P90X: "Completed Phase II, A Retrospective" Day 56 of 90

Phase II is officially complete.  Today I finished Phase II plus the added week when I jumped to Classic from the Lean program.

First, I feel terrific.  Knock on wood, I got through this five weeks with no injuries.  No ripped hip flexors, no dislocated shoulders.  There were times when I felt like the workouts were good, but not hard enough.  There were times when my sweat just wouldn't come.

I have to keep reminding myself that these workouts are made so that every Phase is harder.  When I jumped from Lean to Classic, I upped the ante so to speak.  The only effect seems to be my electrolytes which appear to be taking a real hard hit from the workouts and diet.  My diet is very clean and almost salt free.  I also take in a lot of water.  It would appear that as the water leaves my body, it is stripping me of all the electrolytes.  I have started making sure that I replenish my salt reserves.

I am going to post new photos in about 4 days.  That will be the true test of progress.

What does the next phase hold for me?  I need to start Phase III tomorrow and slide my off week out a couple to accommodate a vacation at school break.  This should be something.  Anyway, my body has settled in, is changing nicely, and there are no damaging effects of the workout.

See you tomorrow!

P90X: "Sometimes I Hate Social Media" Day 55 of 90

No doubt, social media is changing our lives.  People can connect better than ever and “wordalog” much more frequently.  “Wordalog” is a term that I am taking credit for coining.  I think we are long overdue for a new word that describes what happens in social media (via eMail, texting, chat, webpage posting, blogging, etc.) when two or more people experience a communication interchange.  That said, it is the very act of “Wordalogging” that has caused my sometimes emotional hate for Social Media.

I would like to explain why.

People are using social media to interact in more ways than ever before.  The first observation about it is that Wordalogging happens with ten times the frequency of a verbal dialog.  It happens in a back and forth, ping-ponging way and is not even long enough in most cases to string together an intelligent thought.  It is nothing more than sound bites.  There is an inherent danger in sound bites because, as everyone knows, they occur mostly without context.  Even the most intelligent thought, without context, can be misconstrued and used as something else.

Wordalogging happens sporadically.  Many texts and chats happen as sound bites, but are also interspersed and mixed with OTHER people’s sound bites.  One person will be receiving bits and pieces of thoughts from several people at once.  There is no way to actually parse the wordalogs from so many different people, received sporadically, and reassemble them into real dialog without mistakes and miscues.

While people have become more used to typing and writing due to Wordalogging, the medium itself demands that messages be short, even annotated with abbreviations.  When people Wordalog, they are often brief because they run out of gas typing to several people at once.  They also might just be too lazy to respond appropriately.  They also will use icons and symbols that denote emotion, but use them poorly.  Last, they just might be abysmal writers.  Wordalogging is the most used means of communication today and is actually increasing at a very rapid pace.  It is also the most inefficient  and ineffective means of communication, which makes it very dangerous.

Wordalogging also severely lacks one of the most crucial elements of human interaction, tone and intent.  Even the most talented writers have a difficult time writing with tones such as sarcasm and irony.  When those words are read, the interpretation is completely left to the reader.  You also can’t understand intent.  Words meant as guidance are very easily confused and misinterpreted as judgement.  It all depends on the ego of the person reading it and the way something was written.  The only way to discern tone and intent is with a face to face interaction.  You can read things on a human face like sarcasm when something is said in a pointed way, but with a smirk.  You can understand empathy when someone offers hard advice, but with a sad look on their face.  None of this is visible in Wordalogging.  It can be the cause in damaging many relationships.

Wordalogging also creates an artificially protected space for someone to merely spout an opinion.  Confrontation of issues in a live public forum, face to face with real people, and in the swarm of true passion cannot be replicated in Wordalogging.  It is very easy for someone in Social Media to jump in, spout a point, insult a presenter, create an unsubstantiated rumor, and suddenly, without accountability, disappear.  Things that would never be said in a face to face confrontation just seem to fly all around the Social Media landscape.  In a face to face confrontation, you cannot simply disappear by logging off.  When people of passion are verbally communicating, you better be able to thrust and parry with your words while standing in an emotional hurricane.  You don’t have the luxury of shouting a few words and fleeing…you won’t be heard.  Wordalogging has created a safe haven for cowards who would never be caught dead voicing those same thoughts face to face.

Wordalogging has created volumes of noise in our communication.  Everyone can put in their opinion, so they do.  You can’t possibly get to the root of any issue with all of the electronic noise that is being created.  It is near impossible to sort out valid points from blathering.  You also can’t find the valid points because they were so inefficiently communicated.  You can’t discern the point because you have no context due to brevity and cannot understand tone due to the medium.  So, in the name of efficiency, hour upon hour is lost in social interaction and decision making simply due to having to sort out the noise.

True communication requires an understanding of the point, an interpretation of perspective based on motive and intent, and the ability to demonstrate interest in the subject matter.

None of this can be done when you are Wordalogging.

What does this have to do with P90X?  P90X is about getting all the bad things out of your system.   

Curiously, that is what happens when I feel the need to rant!

Now that’s funny.

See you tomorrow.

P90X: "Taking a Blog Break" Day 54 of 90

Taking a break today from blogging.  Work is crazy and had some other stuff crop up.  Just the blogging though...I of course did the work.  Legs and back tonight was great, really pushed it.

See you tomorrow.

P90X: "Oh Yeah, You Have to Eat Right" Day 53 of 90

Everyone who looks at P90X as a potential fitness program thinks immediately about the exercises.  They are hard, no doubt.  But everyone who has asked me so far about this focuses directly on the exercise…not the diet.  In fact, many don’t even know that there is a diet portion.  It is almost not even mentioned on the TV Infomercials.  It’s as though the routine itself is some kind of magic.  I chose P90X but, in reality, if you chose Insanity or any of the other Beachbody exercise routines, you can get results.

The key to any fitness plan is four words.  That’s the magic right there.  Four simple words.  “Eat right and exercise.”  That’s all there is to it.  It doesn’t matter the fitness plan so long as it pushes you to exertion for longer than thirty minutes and uses all areas of your body.  Well, that and the fact that you have to do it consistently, over and over, to get results.  Did I say you have to eat right?

There I was, looking for a fiction book that I was sure I had stuck somewhere in the family room.  In desperation, I dug to the bottom of a basket of books and stuff.  Guess what I found?  The P90X Nutrition guide!  I didn’t even remember getting one.  There was also a wall chart for the program that you could chart results on.  Now I do remember getting the chart, because I searched high and low for the damn thing when I was beginning the program and couldn’t find it.  Here it was, with the Nutrition Guide.

You may have surmised by now, but just in case I will point this out, that I don’t go by the P90X Nutrition Plan.  As I skimmed through the book last night, I realized why.  The Nutrition Guide is as big, if not bigger, than the Fitness Guide.  It also is loaded, absolutely loaded, with content.  By that, I mean words…lots of them.  Also, it has meal plans in phases, graphs with blocks representing your daily carbs, proteins, fats, etc.  There are zillions of recipes….and pictures.  It was mesmerizing.  It also was obvious why I opened the box and pitched it.  It is also why, maybe, they don’t show it in the infomercial.  But, and this is a big but, your diet and nutrition are essential to your fitness success…at least if you want to do it efficiently and safely.

There is a diet balance to be struck here.  My general rule is to make sure that I monitor my calorie intake, ensure they are good calories, and my newest rule, make sure the food is nutrient dense.  That said, I am an odd duck when it comes to food.  I don’t care what I eat.  I really don’t.  It’s not important that I have a certain steak or a special fish dish.  I don’t care how the food tastes.  I know that sounds foreign to many of you.  Except for some very particular tastes I deplore, like liver for instance, I can eat virtually anything.  With that in mind, variety in my food has no meaning.  None.  Everyone who knows me knows that, even when I was really fat, I ate the same way every day consistently.  When I was fat, however, it was consistently poor food and in large quantities.

As I looked at the P90X Nutrition Guide, it exhausted me.  Too many things to think about…too many choices…too much time to cook and prepare the meals.  I am not lazy.  You would know that if you saw me work out.  But I hate to spend any time at all cooking or preparing what I will eat.  It probably stems from the fact that food has no meaning to me.  I don’t need to spend an hour and a half trying to make something taste good…because I won’t care how it tastes!  If there is one thing that can kill any decision that someone makes to get fit, this is it.  A complicated diet plan.  The Guide is designed as a healthy transition for those who live for food…and apparently that is most of the free world.  It just isn’t me.  I count myself lucky for that.

To be successful doing any exercise routine, you need to have a good, solid and stable diet.  Find a diet that works for you, or find a good nutrition guidance counselor who can help you.  If you want to avoid roadbumps, keep it simple.  You may never get as simple as me, but it can be done!

Good luck!

P90X: "A Skip In My Step? Really?" Day 52 of 90

Most of us go through our days without really thinking about the little things that are going on.  We move along with a plan in mind for the day ahead and many of the little things we do during the journey just seem to happen automatically.  We take them for granted.  Then, every so often, we get a moment of clarity when we realize that some of the things we take for granted have changed.

So it was yesterday.  As I stood outside of church waiting for my son, I found myself in thought about something and just kind of pacing the walkway.  Suddenly someone walked by me and smiled with a bit of a chuckle.  I smiled back and just kept to my thoughts.  Then a second group came by and laughed a little.  It was then that I realized that, as I walked along, I was hopping up and down with alternating steps on the eight inch concrete sidewalk that bordered the walk.  I didn’t even know I was doing it.  The steps were there…I was there…I just shuffled along doing it…it was as natural to me as breathing.

Yesterday, I blogged about Assimilation.  There have been many times when I have felt that I just couldn’t sit down, but I do that when I am tired and just want to be alert enough to pay attention.  I have plenty of normal habits and idiosyncrasies.

But, this wasn’t one of them.   I was hopping along.  This was a clear sign that the things I am doing are building themselves into my natural behavior rhythms.  It was the first time I had noticed something that different in myself.  It was as if the Plyometrics were dying to get out.  It was a little more than ‘different’ to me because it was something I would have found myself doing as a kid.  I am sure that’s why these people thought it was amusing to see me doing it.  Maybe even strange.

I’m not going to lie here.  It felt good.  It felt great.  I felt like a million bucks to be able to just move so freely around.

About seven or eight years ago, I was showing off to my kids showing them how to jump rope with a speed rope.  For those of you that don’t know, the speed rope is a jump rope made of a rubber or heavy material so it can really fly when you rotate it.  Sometimes it’s even on a swivel handle.  When I was eighteen or so, I could cross jump with it.  I was pretty good.  So there I was with my mid-forty year old two hundred and eighty-five pound frame, at a family gathering with a few beers in me trying to show the kids how to do it.  It was going real well right up to the point where I was hopping from side to side on one leg.  The ‘SNAP’ was so loud that the whole crowd of twenty or so partiers all went silent.  I knew it was broken the minute I heard it.

The broken ankle was one thing, but the broken spirit hurt just as much.  I didn’t want to be the guy that ‘used to’ be able to do anything.

I have since changed all that, but now I am noticing permanent changes that I hope will be with me for the next ten to twenty years.  Yesterday just kind of shed a little internal light on it.  It felt great.  P90X is giving me back those years and that attitude.  It’s hard to explain unless you experience it.  Far too few of us get to feel this.  At this time in our lives we are supposed to just accept that time will carry us forward and do it’s damage.  I’m not ready.  As my kids always say, “You’re like a big kid in an adult body.”  Now maybe I can be, “A big kid in a younger body.”  That’s okay with me.  In fact, it’s better than okay.

 

Thanks P90X.  Ponce De Leon was looking in the wrong place…but then again, he didn’t have infomercials.

P90X: "Assimilation" Day 50/51 of 90

I stood there in church this morning sweating.  I got there 5 minutes late due to my P90X Plyometrics routine and shower running a bit late.  Honestly, I started it late...but either way, I stood there sweating.  I have gotten to the point where, after 50 days, this is in my blood.  It has assimilated and become a part of me.  The thought of altering the routine or, worse, going a day and NOT doing it, would feel funny.  But the one thing that I have noticed is that changes like this do not come without a price.  None of the big changes do.

Maybe you are trying to permanently change your personal fitness, stop very bad habits or vices, or even just trying to become a better version of you.  Maybe you want to be a YOU that you can be a little more proud of.  Understand this, one of the most difficult aspects about that change is that to really do it you will have to assimilate some new habits into your life and when you do that, you will change the person you are.  When that happens, there are going to be some people around you that do not like that you changed.

So the question becomes, "Are you ready to assimilate the new behaviors and accept what that truly means?"

Many people who start a diet will do so knowing that it is valuable, sometimes necessary, and maybe even life saving.  To fix that condition permanently, you have to not just lose the weight, but make permanent changes to how you view food and exercise.  You have to start some new behaviors, make them a habit and then, assimilate, or make them YOU.  That's when change happens.

Making permanent changes in your life is not easy.  About five years ago, I found myself at one point not liking the person I was becoming.  I decided to make some changes.  It started with taking a real long look at myself.  I got the help of people I worked with, from friends, and from family.  I listened a lot to feedback from those who were willing to offer it.  Some help was direct and some of it was simply reactive based on attitudes coming back to me from behavior I was giving off.  Without going too in-depth I decided to make some permanent changes.

As I started down that path of my commitment to personal change, each step meant the assimilation of new things that would become the new me.

I started by changing how I dealt with people.  I had gotten to a point in my life where, when I had a task given to me or felt the need to control a bad situation, I would attack it so strongly that I would hurt people along the way.  It wasn't the most pleasant part of my personality.  Having many "wins" along the way didn't help matters.  It simply reinforced the behaviors as being successful...without regard for the collateral damage I was creating along the way.  So I began to take a different approach to things.  I learned how to deal with the situations differently and decided to keep the people first in mind when I solved problems.  It helped me a lot and forced me to try to be more influential than simply a dictator.  I also began to let other people be their own voices and not evangelize for people at the cost of my own personal relationships.  I have become a happier person for that.

I then decided to change how I felt about myself and position my personal health for the long run.  If you follow this blog, you know the story.  I also made some changes in my approach to social situations, namely I stopped using alcohol as something my life revolved around.  I stopped letting everything be about the food and drink.  That was a tough one.  The tough part was that when you assimilate that, the ones who have viewed you a certain way take a whole new perspective on the new you.

I then changed how I viewed the way I saw the rest of my life as proceeding.  I wanted to be happy and do the things I was passionate about.  I left a job I had done for fourteen years but had become toxic to me and went to a start-up company.  It was a big risk but I have never been happier.  I thought about maybe taking my writing and doing more with it.  I thought about how much I was giving back to society be it the church, my kids school, etc.  I wrote the book I had always wanted to write and donated a third of the money to charity during the Christmas season.

So I am no stranger to wanting to make a change and then doing it.  I know how hard it is.

I said at the top of the blog that this change comes with a price tag.  Here it is.

There will be many in your life who do not want you to change.  You fit their perception of you.  You have a place in their social or work fabric.  They know who you are and how to deal with you.  They are not ready for, and do not want, you to change.  Changing who you are by assimilating new behaviors will mean that you may have to change more than you bargained for.  I am not saying that's a bad thing, it's just that it may be more change than you anticipated and, very frequently, it is what will stop the change you are making for yourself.

Have you ever seen someone successfully diet for 4 or 5 months, only to see them a year later with as much or more weight on?  It's usually because they did not assimilate the new behaviors.  But the deeper reason they didn't assimilate them is that it didn't fit how they lived their life with family, friends, or co-workers.  They went back to the old life of excess food and little exercise, more than likely because there were aspects of life they couldn't or wouldn't abandon.  That is what stopped the assimilation.

Also, there will always be those that think the new you is trying to be superior or better than everyone.  The bottom line is that the new you IS trying to be better...better than YOU.  There are many people in this world whose egos and self opinions are so fragile that they believe you now think you are better than THEM.  Sometimes trying to change can be downright hurtful to you.  That pain may just drive you straight back into old and harmful habits.

I have no solution.  I have decided for me that I need to live my life as positively as possible.  I can't drive down the highway I have left with my eyes in the rear view mirror.  That's how you crash or drive so slow you never get there.

So the questions are, "What highway are you driving down?  And are you ready to truly assimilate and become a new you?"

I hope you choose what's best for you.  I really do.