Discouraged

I have to be honest - coming into Week 4 I'm feeling a little discouraged.

Mike has already gone down a pants size, lost almost 10 pounds, and is rediscovering his jawline - whereas I have regained the 3 pounds I lost (although, I'm tempted to blame this on the GIANT dinner I had friday night still living in my gut Saturday morning when I stepped on the scale) and, although my size 18's are feeling a bit looser than normal, I have not noticed much of a different at all in how my clothing fits - with the exception of my belly getting less and less flabby every time we do that horrible painful ab-ripper sequence. ;)

While flipping through channels yesterday afternoon we came across the P90X infomercial and watched it for a good 30 minutes. From what I can tell most of your results come between day 30 and 60, and then of course between 60 and 90.

What can I say? I'm just impatient. I want it all now.

On a positive note:

Emotionally/mentally I'm feeling fantastic! I have so much more energy during the day, I still really look forward to the workouts in the evenings, and can really feel myself getting stronger.

When we first started I could hardly do 2 girl push-ups - now I can do 75% of the push-ups during the Sculpt workouts. The cardio gets easier every time we do it, unless I've eaten a bunch of junk food during the day. It is SO MUCH harder if you're not feeding your body right. This has been great motivation for me to eat right during the week. I still allow myself to splurge on the weekends - but I try to save it for Saturday nights or Sundays since we don't workout on Sunday.

Overall I'm really enjoying the Power 90 program - and I'm committed to the lifestyle now. I have to be. What would be the point of working this hard to just quit after the 90 days is up?

Mike and I are thinking we will do one more cycle of Power 90 after this one, and then switch up to the P90X workouts. I'm actually really excited for it!!

Back to the grind

Well Steve and I are back to the grind. We need to do a couple of days of double (sculpt and cardio) to get back on track as we should be just about to finish week 2, but instead we just finished week 1, and I have to say it's taking a lot less time to recover after the workouts. The long break did not help as we were both struggling with some  of the cardio last night, but we managed to do more of the power yoga, but I still can't go from downward dog to runner's lunge. I think the  biggest problem I have is that my knee to floor length is about 4" longer than my arms. I did get some of the way tho....you know until I couldn't reach the floor anymore and almost fell over.

I am feeling really good and the quality of sleep as increased ten-fold. I just wish I could sleep as long as I want, but I have 2 small problems with that. :) Steve has been great tho in letting me sleep in. We've been taking turns as to who sleeps in.

I have noticed that my legs are getting more toned and that some of my 'tight' jeans....really aren't that tight any more. I didn't even have to suck it in the other day to button straight-out-of-dryer jeans. Yay!

Taking a Breather

So Steve and I were supposed to do Day 6 of our Power 90 last night, but instead we had a party. After the Rock Band/Guitar Hero session, however; we did show off some of the different moves that Mr. Tony Horton has. Everyone was over, and we had a friend over that is doing the P90X, so she was showing us some of the moves from there. Gotta say though, today I'm a little sore. Oh well back to the grind today :)

Tony Horton Sounds Like a Bad Skate Rink DJ

Yes, I'm a touch snarky today. I hurt. Not a lot, but enough to be in a bad mood about it. Nothing a cup of coffee won't fix though.

So I got the thinking yesterday that maybe I should change my diet, but then I got the thinking that I like the way I eat. I don't snack a whole lot. We eat a lot of fresh veggies and we're smart about carbs and protein. For instance, last night's dinner was chicken and rice bake and roasted asparagus. The chicken was dark meat, but only because I like it better than breast meat. The Cream of Mushroom soup in the recipe was low sodium, as I can't handle a lot of salt anyways, and there is only a cup or 2 of rice in it, and once the white rice we have is used up we're switching to brown rice. The asparagus had a light coating of butter spray and then just seasoned with a little bit of salt and bit more pepper and then broiled for about 10 minutes. See, not that unhealthy. :) So I am not going to change my eating habits, because I like the way I eat, and even though I'm not really pleased with Mr. Horton right now, I can and will get over it. :)

So now, Day 2 involves jumping jacks, and as any larger-breasted woman knows.....those hurt! I know I should do them, but really I can only do a few, because it hurts and its hard to do them while placing your arms over your chest. I'll get there. One of the reasons I wanted to lose weight was to  have a smaller cup size, but I can't wait until that starts to happen. I've been DDD for too long. :)

Ok, I'm going to go find a cup of coffee now and begin the healing process. :)

Cheers,
Heather

Do you hear that?

I do. That lovely sound would be ALL of my joints and muscles screaming in protest to moving and even, just maybe, thinking about moving.

Steve and I did the Cardio and Ab Ripper tonight and they should definitely be called "Let's bring on a heart attack or blown out joint" and "Time to kill you some more, but this time you can lie down while we do it." So the titles are a little long, but seriously, I was afraid that during some of the cardio I'd put down one of my legs and I would just keep going because my knee slipped out of joint again, and wouldn't that be craptacular? Trying to get healthy and lose weight, and oh! Wait! You're out for at least a week, probably three because your knees are so bad. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I took it slow and stopped for breaks more often than Stephen did, but my knees, while sometimes they felt loose, and they were cracking up a storm, are still connected. :)

Also, I enjoy doing pilates and yoga, but damn....that power yoga at the beginning kicked my rump. It was hard to bring my legs from a downward dog into a runners position. I have LONG legs. My waist to floor measurement is 48". Yep...I'm ALL leg. My grandfather used to tell me I had legs up to my shoulders, and he was mostly right. My torso is only about 16" long, but it used to be 14". I guess some fat will do that to ya. :)

I have to be honest here and say - I am not looking forward to the rest of this week.

Heather

It's like Deja Vu all over again...

You can say that again. It's like Deja Vu all.. ahh forget it. Tonight we had a miscommunication and ended up doing Sculpt 1-2 again, instead of Sweat 1-2 & Ab Ripper. We're going to do day 2 for day 3 and then continue on from there so that Sunday is still our Rest day and we will have done all the steps we were supposed to.

Yesterday when we did day 1, I did not have any type of weights/bands and Heather only had some very small 2lb weights that she used during her pilates. Needless to say, those resistance bands not only work, but make a BIG difference. I was slightly sore this morning, but it was a good sore. I have a feeling tomorrow morning is going to be a completely different story. I am very sore tonight, again a good sore. I don't hurt to the point where I can't move, but wow, I wasn't expecting that.

I am not comfortable posting the pictures of myself yet.. perhaps when I see a difference I will post a side by side. You'll also notice that on the side of the site I have my waist as the "measure" for how well I am doing. I haven't decided if I want to keep waist or move to weight.. perhaps I can do both.

The Fashonistas of the World would Cry

First, I'm dying......literally, I think I may be dying. Stephen and I 'started over' on our Power 90, because I accidentally read the calendar wrong and told him to do Sculpt again today we had the resistance bands, so we did the Sculpt 1-2 workout again, and it's HARD with resistance bands. I don't think I've broken a sweat like this in ages. I also already am sore....just from sitting for about 3 minutes. I can feel everything between my shoulders, upper back and arms. Especially the arms. The legs aren't too bad right now, but I typically do a lot of exercise type things with them as it is. You know lifting laundry, squatting to pick up H, repeatedly going up and down the stairs for bink replacements and the like. I'm sure I'll feel the leg soreness in a few days though.

But on a good note, here are some before pictures, and I know its supposed to be a sports bra and shorts or the like, but you know what....I'm not that confident in posting that much skin so I am posting pictures of me with my tank on. It doesn't show as much but it'll get the idea across. Maybe when I'm my new fit and toned self I'll have enough gumption to post those tankless before pictures. Also, it's obvious that no one in the fashion world designed work out clothes, because they don't look good on anyone except the people in those work-out videos and the chicks from Baywatch. Vogue would never put anything so ugly on anyone. 

 I'm scared of tomorrow's workout....it's Sweat 1-2 and Ab Ripper 1-2. Maybe they name things like that just to scare us. Maybe they want to instill the fear of God into us so that when we finally master them b*tches we feel like we're on top of the world. {I'm the king of the world}

I will now go back to nursing my large glass of ice cold flavored water. Then after I watch a show or two..I will drag my sorry behind upstairs and shower before bed. Good night, all. I'm sure I will sleep like I'm dead.  

Heather

A Sad Realization....

I have no balance. I always thought I had some balance, but tonight was our first night of doing the Power 90 and during the leg stretches, you know the ones where you grab your ankle and pull your heel up against your butt, I almost fell every time. The wall became my friend. :) I also discovered that our couch is not good for the chair exercises. I am impressed with both Stephen and I, we both broke a little sweat during our little 1/2 hour jaunt, but overall I think we felt pretty good. I can say that my legs are a little sore, so I'm a little afraid of how I'm going to feel in the morning. We forgot to take pictures tonight. The camera was upstairs and we were in the basement, and why would we do some stair-stepping while trying to get into shape? :) I'm sure that day 2 pictures will look the same, if not worse, from day 1.

Well, I'm off to shower then bed, and I'm hoping and praying that Harrison sleeps in tomorrow.

Heather