P90X: Time to put up or shut up.
I've been saying it since this time last year, but I'm actually about to start P90X. As in Monday morning.
I assembled my pull up bar yesterday (and quickly found out I can do exactly one pull up, very painfully). I also found all the literature and stuff online since all I had to start with was the dvds (no literature or equipment, had to get that separate). I worked up my own spreadsheet of the program's schedule and a calendar, since I'm altering the plan slightly so that yoga always falls on Saturdays. I'm hoping I can get Chris to do at least that with me because he desperately needs to add some yoga into his workout schedule. He's constantly complaining about aches and pains and he lifts weights and runs 6 days a week. He freaking needs to stretch or he's going to seriously injure himself! But he doesn't want to do a yoga class at the Y because "they're full of women." *sigh* What is it with men? Seriously!
Today, I'm going to do my fit test and read up on my literature so I'm ready to start on Monday. I'm a little anxious. I know it's going to be really, really hard. I'm probably going to do nothing but complain about how much everything hurts for the next 13 weeks. But, I'm hoping that it'll help me shed the last 25 or so pounds I have to lose before I'm in the "healthy" BMI range for my body. As it turns out, I'll be finishing the Saturday before my birthday (my last day will be April 20th). There will be much cause for celebration. I'm going to spend the next 48 hours committing myself to doing this. No backsies and no missing workouts unless I'm bedridden.
I won't be running while doing this because 90 minutes a day is all I can possibly spare for exercise. Plus, it's cold and I hate the cold and I hate treadmills. Luckily when I'm finished, it will be spring and beautiful and I'll be ready to run again. I want to do another half-marathon in the fall, so I'll probably pick up that training as soon as I'm done in order to maintain. And plus, running is fun and I miss it and I know Chris misses doing his long runs with me. Plus, I still have that 5k in 30 minutes or less goal to reach.
Weight maintenance. That's a foreign concept to me. I can't remember a time in my life (well, since childhood) when I wasn't overweight and wanting to lose at least 15 pounds. Even when I was in really good shape and playing three sports year round in high school. I was still, medically speaking, "overweight".
And I don't know how much of that has to do with a skewed body image and how much of it has to do with reality. I can say that last year I developed perhaps the most healthy body image I've had since ever. I can thank burlesque for a lot of that. But a lot of it also has to do with getting naked in front of a camera. I read "Shameless" by Pamela Madsen and she was instructed to do this mirror exercise where she was supposed to stare at herself naked and focus on what she liked about her body instead of what she wanted to change. At first, she felt uncomfortable looking at herself in the mirror because she only knew how to be critical. But eventually, she only saw the things she loved about her body. The positive drowned out the negative, as it does if you let it.
I did sort of the same thing, even before I picked up her book, but I used a camera instead of a mirror. And I'm glad I did. Because I can go back and look at the photos and tell what I was thinking about myself at the time by how I posed or the expression on my face. I was able to appreciate my body even before I lost the weight. In fact, just as it worked for Pam, I feel my positive attitude toward my body was a greater catalyst for the weight loss than the focus on diet and exercise. Because quite honestly, I've focused on diet and exercise a lot more intensely in the past than I did last year. But never have I seen the sort of results I did in 2012 after I started looking at myself differently.
I'm finally ready to talk numbers, too. At my heaviest post-pregnancy, I weighed 239 (late 2011). That's as much as a slim Homer Simpson (which I why I was embarrassed to say I weighed that much). Incidentally, I wasn't much more than that at my very last OB appointment right before having Jonah. I just recently found that out when I signed up for My Health Vanderbilt where I can track my medical charts online. They've got all my vitals from every visit to any Vandy Medical professional's office since 2006 when I started going to them and I can see my gain and then my loss right there in the chart. I'm starting out this year at 203. I'm aiming at getting under 180 (180 being the very top range of a healthy weight for someone of my height/build).
I can do this. Two thirds of my total weight loss goal is out of the way. I'm on the home stretch now. This is like that part in the run where I think, "I've already come this far, it would be really stupid to stop now."
I assembled my pull up bar yesterday (and quickly found out I can do exactly one pull up, very painfully). I also found all the literature and stuff online since all I had to start with was the dvds (no literature or equipment, had to get that separate). I worked up my own spreadsheet of the program's schedule and a calendar, since I'm altering the plan slightly so that yoga always falls on Saturdays. I'm hoping I can get Chris to do at least that with me because he desperately needs to add some yoga into his workout schedule. He's constantly complaining about aches and pains and he lifts weights and runs 6 days a week. He freaking needs to stretch or he's going to seriously injure himself! But he doesn't want to do a yoga class at the Y because "they're full of women." *sigh* What is it with men? Seriously!
Today, I'm going to do my fit test and read up on my literature so I'm ready to start on Monday. I'm a little anxious. I know it's going to be really, really hard. I'm probably going to do nothing but complain about how much everything hurts for the next 13 weeks. But, I'm hoping that it'll help me shed the last 25 or so pounds I have to lose before I'm in the "healthy" BMI range for my body. As it turns out, I'll be finishing the Saturday before my birthday (my last day will be April 20th). There will be much cause for celebration. I'm going to spend the next 48 hours committing myself to doing this. No backsies and no missing workouts unless I'm bedridden.
I won't be running while doing this because 90 minutes a day is all I can possibly spare for exercise. Plus, it's cold and I hate the cold and I hate treadmills. Luckily when I'm finished, it will be spring and beautiful and I'll be ready to run again. I want to do another half-marathon in the fall, so I'll probably pick up that training as soon as I'm done in order to maintain. And plus, running is fun and I miss it and I know Chris misses doing his long runs with me. Plus, I still have that 5k in 30 minutes or less goal to reach.
Weight maintenance. That's a foreign concept to me. I can't remember a time in my life (well, since childhood) when I wasn't overweight and wanting to lose at least 15 pounds. Even when I was in really good shape and playing three sports year round in high school. I was still, medically speaking, "overweight".
And I don't know how much of that has to do with a skewed body image and how much of it has to do with reality. I can say that last year I developed perhaps the most healthy body image I've had since ever. I can thank burlesque for a lot of that. But a lot of it also has to do with getting naked in front of a camera. I read "Shameless" by Pamela Madsen and she was instructed to do this mirror exercise where she was supposed to stare at herself naked and focus on what she liked about her body instead of what she wanted to change. At first, she felt uncomfortable looking at herself in the mirror because she only knew how to be critical. But eventually, she only saw the things she loved about her body. The positive drowned out the negative, as it does if you let it.
I did sort of the same thing, even before I picked up her book, but I used a camera instead of a mirror. And I'm glad I did. Because I can go back and look at the photos and tell what I was thinking about myself at the time by how I posed or the expression on my face. I was able to appreciate my body even before I lost the weight. In fact, just as it worked for Pam, I feel my positive attitude toward my body was a greater catalyst for the weight loss than the focus on diet and exercise. Because quite honestly, I've focused on diet and exercise a lot more intensely in the past than I did last year. But never have I seen the sort of results I did in 2012 after I started looking at myself differently.
I'm finally ready to talk numbers, too. At my heaviest post-pregnancy, I weighed 239 (late 2011). That's as much as a slim Homer Simpson (which I why I was embarrassed to say I weighed that much). Incidentally, I wasn't much more than that at my very last OB appointment right before having Jonah. I just recently found that out when I signed up for My Health Vanderbilt where I can track my medical charts online. They've got all my vitals from every visit to any Vandy Medical professional's office since 2006 when I started going to them and I can see my gain and then my loss right there in the chart. I'm starting out this year at 203. I'm aiming at getting under 180 (180 being the very top range of a healthy weight for someone of my height/build).
I can do this. Two thirds of my total weight loss goal is out of the way. I'm on the home stretch now. This is like that part in the run where I think, "I've already come this far, it would be really stupid to stop now."