With a Squawk!

So after my month 1 evaluation, having surpassed all the exercise requirements but failed the eating ones, I decided that I wasn't happy with my progress. And since I decided I'm still unlikely to follow the meal plan (although month 2's meal plan is much more reasonable - more on that soon), my solution was to switch up and supplement my cardio load.

Ever since I'd gotten the Nike+ attachment for my iPod, my only cardio has been running. But since my running rarely involves sprints or cardio bursts, I've decided that it isn't enough to make me lose weight. So where did I turn in this time of need? To Maya, of course.

Instead of skipping her cardio workouts now, I've decided that I will supplement my 4-5 days of running a week with one intense 45-minute cardio workout with Maya. (This actually ends up being around 35-40 minutes of cardio, because she always adds some weight work at the end).

Maya tiptoes me into the workout with some really easy stuff: step touching, marching in place... Fortunately, this part only lasts about 3 minutes, then she moves into alternating sequences with jumping jacks, fast shuffles (I used to have to do those for tennis lessons) and various squat jacks, kick jacks, double jacks... any kind of jumping jack you could possibly desire, and then my favourite: The Karate Kick with Squat. Except that whenever she says it, it sounds like she's saying "with squawk" and having done a couple of years of Tae Kwon Do, I'm just dying to let loose and squawk out loud with each kick. But then I might disturb our neighbors and we really do love our new house...

I had my second Yourself! evaluation today and found that nothing had really changed, except that I was now able to do 20 pushups without stopping (compared to 15 when I started) and while Maya thinks that my focus should still be upper body strength, I decided to ignore her and switch my focus to cardio.

Now let's watch that kick my fitness plans into shape.

Oh, and then I leave for almost two weeks of travel tomorrow so that completely changes everything in my workout routine anyway. So much for that plan. My new focus will be: how to remain on target even while travelling. I'll let you know how that goes.

Self Challenge - Week 4 in Review

Here it is, the end of Month 1... I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed in the month overall. While I've managed to complete the minimum amount of required workouts, I only had one really good week. I'm falling behind on my two Nike+ goals that I'd set for myself: one was to run 16 times this month and the other was to run 5 runs at a faster pace than I normally do.
I actually still have 3 days to try and finish these goals, but it's looking a bit unlikely that I'll manage.

So, here we go:

Requirements:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts
2 x 25 minute strength workouts

What I actually did:
3 x cardio workouts: 45, 30, & 35 minutes, all running (booo! that's even less than last week!)
3 x Yourself Fitness workouts: 45 minutes of lower-body, 45 minutes of core & 45 minutes of flexibility

Food-Wise:
Yeah, nothing new here.

So where does that leave me after one month? Pretty much nowhere. I weigh exactly the same, my measurements are identical... I don't really have a tangible success meter. Oh well, time to keep on trucking.

I thought it was interesting that I've found this article that says that a well known NYC fitness guru has been recommending the Self Challenge to his clients. Well, that's interesting, but I guess it's possible that it would help if I followed the eating plan. Although I must admit, the eating plan seems to be very restrictive in terms of calories! I'm pretty certain (and Tamsen even more so) that I need more than 1600 calories a day.

Well, here we go, onto Month 2 and its new and improved diet plan!

Bring it, now!

Having said it to the tune of "y'all come back, now!", Maya just didn't really inspire the bringing it feeling I was hoping for. Not that that didn't mean she was doing all she could to take it from me, whether I'd brought it or not.

Much like Teetering Tamsen, Maya had me doing some yoga moves for my core workout this week that had me flailing about, grabbing on to the nearest bit of furniture and desperately trying to keep my balance. Tamsen and I were complaining to each other and realized that we were having trouble with the very same move (the half moon pose, I believe) - which was fascinating, because that meant that our very different workout programs seem to have quite a bit of overlap.

It would be interesting once our 90 days are through to swap workouts for a week and see how we do on the other.

Om-Ow-Om-Ow

i do try very hard to clear my mind when i'm doing Yoga X. i do try very hard not to laugh when i'm wobbling uncontrollably in a terribly advanced pose. i do try very hard not to fall in such a way that i will smash something valuable - like my head. i try even harder to jump back into the pose for the remaining time after i've narrowly avoided careening into a wall.

it ain't pretty, but it sticks with me all day. i can feel my muscles just a wee bit stronger, my chest lifted a wee bit higher. can't say i've gotten that from any other yoga i've taken in studio - bikram, hatha or iyengar. but then again, i've never gone for the more advanced classes. i am known for not pushing myself hard enough, this program forces me to take that issue more seriously.

don't expect to see me in studio doing advanced ashtanga, though - one false move and i'd take out about neighboring students like they were a row of harleys.

Self Challenge - Week 3 in Review

Well, after last week's über-motivated working out, week three was back to the bare minimum... This time, my excuse was travel. I had to fly to NYC on thursday and knew I wouldn't be able to do any strength workouts, so I crammed them all in the beginning of the week. And by all, I mean I only got two strength workouts down. *bows head in shame*

Requirements:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts
2 x 25 minute strength workouts

What I actually did:
3 x cardio workouts: 45, 45, & 45 minutes, all running (the last two on the treadmill in our hotel)
2 x Yourself Fitness workouts: 45 minutes of upper-body, 45 minutes of core

Food-Wise:
Still no journal. I do hope next month has a better food plan, because this month's just isn't doing it for me!

Not too happy about this week, but I guess I still did more than the base Self Challenge requirements. That still doesn't make it satisfying though.

Self Challenge - Week 2 in Review

Requirements:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts
2 x 25 minute strength workouts

What I actually did:
3 x cardio workouts: 125, 40, 45 & 152 minutes, all running.
3 x Yourself Fitness workouts: 45 minutes of upper-body, 30 minutes of lower body, 45 minutes of core and 30 minutes of flexibility

Food-Wise:
Didn't keep the journal - again. I've been researching how to create healthful balanced meals, and writing about it for fitfare.net, but that's about it.

My workouts were quite over the basic requirements. For the cardio, that was merely because I couldn't complete my long run over the weekend and had to do it on Monday, but then kept my next 13-miler on Sunday, so that adds a lot of extra time that would normally have been broken up over two weeks.

As for the strength, having Maya to push me through my workouts has been much more interesting than the Self strength workouts, so it's kept me showing up again and again. Clearly, this is great when I'm home, but when I'm travelling, which I'll be doing a lot of this spring, things get a bit trickier.

How am I doing? I'm not having trouble completing the basic requirements, don't think I've lost any weight (nor would I expect to this soon), I still can't complete one of those blasted narrow-arm push ups, and Maya tells me the session after next is going to be a fitness evaluation. Oh my!

Failure, the P90X Way

I've learned a lot about fitness in the past five years - how to eat, how to balance, what works, what doesn't. What has surprised me about P90X is what it's teaching me about failure.

I'm not just talking about pushing to failure, that muscle-tension mantra that we shoot for when we're taking on more weight for our triceps or whatever. I'm also referring to the entire concept of Bloody Hell, I Just Can't Do This. Now, I am no athlete, although I have tried to adopt that mentality; but there are parts of the P90 workout that I just can't do. And I am learning more about my physical self, my mental approach and my spirit from those exercises than I am from the others.

Case in point: there is this ratbastard push-up in the Chest and Back workout called a Dive Bomber. It has some origins in yoga, but essentially it entails scooping your chest low from a Downward Dog through a push-up position, then reversing it. Not just lowering your chest, scooping it, like you're trying to get under a low fence. Push-ups are tough for me anyway, the upper body focus of P90X was what made me click the buy button. But HOLY Mother of Tony Horton, this thing...I can't even pretend to fake it, can't get close to it, can't even whisper to its future self, I Can't Do It.

And I love that.

Mind you, I have had to fake and stumble through many of the sets during this first three weeks. This is no weenie workout, any of it, even the yoga busts my ass. But the Dive Bomber is telling me stories, like:

- I am not where I thought I was physically
- How I frame this is going to shape the entire 90-day result
- The Dive Bomber is the Signpost

The first is self explanatory - I knew I wasn't an Olympian but I have been able to hop in and out of my concept of "fit" pretty easily. Dive Bomber tells me I am nowhere near the true value of the term fit.

The second, the framing part, comes from an incredibly influencial article written by Alan Deutschman (an article he expanded into a book) for Fast Company magazine, called "Change or Die." Essentially, "I can't do Dive Bomber" will inevitably ensure that I won't ever be able to do Dive Bomber. Instead, I change the frame. The new one is "I'm coming after you, DB, and I will not stop until I have you." This is something that Tony Horton and the P90 program promotes from the beginning - "you're not taking a 'before' picture, you're taking a 'goodbye!' picture." Might seem like simple semantics, but baby, that shit matters. Boy, does it matter.

The last? Dive Bomber is the Signpost. Fear is a famous Signpost; avoidance is one too. You know the Signpost - it points the way to the right road, so you follow it. I may not end this 90 days in the best shape of my life, but Dive Bomber, that fabulous slap in my fitness face, will tell me precisely how many miles I have to go, and what direction to take to get there.

So: How I fail now will determine how I succeed later. (Oh, yeah, NOW it makes sense...)

All this being said, I have wanted to post this for days and wish I had posted it every day: I flipped the switch about day 10 - I can't get P90X out of my head. I plan my day around the workout, and slightly obsess about the food program (I had to have an intervention because it's Girl Scout Cookie season. I did not lose the faith, just followed the shiny thing for a bit) and I - seriously - look forward to the workouts, I do. I have a workout partner. He's a hard-driving bastard who won't let me off the hook. I flail all over the place but he keeps me solid. And every day I see him I thank GOD he can't see me.