Overcoming resistance

It was sooo hard getting through the Chest & Back workout today.  All my "stars" were totally misaligned; it was raining and miserably cold; I must of slept crooked or something because I woke up with a terrible kink in my neck; and I simply felt tired.

And you know you're fighting a uphill battle with yourself when the thought of hibernating like a lumbering bear feels like the ultimate goal in life.  And it didn't stop there; rationales left and right were springing into my head persuading me to skip the workout: "I strained my neck, so I shouldn't do an upper body workout" (doesn't that sound reasonable?); "It's dangerous working out when it's so cold, I could pull a muscle" (also very reasonable, no?);  "My husband's being lazy and sitting on his ass eating yummy bonbons, maybe I should join him, wouldn't want him to be lonely" (Ok, that's just me desperate to find any reason to get out of the workout).

But I stared down all those sinister thoughts and shouted "NO!"  I've suffered worse "resistance" in my days.  (Resistance was coined by Steven Pressfield in The Art of War to describe our inner antagonist that essentially goes around sabotaging our life's goals, such as I want to lose weight, but instead end up ordering a McDonald's meal with a double-thick chocolate shake!)

In the end, to overcome resistance, you simply just have to bulldoze it over; there aren't any magic tricks.   And I simply told myself that I can do it; if I simply take it one-step at a time, and don't think about the gasping pain of the pull-ups, chin-ups and all the tortuous push-ups introduced by Tony Horton, then I can get through it.  In fact, I cleared my mind of thoughts and simply pushed the play button.  I concentrated on the moment, never thinking about the last move or the next, simply working on the present and extracting every ounce out of myself that I could.

And I got through it!  In fact, even with a neck strain I was able to perform just as well as my last Chest & Back workout, woo hoo! (See my workout stats for Jan 9 )

I didn't let resistance beat me today.

Nursing my stiff neck muscles

Since waking up with a really bad stiff neck a couple of days ago from overexerting myself, (you can read post here) I've been learning about how to nurse my poor neck back to health.  

So after researching online, a pulled muscle, strained muscle, stiff muscle, whatever you want to call it, is usually the result of tears in the muscle cells due to exercising improperly.    

Which is why to protect your muscles you should always, always do a pre-exercise warm up as well as concentrate on achieving proper form in your routines, i.e., don't overextend your knees over your toes, don't bang your joints, etc.  I understand now that the warm up is really important, especially going into a hardcore workout.  The warm up helps pump more blood to your muscles which supply them with life-giving nutrients and oxygen so that they have the energy necessary to perform their job, which is essentially contracting, relaxing, contracting, relaxing.  

The warm up also helps prepare the nerves-to-muscle pathways so that your brain and body are in a more ready state to perform physical activities.  Incorporating some stretching is also essential to help "relax" and make your muscles all happy and pliable for a hard workout.  I suppose you can think of it like caramelized sugar; when it's hot the caramel is fluid and pliable and you can do so many magical things with it, but when it's cold, it's hard and brittle and if you exert too much force, SNAP! and oops, you'll have broken something, just like your cold muscles.

Now should you end up with a pulled muscle from exercise, the standard remedy for mild pulls involve: cold compress (to alleviate swelling and pain), resting (well your muscles are in pain, so give it a rest), hot compress (to increase blood flow so all the wonderful goodies of nutrients and oxygen can be delivered) and stretching (well your muscles are sore and stiff, and probably feeling very down, you've got to help them rebuild their self-esteem with baby-stretching steps).  

I essentially followed this formula to nurse my stiff neck, except for the cold compress because by the time I learned of the cold compress, it was already many hours after my injury.  (You're supposed to apply a cold compress immediately after the injury).  But, everyday I made sure I did a proper warm up before exercising, in which I added a neck stretch before and after the exercise.  (I essentially followed the neck and back stretches shown in P90X).  Afterwards, I would take a hot shower, making sure to bath my neck in the hot water while also stretching it out again.  And, I avoided strenuous exercise in the injured area.  

On the first and second day it was painful to just stretch out my neck muscles, but I noticed significant improvements with each passing day.  And by the 3rd day I barely noticed the pain any more; and certainly by the 4th day the pain was completely gone.  Given that in the past it has taken at least 1 week or even longer for me to recovery from a stiff neck, this experiment was quite a success.  

Happy Holidays!

All the things I ate for Christmas Eve dinner! I must have eaten 4000 calories, I can't be sure, I lost count after my third helping of food.  

Ain't the holidays grand; best excuse to "hog out".  

Just a few of the things I ate: fried chicken, green bean casserole, baked potato, baked cauliflower, salad
and some strange rice cracker potato salad mix (strange but tasty)

Close up of fried chicken.  Wooo, look at the crispy, crunchy golden skin

Glazed ham, hmm hmm

Tender beef tenderloin, yummy.  I had at least 3-4 pieces.  

Major neck pain from hard workout

Following up from yesterday's post where I was describing my boneheaded attempt at working off a crazed food binge through hardcore exercise.  Well, not only did I nearly make myself throw-up, but I woke up with a major stiff neck today.  I can only look at people by turning my shoulders!  My relatives think I've been imitating Michael Jackson's robot the whole day.

When I crashed out of yesterday's exercise I already felt a strange kink in my neck.  And I think I've isolated the reasons for my pulled neck muscles: 1) I was exercising too hard, i.e., over-extending my punches and over-twisting my shoulders to try to squeeze out as much calorie burn as possible, and 2) taking long "water-breaks", hence allowing my muscles to get cold.

Now I totally blame myself.  I ended up having to take long water-breaks because my stomach was stuffed to the brim with the mountain of food I had eaten.  So, as a result, my muscles got "cold" but then I threw myself into the exercise with a vengeance whenever I restarted the video.   

I'm going to do some research and self-experiment to see how to nurse my strained neck muscles.  

OMG! Don't exercise on a full stomach

I'm visiting relatives in Houston, Texas for the holidays and it seems everything in Texas is big, big, big.  Cars are big, houses are big and food portions are BIG.  And so, I'm ashamed to say that confronted with a land of such boundless plenty, I failed to control myself again and went on a crazed food binge.

The day started out hopeful, I was munching on a healthy and yummy apple as my husband and I were heading out in the morning to my sister-in-law's house to spend the day with her family (she has three of the cutest little girls).    But then I got to her house, and I felt so hungry.  The big honey crisp apple was long forgotten and all that was left was thunderous grumbles in my tummy and a definite whiff of cupcakes in the air.  And low and behold a huge cupcake with creamy strawberry frosty was sitting on the dining room table.  The kids had made it for me!  How could I break their little hearts and forsake their efforts; so I had to eat it, didn't I?  So down went about 500 calories. Then my eyes caught sight of a bag of fresh cheese bagels; and you know, I just can't resist bread. So down went another 400 calories.  

The rest of the day was a blur of one feast after another.  First, we had lunch at a super delicious Vietnamese shop that served up the most flavourful chargrilled pork sandwiches.  The pork had the perfect balance of lean meat and fat to make the meat heavenly tender.

Vietnamese chargrilled pork sandwich, delicious!

Then in the afternoon (which was really only 1 hr after lunch), we went to a big block party.  Literally, the entire block was cordoned off with police patrolling the premises to keep out loiterers.  The party was like something out of Animal House but G-rated.  There was artificial snow that transformed the front yard into a winter wonderland (it was 78 degrees that day!) where countless little kids high on sugar rushes were screaming and squealing as they pounded each other with snowballs and wheezed down dangerously in snow tubes.   There were two pens with mechanical rodeos that were flinging more squealing kids off left and right; live reindeers roaming around in pens; a Santa Claus in cowboy boots and hat; and a real cowboy on stilts that made kids jump through his lasso (plain weird!).  

But most of all there was food!  There was a mobile food truck serving out platters of free burgers and fries.  Two huge chocolate fondue fountains (one milk, the other white chocolate) accompanied with a buffet of fruits and ahhhh so many bad things.  Another buffet of savoury finger foods next to the fondue buffet, I suppose the host wanted to make sure his guests got a "balanced" meal of both sweet and savoury.  A trolley serving 4 flavors of Italian ices close to another station that was turning out hot, greasy and powered-sugary funnel cakes!  But most of all, there were trays after trays after trays after trays of chocolate truffles and bonbons.  I thought I walked into a Godiva factory!  But one that allowed visitors to eat for free! And I certainly didn't pass up the chance.  

I gorged myself with nearly everything in sight: hamburgers, fries, chocolate fondue, finger foods, and I descended on the unsuspecting trays of chocolate truffles like a starved pterodactyl.  I had to try every flavour, then I had to retry everything again to make sure I didn't miss any flavour and then again just to be doubly sure.

Then we went to another party that featured another table laden with a buffet of food.  At this point, you would think that it's  physically impossible to fit anything more into my stomach, but the strength of willpower and the elasticity of the human stomach can shock you.  Too bad my willpower was in gorging myself to death.  I won't go into the gory details but lets just say that it involved lots of thick sausages, meatballs, sweet potato casserole, raviolis the size of saucers and generous portions of pecan pie blanketed in sweet gooey molasses (they sure know how to spoon out the hospitality in the South!).  

When I finally rolled myself home my conscience finally kicked in.  (Took it long enough!)  My guilty conscience thought to repent for all the tasty sins I committed that day by doing some hardcore aerobics workout.  And like a warrior, I strapped on my heart rate monitor and readied myself to do battle with Zumba Cardio.  I gave it my all.  I threw myself into it; I've never shook my booty soo hard or so high before, I nearly dislocated my hips.  My heart rate was sky-rocketing; 60%, 70%, 80% and then bam!  It all came tumbling down.  I felt nauseated; I was going to throw up; I couldn't breathe, the heart rate monitor felt like it was cutting off my circulation and air supply. My head was dizzy.  I paused the video.  I took a sip of water and I tried to shake it off.  I restarted the video and started to samba again like there was no tomorrow, but, "Ohhhh, I'm going to throw up!"  I was literally one burp away from vomiting all over my mother-in-law's plush-carpeted living room.  

I crashed, I couldn't go on any more; it was too much for my body.  My body was simply overloaded by the mountain of food, the exertion, and the added huge intake of water and air due to the exercise.  I ended up doing only 33 minutes out of 45 minutes of the Zumba video.    

But the good news was that I performed one of my best exercises ever.  My average heart rate was 149, the highest ever!  In the 33 minutes of doing Zumba I ended up burning 486 calories, which is close to being 15 calories per minute.  That means that if I had stuck with the entire video, I could have burned over 700 calories, a record in my books.  

But, what should be the take home lessons from today.  First, DON'T over-eat, (which I had already stated in another post.  I got to start listening to my own advice!)  Second, should you "accidentally" over-eat, never EVER combine it with hard exercise; it will only lead to sickness or disaster.

The only trouble now is remembering these lessons tomorrow when after a long, nice sleep I wake up feeling hungry all over again...sigh

Lost the Battle with Food!

I ate sooo much today.  I knew it was coming, my cravings for sweets and all things fatty, but oh sooo good, had been building up these past few weeks and finally today the flood gates burst open.  The day started out as usual, I was sticking to my healthy low-calorie diet but I still felt so hungry, starved, empty.  I wanted more.  A deep craving was bubbling up inside of me which I quickly stomped on.  But a number of events this week have spiked up my stress-levels.  First, I'm in the middle of moving, so there's a lot of packing, cleaning and everything is a mind-boggling mess.  Second, I got my monthly "visitor" (my period), and oh, we girls know that it's never a good time during that time.  I get especially tired, grouchy and sore.  But most amazing of all, my appetite becomes like a bottomless pit.  I'm like a starved animal prowling; my one focus, FOOD, especially yummy sweet, carbo-rich foods.

All the junk I ate.

Now, I'm not justifying my food binge, instead I'm noting how stress-levels, physical fatigue, emotional distress, etc, can really make us vulnerable to our sneaky rationalizations, i.e., those thoughts that make us do things that sabotage our real goals.  And today, I was stressed-out, tired and emotionally feeling the disorder around me.

But I think how we crack on any diet is that your mind finally rebels against all the "self-denial".  The stress and fatigue, etc, are only triggers, like the spark that lights the canon, but the cannonball was already there.  In truth, my resolve had been cracking this whole week; sneaking a little bread here, peanut butter there, a spoonful of ice-cream here, but nothing serious.  But each time I "denied" myself, e.g., "no, no more ice-cream", "no, can't eat those cookies", "no, can't have pizza," the craving just became worse.  My cravings have been like an unruly teenager; each time I say "no" to her, she becomes even more unmanageable until one day she says, "hell, with you, I'm getting that tatoo on my ass!"

This whole week I've been like a famished women lost in the Sahara desert; I've been seeing hallucinations of oasis of ice-cream, of loaves of freshly baked bread, and clouds of cream-filled puffs.  I've been on a restrictive 1300-1400 calorie low-carb diet since starting P90X.  And the more restrictive it's gotten, the more obsessed I've become with food.  I daydream about lunch in the mornings, then I dream about breakfast at night.  Like a love-struck teenager, instead of scribbling the name of my future husband in my notebook, you'll find me scribbling my meal plans.  Ahhhh, pathetic.

And today, all the "self-denial", pent up yearning for food finally reached its limit.  I remember walking toward the kitchen, almost zombie-like; I no longer had any conscious control over myself.  My hand closed onto the fridge handle and pulled.  The light inside filled my eyes and there I saw it, the object of my deepest desire, the BREAD!  I reached for it, ohhhh, soo soft, soo cushiony to the touch.  Then I turned and saw the jar of peanut butter, extra creamy, extra smooth, droooool.  I cradled these two precious cargoes to the kitchen counter.  I think my hands were shaking with excitement when I twisted open the packaging on the bread.  A whiff of such heavenly buttery fragrance filled my senses.

I gently pulled off a small piece of bread and twisting open the jar of peanut butter, I spread a layer of creamy, velvety goodness on it.  Slowly, and quivering slightly, I put that small morsel into my mouth...I can only describe the experience of such blissful happiness that I could have fainted right there and then.  Then, without thinking I reached and tore off another piece, this time bigger and spread some more creamy peanut butter onto it.
"Oh, such paradise!"

Then I took out an entire slice, but I halved it first, and repeat.  "Oh, but there's the other half!", I exclaimed, and so repeat again.  And then again, and again.  And then, "Whoa, there's some Nutella.  I've never tasted Nutella and peanut butter together before.  Wonder what it tastes like?"  Uh oh, there goes the top off the Nutello jar. "Wooooo, so creamy and chocolaty.  Just a little now.  Oh! I need another slice of bread!"  Before I knew it I had scoffed down nearly half the loaf, ahhhhhh! Why do things happen so fast when you're having so much fun!

But this was only the beginning of the end.  I couldn't stop at just peanut butter and Nutella now.  I couldn't let this heavenly bliss stop.  I reached for the cupboard, my movements frantic now.  I scanned the shelves desperately, "Ah ha! the raison and oatmeal cookies, with chocolate chunks!" I grabbed for it, hugging them close to me less someone tries to wrestle them away.  I opened the package and once again I was enveloped in the sweetest, most buttery fragrance ever imagined.  I scoffed one down.  "Ahhh, such pleasure!"

I was a woman possessed.  I ran to the freezer and yanked it open.  A gallon tub of ice-cream sat there in the dark recesses of the freezer, almost forgotten.  I grabbed for it, a big tub of coconut ice-cream with blondie chunks and caramel swirls; I plied open the top.  Dug my spoon in deep and lifted; gooey caramel whirled around snowy white peaks and blonde rocky chunks.  There was no turning back now.  I closed my eyes and let destiny lead me. And, it led me to the bottom of that tub of ice-cream!

I was in a frenzy now, "Must have more, must have more."  I ran over to my forgotten pantry and opened the door, the hinges creaking.  I dug beneath a pile of dry goods and miscellaneous knick-knacks until I reached a mysterious bulky brown paper bag.  I reached for it with quivering hands and opened it.  Glittering like jewels, a pile of sweets, chocolate bars, candy, toffees, and all sorts of "sugar and spice and everything nice" filled my field of view.  This was my emergency stash; the bag of "food" that would save me should World War III or Armageddon break-out.  Well, today was my Armageddon; I reached inside and pulled out a Baby Ruth, slowly peeled off the wrapper and...."Oooo la la, you're certainly my baby!"  And then a Mars bar, "Wooo, turn me into a Martian now!"  And then I don't remember what happened next, perhaps my brain blacked-out from the surge of sugar entering my body.

When I finally came around from my "drunken" revelry I was half a loaf of bread gone, many tablespoonfuls of peanut butter and Nutella less, a tub of ice-cream cleaned out, and countless empty candy wrappers strewn all over the kitchen floor! (I only had one cookie at least).  I was dazed.  I was speechless.  I was mortified.  But at least I was finally full.

In the wake of this catastrophe, I asked myself, what lessons have I learned?  First, never eat so much in one go; I gave myself a huge tummy ache afterwards.  Second, dieting through denial will only spell-out disaster.  I remember when I was eating, especially the ice-cream, I was almost indignant.  I was spooning in each mouthful with such fire and heat; it was like I was venting all the pent up anger that I felt at being denied my "human right to stuff my face, damn it!"  And I think this demonstrates that when we put ourselves on a restricted diet of "no eating this, no eating that," that it is like being indignantly slighted.  It's the same "sting" that we feel when we're ordered by our supervisors to carry out idiotic assignments, or when an obnoxious jerk steals your parking space, or when you've been ripped off by false advertising.

Now I'm not saying to go out and vent your indignation by eating whatever you want, quite the contrary.  The point is that the battle with food has to be won up in your head first.  The key is your perception of the diet.  If you view your diet as a form of "suppression", then each time you say "no" to yourself, and each time you see your friends and family (Ahem, husband!) wolfing down everything you want to eat, then you're only building up resentment instead of resolve.  Sooner or later, you'll burst from all that pent up "suppression."

But, on the other hand, if you perceive your diet as the "vehicle" to your ultimate and glorious transformation, then it is actually your "saviour", your means of redemption.  But, it's necessary to first have a strong sense of the person you want to transform into; the kind of lifestyle you want to live and then to have a healthy diet that supports those goals.  Therefore, in the end, a successful diet has to be healthy, balanced and reasonable; trying to live on 1000 calories a day, or just cabbage soup ain't going to cut it; and if you're a "foodie" like me, you'll literally go temporarily insane.  The diet you adopt should be a diet that you would want to maintain for the rest of your life; your aim is not merely to change your physical body but to adopt a completely new lifestyle.

Sprinkling Zumba into P90X regiment

Since that traumatizing day when I found out that I was not losing any weight, I haven't entirely given up the idea of incorporating more cardio into my workouts.  I'm still doing P90X, but I think I'll try to up the calorie burn by occasionally switching some of the less intense P90X workouts, such as Yoga, with other cardio workouts.

Which is why I love Zumba!  I bought the Total Body Transformation collection about a year ago, which contains 6 workouts but I would say only 3 are proper workouts (Cardio Party, Sculpt & Tone, and Flat Abs) while the rest are more fillers; there's the Basic video that teaches you the basic steps; the 20-minutes Express that is a quickie workout; and the LIVE! video which is more like a wild rave and gets kind of disorderly.   But I still love Zumba, especially the gorgeous female instructors in the video, Tanya, Gina and Asuka.  They inspire me; I dream of the day when I could also look like them....sigh, one can always dream.  

Even though Zumba is easier than say P90X but don't underestimate it; it's intense and fast pace, so your heart rate definitely gets up there into the 70-80% zone, but it's not "gasping-for-life" hard like Insanity.  With that said, I'm still able to burn about the same amount of calories with Cardio Party as with the Insanity Plyometric Cardio Circuit workout.  My Polar heart rate monitor was reading that I burned through 591 calories in 51 mins, which gives me a caloric burn rate of 12 cal/min; pretty good in my books.  

I've never followed the Zumba program as suggested, instead I used to alternate Cardio Party with Sculpt & Tone every other day.  But I think I'll actually complete their 10-day Accelerated Fat-Loss program and test if I can really lose one dress size!  Then I'll try out their 10-day Tighten and Tone program.  But, I want to stick with P90X a bit longer before I embark on Zumba again.

The nice thing about Zumba is that it's definitely better designed for the female audience.  The Latin-inspired music, dance moves truly make the workouts engaging and fun.  And the strong emphasis on cardio instead of weight training targets the problems women care most about, i.e., shedding that nasty fat and building "long," "lean" muscles.   The heaviest objects you'll be lifting here are 1 lbs toning sticks; yeah, a big difference from the 12.5 lbs weights I'm pumping in P90X right now.  P90X is also engaging, but I think it's all because of Tony Horton, love him! He's definitely key to making the entire program work; his goofy humour, and "Try your best, forget the rest" mantra always makes you want to push yourself a little bit more.  But overall, P90X definitely is more "testosterony."    

Which is what worries me.  I'm starting to think I've made a mistake in diving into P90X.  I should have focused on shedding my fat with some cardio-based program such as Zumba, then dive into a body sculpting program like P90X after I've shed most of my excess fat.  As oppose to trying to shed fat and build lean muscles at the same time.  If I had done it the other way, I could better align my diet with my development objectives.  For example, if I do the Zumba program during my fat-shedding stage, I could easily put myself on a slightly restricted diet without fear of burning out of fuel so that I can hyper-speed up the weight loss. Once I've obliterated a lot of the nasty fat, (hopefully, most in my hammy arms) then I can turn my attention to sculpting out my "dream" body by taking on a more resistance-heavy program such as P90X, whereby, I can up my caloric intake (finally, eat some ice-cream, woo hoo!) to compensate for the higher energy needs for muscle-building.     

But right now, on P90X I'm not losing weight, nor body fat (grumble, grumble), but I am building muscles. I'm scared to eat too much, for fear of gaining weight; I'm trying to restrict my diet, but it's hard because I end up feeling burned out.  Don't get me wrong, I'm confident that if I stick with P90X I'll still get good results, but I still believe the workouts would be more effective if I switch the ordering of things.  

There is also the fact that post-P90X, it's not like you can pat yourself on the back for a job well-done and close up shop.  You have to keep working at it; as the saying goes, "Use it, or lose it."  Like our brains, our muscles atrophy when we don't use them, and fairly quickly.   I had attempted P90X once before and I was able to get from 0 push-ups to 20, but then I stopped and very quickly I was back at 0.  As is true with gravity, the climb up is a lot harder and slower than the fall down.  So, starting Zumba after P90X could potentially lead me down this path given that there's practically no weight-training in it.  Ahh, what to do? what to do?

I don't know...

Tried out Insanity

Day 17:

I thought I would try out an Insanity workout today.  Why? I think it was due to temporary insanity.  I had an emotionally traumatizing experience today.  I had to weigh myself!  And everything that I was suspecting to be true was true.  I haven't lost a pound!  Not even a micro-pound, not even a nano-pound, nothing.  And if I include my weeks on the Lean Program, that means it's been 32 days, and I've gone nowhere.  Oh, the injustice!  I became frantic, crazed even, I needed to know why, I needed a solution.   I overthrew my better judgement and thought it's all the resistance training that's been fouling up my game.   And my mind seized upon the idea that I have to up my cardio workout. And so I remembered that I had the Insanity program, which I've never dared attempt before, until today....

I loaded the first video of the program, the Plyometric Cardio Circuit.  When it played it only read 45 mins, so I thought, "Bah! Piece of cake.  Am I even going to burn any calories with this?"  But everything went downhill from there.  A minute into the video, I thought I was going to have a heart attack or puke, or both! Insanity is not insane, it's dangerous! Which is why I would definitely recommend it, but only to those souls who like to torture themselves or are at Olympic-athlete-level fit.  So given I don't like to torture myself, and I'm far from qualifying for the Olympics, I'm going to put off Insanity for awhile.

But the program does burn a load of calories.  I burned 588 calories; yeah doesn't sound a lot but that's because it was only 45 mins, but my rate of caloric burn was 13, meaning I was burning 13 calories per minute. So far a caloric burn rate of 13 is the max for me; it means that my heart was working at 80-90% of my maximum heart rate.   Also, you get a good kick of after-burn with interval training, i.e., you continue to burn calories at a higher rate even when the workout ends.

But, to be honest, I could barely keep up; there was a lot of jumping, climbing, pumping, sweating and wheezing.  It's plyo, so the workout engages your legs a lot, especially from a squatting position (OUCHIE!), but there's also a lot of push-ups.  I'm not sure how I got through it, everything's a blur now.  I only know that I must have done it by the fact that I have a pulled hamstring and glutes.

Insanity has helped me return to my sanity, somewhat anyway.  I'm still upset about my weight, feeling very down, but going at Insanity full force is certainly not the answer.  So what is the moral of the story?  Don't try to stuff an entire cake into your mouth when you know you can only handle a bite.

Do the Lean or Classic Program?

Day 14:

I'm actually wrapping up my second week in the Classic program, so it's day 14, but I've actually been at P90X for 29 days now.  Why the discrepancy in days?  Well, it's because I started out doing the Lean program until my husband started making fun of the Lean program as being for pansies and challenged me to really BRING IT.  Not to be outdone by him, I switched over two weeks ago and I'm not counting the days I was on the Lean program.  And since starting the Classic program I can only say...ouch!  The P90X fitness guide says that all the programs are equally intensive, but the Classic program is definitely tougher.  (There's also the Doubles program, but lets not go there because it's not for mentally sane people).

I think if you're starting P90X and you presumably have not been the "athletic" type, it's a good idea to start with the Lean program.  Perhaps complete the first phase including the recovery week, then consider switching over to the Classic.  Trust me, it'll kick your ass as well.  The only difference between the two programs is that the Lean is a toned down version of the Classic program, i.e., there is less weight training and the cardio workouts are also less intensive.  However, the Lean program will help prepare your unsuspecting body for the pounding it's going to receive in the Classic program.  In particular, the demon-of-all workouts, plyometrics, which will appear like a lot of carefree jumping but your quads will seize up the next day, and Chest & Back, which will leave your upper body incapacitated for a few days.  (I couldn't even dress myself afterwards when I did Chest & Back for the first time!)

In sum, if you're starting out and haven't worked out before, start with the Lean program and then consider switching to the Classic after the first phase.  Otherwise, go with the Classic program as you'll see results faster, i.e., growth in muscle definition and weight loss.  I suspect they call it the Lean program because the overall effect is less, both in calorie burn and lean muscle gain.

Well, you may exclaim, "I don't want any muscle, I just want to be thin and gorgeous".  And I would say, "Don't judge muscles too quickly."  Building lean muscle is beneficial on many counts, which I'm not going to go in-depth in this post, perhaps another.  But in short, muscles uses up more calories and increases your metabolism, hence it'll be easier for you to burn that nasty fat, which we all know is the true enemy in your life, and second, who doesn't want to look like her? (You can be sure she does a lot of weight training, if you don't believe me check out Jamie Eason's workout program.)

Oxygen Cover Girl

Jamie Eason

If you're still looking at me with suspicion and think that pumping iron will make you end up looking like a female Arnold Schwarzenegger, you should read why women can't bulk up.  In fact, you can find countless articles (I did) that show that it is very difficult for women to "bulk" up, i.e., look like Heman in a dress.  Hardcore professional female body-builders such as Ms. Olympia, Iris Klye, achieve their herculean results by eating a load of calories, muscle-growing hormones and supplements and training like a madman (or madwoman).

Ms. Olympia 2012

Iris Kyle

In short, it's extremely difficult for women to bulk up and unless you plan to eat cheese burgers everyday and dope on steroids, I wouldn't be concerned at all.  I'm certainly no longer concerned, instead I'm looking forward to achieving the ultimate bikini-body like the models featured on Oxygen.    

However, one concern I do have about weight-training is actually "beefing" up, which happens when you've built up some lean muscle mass but failed to lose the fat. You end up looking very "husky" (you know what I mean) because now you have fat ON TOP of muscles, whereas before you only had fat. But, ultimately the real enemy is fat not the muscles.  So to achieve the Oxygen-Cover-Girl look you have to reduce your percent body fat.  That is the only way to reveal the lean, sleek muscles underneath that you've worked so hard to build, otherwise you'll just end up looking lumpier and manly!

To lower your percent body fat there is really only healthy dieting and exercise.  Starvation is pointless and will backfire because we're biological creatures born to eat, sooner or later you'll crack and binge on pizza and Krispy Kreme, which you'll wash down with double-thick milkshake, and then where will you be? Just fatter!  Trust me, do it right and commit to the right mindset, which means eating correctly, eating healthy and living well, and it will pay you dividends for the rest of your life.

Starting the P90X journey

Day 13

Yes, day 13, I've survived the P90X program so far, woo hoo!  And yes, this is my first post, I know I should have started on Day 1, but I was too busy nursing my achy muscles to do anything else.  For those of you who don't know what is P90X, here's the link to the site.  The "X" stands for extreme and trust me they're not exaggerating.  I have muscles hurting that I didn't even realize I had...and I'm loving every minute of it!  I can honestly say that P90X is the best thing, or one of the best things that have happened to me.

This exercise program kicks-ass, but if you stick with it day after day after day, you're going to feel like a million bucks.  And I think it's simply because you're pushing yourself to the limit; you're telling your inner lazy, couch-potato fatso to shut-up and instead you're finally doing something to take control of your mind and body.  It's at the same time freeing and self-redeeming.  Even though during the workouts I probably look pathetic with all the panting and wheezing, (those diamond push-ups are demonic, and hell, is plyometric even humanly possible!) but mentally I feel like I'm Hippolyta the Amazonian Queen, and physically I feel strong and confident, like a sleek, lean lioness.  Ok, perhaps I still have a ways to go before I become "sleek" and lioness-ish, but that's not the point.

This blog is going to document my P90X journey.  I don't know where the program will take me, I'm hoping it'll transform me into a super-hot bikini body, but even if it doesn't, it'll change my life.  I'm going to live a fit, healthy and full life.  The P90X challenge for me will not merely be testing my physical endurance, it will be the ultimate challenge as to whether I have what it takes to transform myself, ALL of myself.

I want to share my journey with the world, partly to keep me accountable to myself, but largely so that I can share my personal experiences, thoughts and knowledge that I gain along the way with those who, perhaps, are also on the same journey.