P90X: "Rewards" Day 49 of 90

Today I am officially at seven weeks and it is my ‘off day.’  Usually this day is reserved for eating a little reactively than typical.  Maybe a little pizza and salad.  Going somewhere with the family after dinner so we can all catch up.  Today I really need to catch up on stuff.  When you are running so hard after your own goals, you may find as I have that some regular things get forgotten or left behind.  I don’t mean family, of course you can’t escape that…ha ha.  I mean things like the yardwork.  Some dusty corners around the house.  Your taxes!  Eeek.

I also need some well-earned sleep.  I took a certain someone to see the “Hunger Games” midnight premiere.  I went to see it too of course…remembering, as all good dad’s should, to sit away from your child and hide in the corner like some creepy ‘older guy’ stalker.  Now I know where, when I was a kid, that weird guy came from.  At least that makes me feel better.

Sleep right now is a gift I would cherish most of all.

I did my Kempo X last night.  All went very well as usual.  There have been no updates from me really on how I have been progressing.  I really don’t have much to say except that I continue to consistently ‘do it’ and it gets a little easier every time.  The Back and Biceps this week was a major improvement over last week with many increases in weight with only a slight decrease in reps.  The bands helped me greatly on Monday and Wednesday in the pull-ups.  I felt the shoulders really get used there.

The injury front is, knock on wood, not an issue anymore.

The food issues and the lack of energy on some days have been improved with the addition of more nutrient dense food in my diet.  Thanks Melissa Binkley.

So all is going along.

I have one more week of Phase II as I added an additional Adaptive week when I went from Lean to Classic.  So next week is my last Phase II week and some pictures are coming up in about eleven days.  My visual review is that a lot of changes have occurred.

Enough for now.  Today, I have my rewards.  Not crazy stuff…it’s the little things!  Happy weekend! 

P90X: "Should I Become a Weight-Loss and Fitness Coach?" Day 48 of 90

I have been mulling this one around in my mind lately.  I have been asked if I would do it.

When I started my weight-loss journey in 2008, I did it for me.  I did blog the event, not live as I am now, but I wrote it later, kind of as a retrospective.  My thought was that it could benefit countless others as it had me.  It also gave a funny but serious perspective of the liquid diet program using Optifast.  I had no idea that one day I would be getting eMail from as far away as New Zealand and Australia, asking me about the diet.  I have always responded to these people in the most positive and encouraging way…it takes courage to reach out so it’s the least I can do.  I also feel that, by blogging about it, I kind of obligate myself from a social media perspective to respond.

My weight came off successfully, but I have never considered that my success.  Many have taken the weight off only to go back to their old lifestyle.  They then get depressed when the weight comes back on, often being actually MORE weight than they lost.  The reason here is that they simply didn’t take the whole program in.  They didn’t absorb the parts about nutrition and exercise.  That was the real gift of the program for me.  That got me reading and thinking a lot about my condition.  My self imposed condition.  I have always considered my greatest success the fact that I have kept the weight off.

Many times after the program, people with serious weight issues would ask me about the program.  I would always take as much time as that person needed to answer all the questions.  I spent a lot of time just listening to people.  People were actually silently asking me to coach them through this process.  Without intending to do it, I was coaching them.

As I blog on P90X, many have asked me privately about their fitness routines and discussed how they are doing it.  I always respond there too.  The blog itself is meant to be not only a record of how the P90X is going for me, but to be an inspiration to people trying to make a permanent life change for themselves.  That is coaching too.

So I have to ask myself, “Can you actually be a coach?  A weight-loss and fitness coach.”  What is a coach?  Someone with expertise in the activity who can also lead by example.  Okay, I think I do that.  Someone with the ability to communicate effectively.  I am comfortable with that.  Someone with the knowledge of the field being taught.  That may be the area that makes me the most nervous…the potential of giving poor guidance based on a lack of or incomplete knowledge.  I pride myself on my honesty so I really think that if I didn’t know something, I would help that person find the right expertise.  I still worry about what I think I know that might be wrong.  A coach is also a facilitator.  So they can help you figure out the ‘how’ around achieving your goal.  I would do fine there.

I’ve often thought that a coach needs to be able to motivate and inspire.  That one becomes tricky.  Mainly because I believe that a lot of the motivation has to be in the one being taught.  The key to coaching through this, in my opinion, is being able to discover what your student’s motivation is and to expose and cultivate it at the times when they bury it.  I think I can do that.

I don’t know.  I am still tossing this one around.  As a student, I can commit for a period of time.  If something or someone keeps me from completing the learning, I am the only one affected.  Coaching something this specific requires a commitment on the coach’s side that requires you to be there for others when they need it.  I know it can be worked and scheduled.  I guess certain times could be set and managed as if you had your own business.  But it is a commitment to another, versus the one made just to yourself when you are a student.

Maybe the commitment to it is what I am still working with.  As I write this, that’s what it feels like.

As my Fitness Coach(es) keep telling me, “You are already really doing it!”  They are right in a way.  But I am doing it as a hobby.  Do I want to do this as something that becomes a part of me?

Every day that I do this program, I think more and more that I would like to be a coach.  The things I have learned have such a need to be fully mainstreamed and, while it is getting there, it is still a big mountain with a huge need for teachers.  Every day I see more and more kids and teens turning very bad eating and activity behavior into a lifestyle.  A lifestyle they will have a hard time undoing someday.  If kids learned more about this, and if they learned better, they would be so much better off.  They are also the perfect target audience because no audience you get is SO dedicated to looking good.  It is a huge part of their social being.  They are also very conscious about being ‘green’ and their health.  They also have less restrictions around doing activities…they can find the time.  It is also at a time when they need it most.

Then there are the adults that really need to learn this stuff and apply it.  They have the challenges of work, kids, aging parents…not easy either.  They also are the ones entrenched in the problem.

Okay, the train is pulling in.  Time to go to the job I am committed to for income.  I will keep thinking about it.

Time for you all to coach me perhaps.  Should I do this?

P90X: "The Best Book on Weight Loss and Fitness That I Have Ever Read" Day 47 of 90

Whew!  That was one long title.  But really, I couldn't think of a shorter way to say it!

Losing weight is hard.  Keeping the weight off is harder. 

75% of people have a hard time simply losing weight.  Many, like 20%, can lose a set amount of weight over a certain set period of time.  Very few however learn how to manage and keep the weight off for a long time, maybe for life.  That’s not my opinion, that’s a fact.  I believe there is one underlying cause for this and that is that many want to BE thinner, but are not motivated (or do not want) to actually live the lifestyle that will cultivate health and fitness.

There are many reasons for this.

First, we have turned eating into an art form.  A poor art form.  Like an Andy Warhol painting where it looks a little like something we recognize, but not really.  Everything is about the food.  Dinner and a show.  Tailgating at sports events.  Family gatherings that revolve around the food.  Eating is not fuel anymore, it is an experiential event.

Second, more and more today, our culture seems hell-bent on consuming food that is loaded with preservatives, additives and chemicals.  Food used to be grown, now it is made.  Think about that for a minute.  We manufactured food.  It has a real odd ring to it.  Something doesn’t sound quite right when you say that.  Well, something is NOT right.  We have a whole industry that is dedicated to manufacturing our food, designing it to look like something that once was real and truly appetizing, and then selling it to us as though it were the 'must have toy' of the year.

Lastly, we are less active than ever before, working on computers, socializing on computers, sitting down and texting.  Much of our work used to be manual labor, done with the body.  No more.  Sports are now organized FOR kids, not created by the kids, and we don’t even let the kids leave the neighborhood on the bicycle.  Kids have more activities, but there is a difference between exercise and ‘stuff to do.’  We are sedate.  End of story.  Exercise has become a walk after dinner with the dog or riding your bike once per week on a Saturday morning.

Given these things, how do you actually live a life outside of these boundaries?  It is hard and requires a lot of self-discipline and/or exercise to stay on a healthy track. So what can you do?  How do you create a mindset that will help you do that?

The first step is knowledge.  Knowledge is power.  I believe that if you know what the lifestyle you are living is doing to you, and if you truly know what is causing it, then you are in the best position to change it.  When it comes to weight loss and fitness, nothing beats a great book on how your body turns your food into energy.  Nothing tops a book that can show you exactly why your poor physical condition is the way it is and, more helpful than that, how to change it.

For me, that book is Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman.  The part of this book that I got the most out of was the section on the Seven Keys to Weight Loss.  I can summarize, but you should go get the book and read it in detail.  There are sections that will apply directly to your situation.  Some sections won’t apply so much.  Be honest with yourself when you read it.  Don’t just look at a painful truth and say to yourself, “Oh, I don’t do that!”  Take a hard look at yourself as you read each part.

The Seven Keys are:

 1. Control Your Appetite.  In this section, Dr. Hyman goes over the chemical reactions that occur in your body when you eat different types of food.  He does this in very simple terms, not like a college Biology professor.  He discusses the role of insulin in your body and how it regulates sugar but also how it can completely make you crazy through cravings.

2.  Subdue Stress.  He discusses how stress produces the chemical hormone Cortisol and the impact that Cortisol has in blocking the hormone Leptin (Leptin makes you feel full).  Learn here the reality of ‘stress eating.’

3.   Control the Fire of Inflammation.  Much of what we eat has very toxic effects on our bodies.  This toxicity causes our entire physiological structure to be ‘inflamed’ and leaves us exposed to illness while counteracting the things you do in your life to stay fit and in shape.

4.   Prevent Oxidative Stress or ‘Rust.’  You have heard about foods that are anti-oxidants right?  There’s no way you missed the juicing infomercials or the acai berry infomercials.  Learn why these types of food help your body and immune system, giving you the best advantages to a more fit body.

5.   Turn Calories Into Energy.  What exercises give you the most gain in terms of metabolism?  Your goal to losing weight is to create the most efficient fat burning machine possible for yourself.  How does your body burn energy and what can you do to increase your exercise efficiency?

6.   Fortify Your Thyroid.  “I have a slow thyroid.”  “I am thin because I have a fast thyroid.”  How about, “My thyroid is dysfunctional because it is getting the wrong nutrients and my body is in a poor state of disrepair.”  This section will tell you the role your thyroid plays in your life and how to maintain it.

7.   Love Your Liver.  This was one of the most interesting chapters.  Your liver is the primary fat processing unit in your body.  It also processes all toxins (and sugar, especially processed sugar, is a toxin) and chemicals (like Nutrasweet etc.).  Alcohol is also processed in the liver.  As we put all the additives and chemicals through the liver, we are damaging it to the point where it will not effectively process your fat for you.  Find out how!

I have read this book maybe four times from cover to cover.  It is an easy read for most and full of real life examples of how the way you live impacts your health and general fitness.

As you can tell, I highly recommend it.  It is especially useful to those who may be trying to lose weight and have plateaued.  Sometimes, you may find that you have taken your fitness as far as you can without making some small tweaks to how you are living and what you are putting in your body. 

The hope would be that, once you have absorbed the knowledge in the book, you begin to walk through your life and make conscious deliberate choices about the food you eat and the activities you participate in.  After a while, those choices will become reflexive. 

We have a tendency to look at the healthy and fit people in our lives and think they are that way due to some freak of genetic luck.  The alternative is actually the painful truth.  When you look at those healthy and fit people, believe it or not, they actually DO make those decisions reflexively every day.  They just make it look easy, because it is part of them.  You can do that too.

Keeping the weight off and becoming permanently healthy is one of the hardest things you will ever do.  If that is your goal, give yourself the best possible edge to accomplishing it.  Get this book, arm yourself with knowledge, and best of luck!!

P90X: "Overweight? What Did You Eat as a Child?" Day 46 of 90

Rocking and rolling along on this fitness plan.  As I have said, I am seeing changes every single day.  I don’t think it is the P90X program per se.  Often, people think that weight loss has some kind of magic bullet.  In my mind, the exercise portion of weight loss can be any exercise program so long as it exercises all body parts, is rigorous, and is both frequent and consistent.  It could be P90X, Insanity, Tony Horton’s Power Half-Hour, it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that the three factors I mentioned are present and that you DO THE WORK.  It helps a lot if you enjoy the workout too!  (but it’s not really necessary)

The diet is the other side of the weight control coin.  I am re-reading a favorite book of mine called Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman.  I am going to blog a little on that tomorrow, but I highly recommend this book, in particular if you have worked at losing weight by both diet and exercise and are seeing little results.  This book could give you keen insight as to why.

I have been working with a Nutritionist on evaluating my diet.  I eat pretty clean and eat foods that one would consider to be very good for you.  With a rigorous exercise program, making sure your diet is giving you proper nutrients is essential, so I have sought professional advice.  She sent me a Health History Questionnaire to fill out.

As we cover these things, I will share (no, really!?) my progress.

Today though, I am reflecting on a question I had to answer because it was a real eye opener.  There were two sections, one asked, “What were your meals like as a child?” and the other was, “What are your meals like now?”

I have fought weight issues my entire life.  As I thought this through, I also considered how long I had followed this pattern.  The answer was not good.

Here is my response:

Breakfast: Sugar based cereals…Quisp/Quake (some of you may know what this is, and your age is now showing), Captain Crunch, PopTarts (a favorite), Trix, Lucky Charms.  Hmmm.  Great beginning of the day for a fat kid.

Lunch: Ham or Turkey sandwich on white bread, usually the Wonder bread.  Cookies.  Chips.  Lots of Hostess treats from Twinkies to the Cupcakes.  Lots of processed wheat, flour and starch.

Dinner: Pretty much what was cooked, in quantities large enough to fill me.  Given what I know today, and given the breakfast and lunch I just listed, my insulin spikes must have really set me up for this meal.  There was always a dessert, and it was always calorie rich.  Dessert was never missed.

Snacks:  Sweets…cookies, candy, etc.

Beverages:  Milk and Kool-Aid.  I wasn’t a big soda drinker, thank god.

Holy crap.  That’s all I kept saying as I listed these things.  Do you have any idea how dramatically different this is from how I eat today?  If you read this blog regularly you do!  If you don’t, it’s radically different.  Who the heck set up THAT diet?  The witch from Hansel and Gretel who wanted to put fat on the kids' bones?  Thank God that in the late sixties and seventies High Fructose Corn Syrup was not vogue yet as a replacement sweetener like it is today.  I would have been in critical care.

It made me think about what kids eat today.  My kids as well as other kids.  It made me think about the childhood obesity epidemic we face currently.  It made me realize the eating patterns that set up my weight issues as huge obstacles I would face for years to come.

The only way that the diet I had as a child would NOT result in a plump kid is if I had the exercise regimen of a world class athlete…and I did not.  My favorite exercises were getting up to turn the channel (no remote back then, not until 1980 or so), getting up to go to the refrigerator (kind of self defeating), and walking to the busstop.  I played with the other kids outside when a game was organized, but that was ‘activity’... not always ‘exercise.’

So this was an eye-opener for me.

I will keep you apprised of my Nutrition evaluation.

If you are having issues with weight, READ Ultrametabolism!  And hydrate.

See you tomorrow.

P90X: "Over and Over...The Mastery Learning Process" Day 45 of 90

Day Forty-Five.  Half-way.  Well, if I hadn’t modified my program I would be half-way.  For most P90X’ers that is the hallmark of day 45.  I actually will be doing 97 days at least.  In the second phase (of three) I moved from Lean to Classic and decided to simply count Phase 2/Week 2 in Lean as Phase 2/Week 1 in Classic.  It forces an extra week in Phase 2 to go through the adaptive stage.  Typically in the program, this would be my last week of Phase 2 with next week being recovery.  So, it is now P97X.

I have a week-long vacation coming up in April and I am still trying to figure out how I will handle it with the program.  I think I will go 'Recovery Week' that week as it requires no weights and I will be doing a lot of walking.  I will be seeking my coaches’ advice on this one.

So I am at the halfway point.  This is considered the doldrums of any Mastery Learning Process (MLP) for anything you ever do.  The four phases of learning for MLP are Adaptation, Execution (once), Repetition, and Mastery.  Mastery isn’t so much a phase as it is a final result.  It’s the ultimate test of your learning.  But when it is done, you still have decisions to make…like where you go from there.  Next level of fitness?  Coaching?  It’s all up to you, because learning is a cycle not a line.  It has no end point.

Why did I add a week to the program?  Because the Adaptation phase of the MLP is critical to the next steps of the process.  In Adaptation, you have to learn all the new work to be done and perform Execution.  You take notes, record your benchmarks, and perform everything once to get yourself ready for the first real week of Repetition, where you really up the intensity and push your limits.  If I would have tried to adapt to the Classic phase and drop a week of Repetition, I would have shortcut the MLP.  And you can’t shortcut and win.  Things will boomerang on you.

So here I am in the Repetition part of the Mastery Learning Process. 

The requirements for this process are, first and foremost, discipline.  You have to tenaciously stay with the program.  You take the exercises you adapted and executed once and then just keep doing them.  Over and over again.  You have to put into your mind that you will do this and trust the result.  Just do it.

The second requirement of Repetition is energy.  When you are repeating the exercises, do them with as much vigor as you did on day one.  Attack the steps.  Try to make improvements in technique and in process as well.  When you know you’re at the end of any program, your excitement gives you a burst of energy and you try to crush the sets.  Use as much vigor as day one and as much energy as the last day.

The third requirement is creativity.  Yes, I know that one sounds a little wacky.  Look, you know the exercises.  Some of these you have been doing every week for almost seven weeks.  It’s hard, but try to be as creative as possible to offset the boredom.  Learn more about your nutrition.  Use some of the more difficult postures.  Anything at all that can trigger small improvements through this phase is great.

That's it.  The three requirements of the Repetition Phase of MLP.

This isn’t just in P90X.  This is in everything you ever do.  When you are in the Repetition Phase of MLP, it’s discipline, energy and creativity.  You could be learning Karate or learning Math…same process.

I had similar things to say to my children, especially when it came to math.  Math, more than any school subject, follows this path.  You have to do the exercises.  You have to do the work.  If you don’t, when the time comes to take the test of mastery, you will stare at the problem in front of you and have to think about how to do it.  Then you may not exactly know the process for the particular problem, so you might try a couple processes.  When you finally get the right one, you do the problem and double-check your work, because you have no confidence, because you didn’t repeat enough.  Then by the time you move on, the next problem has less time, and so on, until you either rush and make mistakes or don’t finish completely.  Your grade?  “C”? “D”? “F”!?

But it's not just Math.  Take History.  You listen.  You record the important notes.  You mark the critical points in your text.  You go home and Execute that lesson once using all the tools you used in Adaptation of that lesson.  Then, based on how well you Adapted the lesson, you repeat the lesson over and over in your head.  What do you foresee as the result?

Larry Bird.  How many times do you think he shot a basketball?  Long before standing on the court while the crowds cheered him, there were many long hours spent alone just shooting.  Over and over again.  Repetition marked his path to excellence.  How many math problems do you think Stephen Hawking did?  How many games of chess you think Bobby Fischer played?  Anyone, anywhere, that ever achieved greatness took the step of Repetition to an art form.

You don’t have to go to the extreme as these hallmarks of excellence did…but you get the point.

 The good news?  When you get through this phase, you are done and ready to move on.  Come on…you've gotta love that!  Right?

[later that night]

Back and Biceps tonight.  It felt really good and I had plenty of gas to finish.  I got 100 lb bands for the pulls ups and wrapped them from the bar.  Many routines, that were using the 15 lb weights last week, were done with 25 lbs.  The reps came down a bit but that was okay.  So I kicked butt.  You know, there is really nothing more to say!  The weight does keep coming off, I continue to improve my eating, am doing a health quiz for Melissa, and can see results every day.  My wife asked me how long I was going to stand in the mirror...I said, "Until I see an improvement."  Funny...good night!  

P90X: "Efficient Calories" Day 44 of 90

How efficient is your calorie intake?  I need to have a talk with my nutrition coach Melissa...but the preliminary call on my diet is that it could be more nutrient dense.  I am managing my calories well, but my food should be better quality.  I am eating clean, that much I know, but I think I can make better choices.

When I heard nutrient light...I looked it up.  So there are food choices that, given equal calories, are better for you in terms of overall nutrition value.  You can have a donut at 200 calories, or a 200 calorie bowl of spinach.  Which is better for you?  That's right, the donut.  Otherwise Dunkin' Donuts would be out of business right?  Wrong.  It's spinach.

My challenge is that I don't eat junk food, so I just need to make even MORE healthy choices if I am going to try to build muscle and get lean.  So here is a list of the foods I have exposure to every day and their Nutrient Density index.

Spinach 739
Brussel Sprouts 672
Broccoli 376
Green Pepper 258
Artichoke 244
Carrots 240
Strawberry 212
Tomato 164
Iceberg lettuce 110
Orange 109
Sweet Potoato 83
Apple 76
Oatmeal 53
Cucumber 50
Corn 44
Salmon 39
Almonds 38
Skim Milk 36
Walnuts 34
Banana 30
Chicken Breast 27
Eggs 27
Whole Wheat Bread 25
Ground Beef 20

The easiest substitution that I can make is at Lunch by adding Spinach in my salad at 739 vs. Iceberg Lettuce at 110. I already go heavy on Green Pepper and Jalapeno Pepper.  The Chicken Breast is only 27, which is shocking.  I could actually go heavier on the whole tomatoes in the salad.

Breakfast is already as good as it gets with Oatmeal and Applesauce.

Dinner is Shakeology and a Protein Bar.  I am interested in knowing the suggestions there.  I eat a lot of apple and banana...and nuts.

Okay, so I need to talk to Melissa, the fitnesschic (as she calls herself), and get myself tuned up.  It's been a great weekend of working out and outdoor weather.

See you tomorrow!