LovnLife4NSR’s Mind

Week one of the Phase II part came and it kicked our butts. It feels great to be worked over again. The new exercise programs are good and it took some time to adjust to the new workouts. The first time around we are always like deer in headlights, so we don’t get in as hard of a workout like we want to, but no biggie.

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps: This was a challenge because of how difficult the type of push-ups you had to do. At one point you had to do one handed push-ups. I can’t do them yet. Yeah, nothing like trying only to watch your face get introduced to the floor real fast. My shoulders were dead for two days after the workout. I need to jump up in weights wehn it comes to my triceps workout. I’m going heavy enough and that sucks. I feel like my arms are lagging cause I’m not pshing my triceps hard enough.

AbRipperX:My core is getting so much stronger.I can go through every exercise now without stopping or coming up short on reps.My balance is strong as well. I don’t fall over during the leap frog crunches. The only day I struggle with the AbRipper is after we do the back and leg program. My legs are tired and that makes it tough to do half of the ab exercises. Thats fine with me cause I use that to push myself even harder in hopes that it makes my core stronger for the next time I do the AbRipper.

Back/Biceps: I love this workout. You do back to back arm exercises in this workout and man, what a great burn and pump.It works my arms and they arm dead after this workout. I tried too hard to go with heavy weights and that backfired by the time I got to the last set of arm exercises. The back exercises are good as well. I felt it in my back the next morning.

Polymetrics: Oh polymetrics how I missed you. I love this workout. This time around my wife challenged each other to highest rep counts. Do to a recount no real winner was declared. Ha- she beat me, damn those leg kicks over the chair!

Legs/Back:This is the same program from Phase I.I never or rarely used the pull-up bar for this. I like to change it up and use the resistance bands on my back. My legs are so freak’n sore from this. It din’t feel like I pushed myself that hard, but today my legs tell me differently.

Phas II Diet:This phase allows you to have more carbs, but I haven’t made that big of a jump into eating more carbs. I have increased my amount a little, but not much. I just seem to be sensative to carbs. I’ve noticed that since I have added more carbs my body goes through this craving for food. Like bad food. I find it odd since I don’t eat bad food. I didn’t have this craving in the first phase. I like to have my carbs at the start of the day and no carbs (or very little) after lunch. I haven’t bonked during the workouts (which we do at night), so I think it’s working out just fine. I love the meatloaf meal in here. It is yummy.

I have become a true believer that the true success in losing weight and becoming healthy starts and ends with your diet. You can workout all you want, take all the fat burning pills you want, but if your diet is crappy your body will be crappy. I see the results every day and I know it’s because of the diet. Yes, working out is important as are the supplements, but I think the diet is twice as important as the others. Your body needs that healthy food in order to be healthy. Sure you don’t have to be perfect, but you can’t "cheat" (I hate that word. I rather use treat) everyday or every other day. It just doesn’t work that way. Just don’t all stupid like I did and stres yourself out about what you eat. That just drains on you and you start to lose focus as to why you are doing it. It becomes lees fun. Try the diet. It’s only for 90 days. Is three months really that much compared to a whole year or your whole life? Well, gotta go. For those who took time out of their lives to read about mine- THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Phase one of the P90X came and went. We are happy to be done with the recovery week. We miss throwing around the weights. Plus, since it was mainly cardio, core, yoga and stretching it seems like we lost some muscle definition. The core exercises are great and we look forward to doing that program again. We started the new phase last night and man, are we sore! I’ll write about the new phase program in another blog.

Alright, can someone please tell me where the past month went. We have only a couple of days left in Phase 1 and it seems like we only started this last week. The last week in Phase 1 is all about recovery and ab workouts. No real weight lifting or anything like that. Mostly cardio, yoga and stretching.

The only new program in this is Core Synergestics. Thats a cool program. My wife likes it a lot. My favorite is polymetrics, but this is a very close second. The Core mainly focuses on you making you whole body and core strong. Having done YogaX the night before then doing Core my abs were really pissed off at me. They are sore. Heck, even coughing hurts. I need a workout like the Core because my core is my weakest part.

I’m still a huge fan of YogaX. This program kicks my ass because it requires my full focus to maintaining balance, patience and strength. It’s a slow moving program and I’ve always been a go-go kind of person. So, this requires me to totally focus to complete each exercise. The YogaX ab part kicks my butt and I love that. When this section is usually done I found myself laying in the fetus position grasping for air. I like that kind of pain cause I know I pushed myself.

I think the one exercise program I don’t like is the XStretch. We do it every rest day, but I’m not too gun-ho about it. I easly get distracted. I’ve never been a huge fan of stretching, but I know it’s a important part in growth and fat loss. So, I still do it…….even if I am stomping my feet and acting like a 2 year-old. I’m hoping my attitude wil just go away and stretching will just be a part of my every day routine.

As for nutrition goes, not a whole lot has changed. We have stuck to our "bible" and thats a good feeling knowing our dedication. I’m a little nervous about starting the next phase of nutrition because there is more carbs in it. But I’ll put all my faith into the P90X program and the "bible" and I’ll do it. My wife made these health bars that are killer. They are oatlmeal and raisin bars. She added two scoopes of protien powder to the bars. They taste yummy and they are only 108 calories, 12 grams of protien, 17 grams of carbs and 2 grams of fat. One thing we did notice about the diet change is that we have become fart-bombing fools. Man, some of the foods make us so gassy. Has anyone else experienced this unpleasant change? We think it is the turkey (burgers, jerky, ect.) and the protien bars. Yeah, ther are some nights we bring a whole new meaning to Ripper in AbRipperX (Yes, we are simple people who enjoy a good Dick & Fart joke).

Latley, I have been bringing a lot of work and personal garbage to my workouts. I have had a lot of stupid shit go down lately and I can’t seem to tune it out by the time I get to working out. It’s really pissing me off because alls I want to do is completely focus on the program and give it my total dedication. I’m trying to shed it out my head. If anyone has tips or suggestions, please throw them my way. My wife just got a book that helps you focus on your own life and not worry about outside forces that you can’t control. I need that.

My wieght has stayed the same, 153. Thats fine with me. I more concerned about losing the fat weight. So, if my weight stays the same because Im’ gaining muscle and losing fat thats cool with me. I’ll be posting my 30-day progress pics on Wednesday. I’m excited and nervous about it. I know I have made changes, but I can’t wait to compare it to my old pics. I’m interested to see how much has and hasn’t changed.

The other night I was doing my new nightly routine and thats flexing in front of the mirror. Yup, I’m shallow like that-lol. My wife was in the shower and she was watching me. She starting laughing and told me to get in the shower. I walked up to the shower and started flexing for her. She laughed and said, "Get in!" Now, what I said to her was a real eye-opening moment for me. I said, "It’s fun! It’s nice to look in the mirror and NOT be disgusted with myself." I’ve never viewed myself in a positive way whenever I have looked at myself in the mirror. This is a great feeling knowing that my life and health have taken a turn for the better. What can I say? It feels great feeling….well, great! I hope there are others out there that experiencing the same thing I am. You shouldn’t have to feel or think crappy about yourself. Well, gotta go- For those who took time out of their lives to read about mine-THANK YOU SO MUCH! Stay strong!

Alright, we only have two days left of week 3. Man, it is flying by. On Saturday, we were suppose to do our YogaX, but we decided to do one of the bonus cardios instead. I think our energy levels have really gone up and we both have talked about doing more cardio on our rest day. Hey, this is good: were actually pushing ourselves to do more workouts. We are going to do the YogaX on our Rest/Stretch day. The workout program wasn’t too bad. Each workout was a minute long and every 20 seconds you had to kick it up a notch. Yeah, that got a good sweat going. We both slept bad on Saturday night and we were really lagging yesterday. We did our Leg/Back workout that night. We were missing that extra push we normally have and it showed. We both increased our weights and reps, but you could tell we were just "getting through it." We were just bonked out. We did it though and that is better then nothing. Oh-yeah, my calves are still on fire! When I was doing that calf exercise I could feel the burn all the way up to my butt. Nice! My wife says her calves feel so dead today, but damn ,they are starting to look sexy!

AB RipperX: We did this after the Leg/Back workout. Considering half the exercises require some leg motion the Ab Ripper is always the hardest after the Leg/Back Workout. On top of just lagging, our legs were also sore from the previous nights cardio. We got through the Ab Ripper, but we didn’t push ourselves like we usually do. Hey, I can do the crunchy frogs and not fall over- wooooo-hooooo! I can also do the twists (at the end of the workout) without stopping. I hang with Tony and the gang the whole time. My core is my weakest body part, so I’m stoked it is gett ing much stronger.

Nutrition: Want to know how dedicated we are to this diet? Saturday was my wife’s 30th birthday and do you think we went hog wild on bad food, cake or booze? Nope! She wanted a pie that consisted of low-fat yogurt and mixed berries. We made it, froze it and then had some after our cardio. It was yummy. One thing I have never talked about is our water consumption. I think this a very important part to the dieting. Now, I own a bottled water delivery company (In fact, I’m working on the website right now-I got writers block. If you have suggestions on how a salesman could attratch you to buy bottled water-just drop me a line. I ‘m always up for suggestions and tips. Don’t worry I won’t solicate you. LOL.) and so, I have always been proadvocate of water drinking. Before I started P90X I used to drink about half a gallon of water on a daily basis. Now, I drink a gallon or more. The crazy part is my body uses all that water. I don’t make a ton of trips the bathroom. P90X recommends you drink 6 to 8 12 oz. glasses each day. They also suggest this: 12 oz of water two hours prior to exercise, 8-12 oz of water 15 to 30 minutes before exercise and 4-8 oz of water during exercise. Drink your water folks! It’s important in aiding your body in losing fat. Plus, it helps your local water delivery company pay their bills .

Alright, gotta get back to work, damnit! For those who took time out of their lives to read about mine-THANK YOU SO MUCH! Have a great day and seriously, if you have a good sales tips let me know.

Alright, week three is here and we are just rolling through this. Last night was Chest/Back and Ab RipperX. We really worked it in the Chest/Back routine. During routine one I would set a number (All these numbers were higher than last time) and I pushed for 5 more reps after. When it was time for routine two I set for that number + the five again. Once I hit it I pushed myself after that to failure. Man, I was dead tired afterwards. It hurt to lift my arms to take off my shirt. I’m truely surprised as to how well my chest is reacting and developing by just doing push-ups. I know weights are the true source to real muscle gains, but I’m pretty stoked with the gains my chest has made- a lot more than I thought it would.

The diet is going well. We are sticking to it with total dedication. My weight has stuck around the 153-155 area. Not too concerned. Just as long as I keep losing the fat weight. We have really gotten to like the new diet. We adjusted fast and we’re not even close to being sick of it. I have battled and won one of my biggest no-no’s when it comes to eating: Late night snacking! I used to be so bad at it and at first , it was tough. I loovvvvvvveeeeee my ghetto-cup full of milk, apple and either a bag of popcorn or handfuls of peanuts. Now I don’t have those cravings anymore. Wooo-hoooo, thank you will power.

We have been so good with the exercises and dieting, but there is one place I have been dropping the ball. Keeping track of my weights and reps. I need to do that because last night I wasn’t using heavy enough weights. I know somethng is better then nothing, but I could have made better gains with my back if I had the right weights. So, make sure you do that! Your body adjusts fast and you need to keep track of it.

OK now, here is a small problem that I have been trying to figure out how to handle. Since I have started this my body has changed very well. The fat is just shredding off. I’m getting skinny all around and thats good. I’ve always carried my fat in my stomach and face. My legs and arms have always been skinny. Even though they are gaining muscle they are still skinny because of the weight lose. Thats OK because I know that just takes time to build. I rambling because thats not my problem. My problem is I’m worried that I’m liking myself too much! Does that seem odd? What I mean is, last night, 35 minutes after our Chest/Back routine and 10 minutes after the AbRipperX I took off my shirt and looked in the mirror. What I saw I hadn’t seen in over a decade. My chest had a good pump, but the biggest thing I noticed was my abs. They had good detail and were solid. I was so stoked with what I saw. I still have fat on my stomach and on my sides, so I still have a long ways to go, but damn I was impressed! I got excited and starting thinking about one of my goals: I want to be confident and take a profile picture of me and my ripped body. I’m no where near that goal yet, but I want to be in the future. These changes I have made are for life! I’m not going back to being fat or lazy. I love the new me and when the times comes I want to strut my stuff, just like everyone else does on bodyspace that has worked and earned it. So, does that make me conceeded or cocky? Because thats what I started feeling like after I started envisioning my future profile pic. It made me feel guilty because I’ve never thought like that before. I’ve always considered myself low-key and humble. All of this is new to me and I’m not sure if I’m taking the right approach to it. Is it ok to be this proud of myself that I must show it off? Or should I just be humble and keep my proud accoplishments within myself (and with my wife of course). I have no clue! Any suggestions? For those who took time out of their lives to read about mine-THANK YOU SO MUCH! Stay strong!

As I sit here reading people’s blogs, I have my myspace page open so I can listen to music. I wish bodyspace had that option. Alright, enough bitching. Later- jt