we progressed through the program. Hey - you gotta start somewhere, and it’s true what BeachBody says, it all starts with the DECISION! Decide. Commit. Succeed. It really can be that simple. If you’re ready, we can help. Get started Right HERE!

Okay, so remember back on Day 4 when I said I really didn’t care for Yoga?  It’s interesting to me how things change in such a short period of time.  Don’t get me wrong, Yoga is still a challenge.  However, after a few go rounds with it (we do Yoga every week even during the “recovery” weeks), it’s kind of grown on me.  I no longer dread it.  I know I’m going to get a good workout, break a lotta sweat, and I also know it’s not going to be easy.  But I also know that my muscles will feel so great afterward.  Dare I say it?  There are days I actually look forward to doing Yoga.  Eek!  After saying it was a total love/hate relationship LOL ~ truthfully, the “hate” part has all but disappeared.  Like I said, some days I know it’s going to be a challenge and I still like to be mentally prepared for it, but I don’t dread it the way I used to.

I’m also finding out that more and more professional athletes are starting to incorporate Yoga into their training.  It really does do your body good in a very low impact way.  It builds strength while working flexibility and getting your heart pumping at the same time.

Today is another Yoga day ~ namaste!

Wow, it’s been a while since we updated here. We’re just so busy. I promise to try to update more often through this last Phase of P90X. Many of our updates are posted via our Twitter Account so if you’d like to hear what’s going on with our fitness journey a little more often, follow us on twitter!

Okay, so anyway, we are now in Week 8, Day 3 of P90X.  This is actually a “recovery” week for us.  Cool thing is that now we have a few family members who are dropping by to workout with us.  Granted, they may not get the same kind of results because they are not starting from Day 1, however, working out with us vs doing nothing is still going to help their overall health and fitness.  Of course, we love it because it’s always easier to workout when you have pals to workout with.

Take yesterday for example, both Allen and I didn’t even feel like workout out.  We were tired, we both had long days, and had a meeting to go to later in the evening.  We were very close to just forgetting the workout altogether and resting until we had to leave for the meeting.

Well, thankfully, right when we were about to give up on the workout for the day, one of our kids came in the room and announced that her uncle and papa were here to workout with us.  That got us up quick because even though Allen’s brother has been coming to work out with us since last week, we’d been trying to get his dad to come by for a while too.  The news that he was also here was just the spark we needed to get us excited about working out.

So put in the Core Synergistics DVD, pushed play, and all worked up a good sweat!

After the workout, Allen weighed in a 206lbs.  He started off this program at around 222lbs.  He hasn’t been below 215lbs in years, much less below 210lbs.  So we’re really happy with the results he’s seeing with this program.

As for me, I didn’t have a lot of weight to lose to begin with.  I have lost a lb or two during this program, but I’ve definitely gained a LOT of muscle tone in my arms and legs which I love, and have definitely lost inches.  Just yesterday I was wearing a shorts that used to be one of the comfortable pairs to wear and I noticed it falling down around my hips.  I had to put it up a number of times and honestly, it doesn’t fit like it used to.  It’s a little big.  I’m also noticing that I can get into shorts that have been too tight a fit for a long time and wear those comfortably.  So while I haven’t lost a bunch of weight, I’m very happy with the results I’m getting.  After having my last two kids, I’ve always kept my “skinny” clothes around hoping to one day fit back into them.  Only now, 5 years later, am I able to start wearing those clothes again!

So that’s what’s been going on with us.  Today we are scheduled to do some Kenpo in the afternoon.  Allen’s brother and dad said they’d be back today ~ we hope they do join us again, but only time will tell!

Now that we’ve been eating healthier for 3 full weeks, junk food hurts! Seriously, I tried eating one twinkie or having one piece of cake and bam! Almost instant tummy ache. Now it’s even easier to resist junk food knowing that I’m going to pay for it with a sore stomach within the hour. Junk food hurts!

We still don’t have the perfect diet, but we haven’t eaten fast food for weeks (not even Subway). I haven’t eaten a chocolate candy bar (and I really love chocolate). I haven’t even had my most favorite food in the world…ice cream.

I have had my fair share of non-fat frozen yogurt and strawberry-banana smoothies and protein bars though. Eating healthier is quickly becoming a habit…especially now that our stomachs react so negatively to junk food.

Wow!  I just did my first P90X workout and man was it a challenge!  It really is a very tough workout, but the really cool thing about it is that you can go at your pace.  You can do what YOU are capable of.  You don’t need to keep up with the people in front of you on the video.  Now that I have a better grasp of that, I think I’ll be able to better handle the future workouts and I’m super excited to see what my results will be like as we progress through the program. Will keep you posted!

I’ve always known that I don’t have the best nutritional habits in the world.  I LOVE chocolate and ice cream and pizza and cookies and cake and all that “good” stuff.  Thankfully, I don’t drink much soda because when I started going out with my husband we always shared a drink and he only drank fruit punch or some other kind of juice.

The thing is, the foods I like to eat and buy and know how to cook are all I really know.  It’s what I ate growing up.  It’s what most people around me eat on a daily basis.  I just never learned how to cook healthier types of meals and most of those fancy healthy recipe magazines contain recipes that have way too many ingredients or instructions for me.  Half the time, check that, most of the time the recipes contain at least one or two ingredients I’ve never heard of before much less know where to find in a grocery store.  I don’t now about you, but I don’t have time to figure all that out!

BUT NOW…we have the Michi Tier printed on a cool, travel sized card that I can easily take with me when I go grocery shopping.  We got this from one of the workout packages from Team BeachBody.

I decided to let our food supply in the house get down to the bare minimum then went shopping with the Michi Tier/Ladder in hand.  I found this chart so very helpful because it tells you exactly what kinds of foods to buy to help you make healthier choices than you’re currently making.  They say if you stay in tiers 1 & 2 you’d have the near perfect diet.  I don’t know that we’re ready for that yet, however, I’m pretty sure we can stay in the top 3 tiers more often than not.  Even if we slip into the other tiers every now and again while we’re getting started, it’s still a lot better than how we were eating before.  I think making any improvement, no matter how small, is a great way to start and will help us become healthier.  Eventually, we can do a little more and a little more and a little more until we’ve all but eliminated the “junk” food from our daily diets.  (Yes, I used to have some kind of junk food just about every day).

So, on my first healthier grocery shopping trip, I bought about $196 worth of foods from Tiers 1-3.  We think it would be ideal to simply stock the house with just these kinds of foods so that any time the kids want a snack (or we do) we know it’s a relatively healthy choice.  It was very interesting to see my shopping cart loaded with things that I would actually have to eat within the next few weeks.  If you stick with the upper tiers, you probably won’t be buying a whole lotta stuff that would still be okay for you to eat this time next year.  I’m thinking we may need more refrigerator space and less cabinet space since most things on “the list” (which we call it in our house) do not have much of a “shelf life.”

Anyway - our first few days of eating off “the list” has been easier than I expected.  I can still have bagels with cream cheese (lowfat) which I love.  We can still eat egg sandwiches (on whole wheat bread).  The kids are happy that I’m buying more fruits and yogurt which they’ve always loved.   I don’t think they even noticed that the yogurt had “no sugar.”  And now I have a good excuse to buy skinless chicken which is how I like it.  Others in the family like the skin, but now I can simply say that it’s not on “the list.”

The cool thing is that once I made the decision to stick with and buy food off this list, it’s been pretty easy to stay away from my normal junk food (cookies from the store, chocolate shakes from fast food places, etc).  Like I said, it’s not gone completely, but I’m finding it pretty easy to “say no” way more often than I could before.  I don’t expect to go from bag habits to perfect nutrition choices overnight (I don’t think anyone should expect that - you may be setting yourself up for failure), but I’m excited about taking small steps toward a healthier way of eating for our whole family.

Day 4 of our journey through the classic P90X workout program gave us a chance to do Yoga for the first time. Now, my husband and I were both athletes growing up. I played softball at the DI level and was pushed beyond what I ever thought possible during strength and conditioning there. My husband used to do crazy workouts for hours on his own during high school “just because.”

But this P90X Yoga, was our first time ever doing any kind of Yoga and within the first 30 minutes of the workout, neither one of us had ever wanted to quit a workout so badly! Total wimps huh? Quitting yoga!

But we didn’t quit. We stayed with it and were glad we did. Even though it was super challenging, it also did our bodies good. Just glad we get to do some other stuff before having to go through that again.

People are right when they talk about this workout program as “love/hate” - they hate it…but they love it. That’s definitely what Yoga day was like for me. My husband said that I should say that I hate it because then every time we have to do it I’ll dread it and it won’t be good if I’m dreading it. See…that’s why it’s nice to have a workout partner! They help keep you motivated, positive, and on track when you don’t feel like it.