Thursday, July 14, 2011

Heaven, Hell and P90X

My results with P90X have been weird and confusing. I have actually gained 5 pounds, but every time I sneeze, my wedding ring slips off my finger and my pants fall down.

I am and have been happily married for over 22 years, so there is nothing symbolic about this. My pounds are apparently just redistributing themselves in other locales and not bothering to ask my input about it.

I ordered P90X about 3 months ago for two very good reasons - because I really wanted to take more control of my health and because I had no clue how bad it was going to kick my butt.

Literally. You wake up the mornings after the "Back & Leg" workouts and you are tempted to hobble to the front door and see if anyone broke in during the night and kicked your butt cheeks for 20 straight minutes and sneaked back out.

Since I have posted about this workout program quite a few times over the last 3 months (the 90 stands for 90 days), some have said I sound like I am just advertising for them. Great! If you are with the company, please send me a royalty check or at least a couple coupons.

But if not, I assure you that the only thing I want to advertise is the advice that eating better and exercising are two of the best things you could ever do for yourself in this life.

Whether it is P90X or something else altogether, do whatever you can to improve those two things a tiny bit every month. You only get one body, so don't throw it away.

I bought the DVDs almost 90 days ago because I saw it as making an investment. By spending the money on it, I was making the commitment to do the entire thing, no matter what. They even say in their ads, "Decide. Commit. Succeed." Deciding first to do it it all the way through, no matter what, is utterly essential.

Even breaking something on my body that I needed to use later in life was more of an option than quitting. Mailing them back was never on the table, or I honestly would not have ordered them in the first place.

Which is good. Because if quitting was acceptable in my mind, then it would have happened about day 4.

But it also helped that at least 3 people told me I couldn't or wouldn't finish it. Since I was a little kid, nothing made me want to do something more than being told I could not. I was a little... "strong willed".

In fact, "Keep Off The Grass" signs were invented for people like me.

Specifically, they are there to tell me exactly where to get off the sidewalk and stomp on the grass.

They advertise that P90X will "get you in the best shape of your life", which is to say some of the best shape you can get yourself in just 90 days.

What they DON'T tell you is that you should not order it if you are really OUT of shape and just want to use it to get IN shape. If you are not already fit to some degree, it will possibly destroy you, kill you or worse.

Luckily, I actually slowly started exercising again for a number of months before even I started P90X. I started walking every day, biking, running and lifting weights a couple times a week.

This is why week number 1 of P90X was only "HELL week" and not "HOSPITAL week" followed by "Amy sending the DVDs back in the mail against my wishes" week.

But then week 2 and 3 were more like "PURGATORY weeks" and about week 4, I even started to upgrade out of that place.

I still have not reached "HEAVEN week" at all, which is fine.

I just am finally increasing the chances that whichever of those places I really do go to after this life, I might be getting there a couple years later than I would have otherwise.

This is day one of week 11 (with 13 total) and I am sick. I have a low grade fever, coughed myself awake most of the night and may or may not have gargled with nails at some point.

So, I feel like I got run over by a Porta-Potty truck, but I am still going to trudge through an hour and 20 minutes of lifting weights and crunches.

Normally, I might be happy with the progress of the last 10 weeks and just take a break for the next week or two, until I feel better... but no.

I already know it will feel even worse than HELL week, but luckily for me, someone told me I wouldn't do it all the way through to the end.

1 comment:

  1. Love the entertaining candor, I'm glad to see you are sticking with it, finishing it with out taking any time off is an incredible accomplishment. I think I cried through and entire Yoga X once lol. I'll see if I can't get you that royalty check... ;)

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