Core Synergistics

This disc has moved up into 1st or 2nd place on difficulty. When done properly, you should puke, or nearly puke. I haven't worked my core like that in a whole bunch of years. Wowsa.

Words to beware of on this DVD:

Banana
Superman
Prison Push Ups
Steam Engine

Those are just a few. 2 of these to do in the recovery weeks. I'm hopeful that I will be better the next time around in a few days. This whole routine is a mixture of Ab Ripper X, Plyometrics, Kenpo, Legs and Back and Chest and Shoulders. Ain't none of it easy.

P90X gets my respect FWIW.

Fevola OUT!

25 miles per pound....

That's what it feels like anyways.  Doing P90x 5-7 days a week and walking 25-30 miles a week. (not to mention the dieting and eating all healthy and crap)  Still I'm only losing about 2 pounds a week.  I still feel like every ounce is a struggle and the results are just so slow.  So, I'm with Tom on this whole recovery week.  I understand the concept but it freaks me out and makes me certain it will be the downfall of me and make me miss my personal goals for the month.

Yes, I understand I'm gaining muscle which is heavier than fat.  Of course all my muscle is still hiding under this fat.  What good is muscle if you can't see it?? All it does then is make the scale have bigger numbers.

So, this is our final week before weigh in and measuring.  I don't foresee there will be any cheating on french fries this weekend.

A little setback.

Ok, so I touted that I would do 90 of these puppies in a row.

I have failed.

Last night was my X Stretch or Rest night. You have the option of either and I chose the latter. I had done the X Stretch each of the previous two times, but for some reason, I was not feeling the love last night.

So, I have not "technically" missed a day per the program guidelines, however I failed in my personal goal that I set to do 90 consecutive nights of P90X discs. The streak stopped at 21.

I am, and apparently continue to be, a Pansy.

Recovery week and 2 BS sessions of Yoga X this week. I'm hating it already.

Fevola OUT!

Recovery Week here I come.

Yes, after tonight's Kenpo, I will be in the P90x Recovery week, and this will be the hardest week for me I think. Why? Because it will be too easy and I will get lazy with the two sessions of Stretching and two sessions of Yoga. I won't push myself hard enough, so I will have to fight to really lay it all out there. I hate Yoga the worst now. The arms are getting back to Navy days and I'm definitely feeling better about my strength and inches I've lost in the waist line. Instead of 2 or 3 oversized tractor tires in the waist, I'm down to a doughnut now.

Weeks 5-7 look interesting after this "recovery". I hope they challenge me like these first 3 did to keep my motivation level high.

In closing, let me say, Tony is still an ass.

Fevola OUT!

Fatty Fatty Po Patty.....

Every pound I have been has taken serious effort.  It feels like it's been a struggle and fight for each single ounce.  And sometimes the weight is only coming off ounce by ounce.....Sometimes it doesn't come off.  Sometimes we do that wonderful thing called "plateau". 

But right now, I am finally starting to see differences in my body.  My legs are getting leaner and my arms flap a lot less.  I actually have a mini muscle there and I finally feel like there is some hope for me being able to do at least one proper pushup by the time this 90 days is up. Initially we were using resistence bands for these exercises but it wasn't enough and we had to go get actual weights

As far as me being a lardass, apparently I still am "overweight".  Good greif, I'm so sick of that.  For my height I'm in the 50% percentile.  Well, my math says I'm straight up in the middle with should be deemed as normal right?? That's my logic and I'm sticking to it.

Apparently 65% of all Americans are overweight and over 30% of those folks are obese.  Within the next 20 years it's estimated over 85% of Americans will be overweight.  It's probably best if Americans quit considering french fries with ketchup as vegetable servings.

Silly wabbit, P90X is for kids...

Yes, you heard me say it. I'm on the non-stop bus now. I'm getting faster and stronger after the first two weeks. And, unlike my better half, am finding it easier to press play.

As an FYI, for all you kids watching, I am the only one in the household who can boast through two full weeks that I have done one every night. NO ONE ELSE IN MY HOUSE CAN MAKE THAT CLAIM. I shall not fail. I will do 90 in a row.

I may have to consider that diet. I am down only a total of 3 pounds after two weeks, although I have lost some inches for sure. I am looking better.

All in all, I like it.

Fevola, OUT!

Week Two, Weak One...

Week 2 is hard to get into.  The end of the first week has Kenpo and then you have a day of stretching which is well, easy to say the least.  Going from that back onto the hardest sessions which are probably day one and two (push up hell and plyo-bite-me not to mention abtorture) is very difficult.

You have no delusions about what is coming and so it's very difficult to bolster oneself up just to push the play button, never the less to play along with the folks on tv.  Also, I will say even in one week there is marked improvement in stamina and balance so it actually makes it a bit tougher cause you actually can last longer and go harder with the videos.

It's also pretty depresssing to be in week 2 of the process facing so many weeks ahead, lets face it...there aren't any visible results yet.  In this immediate gratification culture people (me, me, me!!!) want quick results.  Yes, we are in the thoes of suckage.

Kenpo X is da nuts.

I loved it. I loved every second of it. I beat and kicked the ever loving shit out of my imaginary opponent. I sweat more on that session than any other so far, and it was worth every minute of it. THAT got me FIRED up! I will look forward to that one each time around. Joints hurt a little this A.M, but again, all worth it. I loved the doubles and the bonus round at the end. Yeah baby.

So, now stretching/rest tonight (will do stretching), here is a ranking by me of the hardest to the easiest:

1. Chest and Back
1a. Ab Ripper X (Both of these are interchangeable, I hate them equally)
2. Yoga X
3. Legs and Back
4. Shoulders and Arms
5. Plyometrics
6. Kenpo X

If I didn't have that ab ripper every other night, I could at least deal, but that ab ripper is no joke either.

So, one week now down, 11 more to go.

I won't classify it as easy, but it's not so hard it will make me quit.

I'm still kicking the dude in the balls if I ever meet him.

-Fevola Out!

Kenpo is so like an asian Pom Pon squad...

Kenpo was not the easiest, but it is by far my favorite.  Tony Horton makes it all out like it's supposed to be some kind of 'Fight Club' prep session but I didn't see it that way at all.

To me it was totally like being back in High School Pom Pons...Step, kick, throw out your arms.  Initially I had a tough time with the rhythm of it all but after a while it definitely got easier.  I also am feeling my balance improve as the days go by.

This has not improved my weight loss (I suspected it wouldn't with what I read) and it appears I'm gonna do the same as before I started this p90x, which averages 2 pounds a week. If all holds true however, everyone raves its inches that go, not pounds. 

And since the 'recovery drink' was mentioned, let's go ahead and talk about that.  After every session of p90x Tony Horton is busy hawking the added supplements and nutritional vitamins and recovery drink etc.  At this point those who have done the work out are so busy trying to scrape themselves off the floor that it's tough to go turn off the DVD.  He has a completely captivated weakened audience and I am pretty sure this is some form of brainwashing mind control going on.  I'm not buying it.

Real men don't eat Quiche and Yoga is hard!

That's right, Yoga was not easy, although I did fight through most of it. I made every plank and upward and downward dog. I did not get fully through two exercises. 1. The sit on your elbows while inverted exercise was bs. 2. The legs over your head resting on your shoulders exercise. I continually tried, but just couldn't get my balance.

I will accomplish those before the 90th day, but on this one I didn't get there. It feels like I may have dropped a few pounds, will be interested to see where that is next week. I am now starting to settle in, today was the first day nothing on my body jumped out as me as being critical.

85 more to go. Pfft.

For those keeping score at home, I am the only one who has done one of these each night since I've started, whereas the others (to remain unnamed here) have not.

Per Tom's bookeeping: Alice gets some props for doing walks after some of them. Lauren is now officially starting to fall behind.

I still don't like quiche....ohm...ohm....PLANK!

STFU DVD guy.

Namesta my a$$.....

"I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."

That has to be the stupidest load of crap ever huh??? When Tom and I do yoga together it is also crap. 

He was almost decent throughout the entire 90+ minutes of our yoga session but then when we went to do the final Corpse pose he kept trying to hold my hand.  Then there was some happy baby pose which is totally obcene and Buffy tried to attack us when the last 3 minutes of chanting "ohm" was taking place.

Tom did harrass me a little about my disgusting lack of balance.  Seriously I can't seem to get either of my feet off the ground even 4 inches.  Maybe I need to get that checked...Maybe I have a big tumor in my head.

Anyways, there were points in this dvd where my performance was less than stellar and Tom repeatedly pointed it out.  I didn't feel impressed with myself either and I had to take the dog for a 5 mile walk afterward to make up for it.

I felt myself repeatedly getting board (like a plank) with this...I felt like we kept doing the same moves over and over again.  Yes, they whipped my butt, however, I still was getting bored with it.

Also, even though they don't call it ab ripper....part of the yoga at the end is totally ab ripper.  So that makes 3 times this week on ab ripper.

I can't beleive we hvent finished week one of this.

P90 wha...??

Jump, hop, bounce, cakewalk. Pansy assed DVD last night, Plyometrics. The warm up burned me more than actual exercises, and yes, I did it all the right way. The ease of last night was not because of my godlike status, but because I can directly correlate this to the way I was required to do PT in the Seabees. This reminded me alot of that, up down, smurfjacks, etc. Pffft, let me do some more of those please. I have my hackers card punched on all of that.

Not to digress, but that first DVD is still is eating my lunch. There are 3 critical areas on my body from that. Here they are in the order of importance:

Left Shoulder / Left Triceps - I need damage control parties to both ASAP
Right Triceps - It is peeling itself off of my body
Right Pectoral - Shredded

Nothing else even worth mentioning. All of the above was from that first workout with the push ups. Was I the only one that left it all out there? I never stopped pushing, even if on the second sets I couldn't hardly move.

Hmm.

Disclosure anyone?

Beuller?

Anyone?

On the non-hack card side of things , I will freely admit I rubbed some Aspercreme on the above locations last night.

Close your cakehole! Don't judge me!

I am mildly worried about tonight's biceps and forearms workout. Not because of biceps and forearms, but because my triceps and shoulders are toast. I watched Alice do part of hers last night and saw I will need to put pressure in those areas. I will say however, at least there is finally a halfway decent looking hot chic to stare at on this upcoming one. I might focus on that depending on how hard it is and if I find myself getting close to low indicator light levels.

For those of you watching at home, Lauren gets the nod from me for doing her softball workout last night then coming home and doing P90X. That's money. I put you in the lead because of it.

In closing: Eat shit P90X.

If that Gay McGaypants dude on the TV can do it, so can I. First thing I'm doing if I ever meet him in person is kicking him right in the balls and then yelling "Bring IT!" like he does.

Fevola Out.

Warnings....for idiots

 

"Or you feel discomfort"-- are they serious??  I would eject the CD at this point every time if I followed directions.  I have to point out I suspect there will be discomfort with any excercise program you partake in right??  Is someone really enjoying this stuff?

As to my perky friend Lisa and her comments regarding how wonderful this program is and how much easier it gets.  Be advised girlie,  I am pretty sure I'll be dropping the F Bomb in this blog repeatedly before the 90 days is up. I'm guessing maybe you passed at least part of the pre fitness test that they have.  I on the other hand read the pre fitness test and conceded I wouldn't pass any of those things and just moved onto the videos anyways.

So far I've done 3 days of this program.  Day one is chest and back.  Mostly there are about a dozen cruel ways to make you do push ups.  Can I point out that I cannot even do one proper pushup.  Not even one.  Of course that doesn't mean I didn't try.  Oh, but I did.  I do hope before 90 days goes by I may be able to do just one lousy push up.  Just one.

After that sunny little bit of fun they make you do another mini work out called AB Ripper.  Well, that is just ridiculous.  I look like a total ass.  Wallowed out on the ground with my arms and legs flailing around. Again,  I'm not doing any of these moves properly I'm quite certain of it.

Day two was plyometrics.  Jumping and lungeing.  One needs balance and flexibility and I apparently am lacking in both those areas. Let me just say Lauren was in the room for this one when I did it.  Miss Athletic ability on the laptop rolls her eyes up and says "you know, your supposed to be doing what they're doing on the television"....so, I guess I'm not doing those moves properly either.

Today was arms and back and then another bout of ab ripper. 

90 days seems pretty long right now and it seems like a part time job to pay for liposuction would be much more effective at this point.

I did the first workout last night. Definately a little more difficult than I thought it would be. Although I do agree with Dad, the little man on the TV is rather annoying. I've never really done workout videos before this, but I think he's very excessive in the talking. It's like he will never shut up!

Even though last night was the first workout, I've been on the diet since Mom started, and I must say THIS SUCKS! I hate diets. This is the first real "diet" I've been on, other than just cutting back on sweets and sodas. The worst part about it is that I can't drink Gatorade. Only water. I've been drinking just Gatorade for almost the last year. How am I supposed to just cut that out completely?!? I mean, I can deal without sodas, but Gatorades are essential for me. So to compensate for the No Gatorade Law, I have been putting those little packets in the water bottles. They're not the best, but oh well. I guess I will just have to deal.

The morning after..

Stupidity. I knew this was going to happen. I did the first one last night, Chest and Back. BS. I haven't done that many push ups since my freakin' military boot camp days. My triceps have nearly fallen off today. I haven't been this sore in a long time.

And what's up with that Ab Ripper X after all of it? Seriously, that's not cool.

Highlights:

1. At one point my daughter Lauren looked at me and asked if I was going to finish. There was no point I was even close to giving up, I was however pissed off about the entire endeavor.

2. I almost puked. Yes, I did almost hurl. I gave myself a 100% chance of pukage after I was done too, but it didn't materialize. If I do, I'm yakking on Alice's pillow, this was her idea. I'm also taking photos of any puke that I may produce and posting them here. I want grades on color, texture and amount.

3. I'm mad at the world, and it will only get worse. Oh, Alice finds it funny now, but when I go to the "bad place" in my mind, I am class A, grade 1 mean.

4. I wanted to punch the guy doing the workout. Not because we were working hard, I think he's a damned primadonna. What an asshat. We will be muting him on a go forward basis for sure.

89 hours left. That's how my mind works. 89 more to go. I will hurt, I will be sore, I may die, but I've got more time at sea, on the crapper, at general quarters than these 89 hours. No, I will not yield on this. I will do all 90 of them.

Alice, I know what you wanted this to be, it's not what you're looking for.

More to follow, expect cynicism to get worse.

Fevola, OUT!

The "Decision"...

I have decided to participate.

Why?

Well, at first I didn't want to, mainly because of three reasons:

1. No matter what my wife says, she went ahead and purchased this damn thing underhandedly. I was consulted and asked if it was something I was interested in, when I said, "I will decide within a week", it magically then showed up within a day. Her intention was to do it all along although that is not the way it was originally presented.

I have gotten over this, but am not happy about it.

2. I have friends that I have heard from regarding the program. They do not like it. I have people on the radio I listen to (Mike and Mike at ESPN) that do it, they do not like it. It does not sound like fun.

I have gotten over this, but am not happy about it.

3. My wife and daughter are doing it. I wanted to watch them suffer, because I told them the program was no joke.

I have gotten over this, but am not happy about it.

So, "The Decision" is now made. I am not however making any effort to modify my eating at this point. Why? Because I am doing this because now I want to "show" them both up. I believe my intestinal and mental fortitude can still outlast both of them combined.

I am a fat ass. I have gained more weight in the last year and a half than at any point in my entire life. I weigh north of 185, I am only 5'8".

Time to get to skoolin' some of my family chicks.

I may not lose the most, or shape up the most, but I for damn sure will be the most productive and finish every one of these things, or die trying.

Fevola- OUT!

In the beginning there were rules...

Ok, here are the rules thusfar...Which are totally subject to my whim.

• Each participant must workout to p90x at least 4 times a week.  You can do other activities or workouts but they may not do more than one p90x workout a day.  
• Each participant must blog at least twice a week but no more than once a day.
• No posting video or photos of other participants without permission (this also includes weights and statistics)

So, where am I and where am I going.  For those who have followed along--the white capris.  I can get into the white capris.  It doesn't look good, but I can get into them.  I have not eaten any Gardetto's since starting this weight loss process.  I still intend on eating a damned bagful of the things once I'm happily ensconced in these white capris.  I suspect that goal is less than a month away.  This program is 90 days though right? So, what are my overall goals for this venture?

P90x goals.  25 pounds.  Pretty aggressive goal, but let's see how this goes. I've read a bit about the program and most people don't see a ton of weight loss but they see great results in size as things tighten and firm on up.  (yes, I could use a hand with this damned gravity thing.)

Yesterday we took all our measurements and our "before" photos---which will not be posted now. I'm just not that brave or ready yet...maybe I never will be.  Who knows. Today I did the first day of video.  I'll tell you about that tomorrow, but I can say I'm immediately pissed off at this program.  Today was Chest and Back and then it made you do a second workout back to back called ab ripper.  And so, the delusion of what this will be like is slowly seeping away and reality sets in.  This is truly going to suck.

Let's just say that throughout the first workout the dude kept saying "pick a goal" for each set of reps and his little minions kept picking numbers.  They would call out 22 or 30 or 28.  I never had a number though.  I kept thinking of goals like "don't die" or "don't let your arms collapse halfway through cause your face will hit the ground and you might break stuff"  and of course "don't let go of the resistence band cause that will take an eye out".  I don't know what the numbers were about.

Wish me well.