P90X: "Check the Fuel Level!" Day 41 of 90

I am at Day 41 of P90X.  I am leaner right low than I have ever been in my life, including my four years in the Army almost thirty years ago.  This workout affects just about every muscle in your body.  The diet on this regime is also, if followed well, pretty strict.  I am at a point now where I think I need to make some changes to my diet. 

In the first thirty days, my body was using a lot of my existing fat stores for fuel in addition to the food I was putting into it.  When I exercised, I always had sufficient energy.  As my fat stores deplete themselves and slowly become nothing more than excess skin, I feel like I may be burning out in some of the routines due to lack of caloric intake.  It might be other things as well but right now, given how rigid I am with my diet and routine, I think it’s the fuel.

I am going to research a little today and ask for some nutritional counseling.  I do know that I don’t log what I eat…mainly because it is the same almost every day.  I also know that it is a calorie level that is under what I am burning.  The weight is coming off so I know I am taking in less than I am burning.

The things I think I need to know are (1) the best sources of muscle building protein and (2) the best vitamins and minerals necessary to convert those sources INTO real muscle.

I am also going to try to change my exercise routine slightly so I can get to sleep earlier.  This week we adjust the clocks for Spring and my body has taken a few days to adjust.  I know it sounds stupid but my body runs with the consistency of a clock these days and small changes in routine are instantly noticeable.

Short blog today…I have research to do!!

P90X: "Ownership Equals Accountability" Day 40 of 90

I blog every day about P90X.  I blog about my successes and my failures.  I don’t just share the good, although there is much of it.  The most compelling parts are when there are issues and I need to reach out to the coaches.  There is one more reason for the blogging.  Accountability.

To be a person of substance, I believe you have to be accountable.  No one ever minds if someone wants to be in charge, so long as the decisions are rational and clear, and the decision maker is accountable.  If you are willing to accept a position of responsibility, you need to be that kind of person.

There is no one word that scares people today more than accountability.  We have become a nation of people who avoid it.  Everyone wants to have an equal voice.  Everyone wants their opinion and decisions to carry the day.  Everyone wants authority.  It is only a rare few that also will accept accountability for that voice and opinion.  More than ever, accountability is being shirked in the form of blame and deflection.  Everyone wants the reward, but very few will accept the risks that go with it.  There are more and more people than ever today who are claiming rewards while putting the risks on everyone else.  When people lose confidence in their leaders, that’s the reason.

Everyone wants authority.  It’s the ultimate badge of success for many to be “the person in charge.”  “I’m the big cheese, the head-honcho…stroke my ego please.”  Authority is an illusion.  True authority comes when you have the knowledge and confidence to make a decision, and then have the courage and integrity to own that decision in the form of accountability.  If you are not doing that, then you have no authority, regardless of what title may hang on your door.  If you have those qualities, but no official title…you are the leader.  Everyone knows it.  If you have the title, and none of those qualities, then you are a figurehead.  People nod up and down to you and then laugh behind your back.  That is reality.

Nothing threatens the fragile ego of a hollow leader more than a knowledgeable and confident decision maker who will take complete responsibility for their decisions.  Hollow leaders are easily exposed.  They are the ones who say they are the authority, but the decisions belong to someone else.  They are also the ones who, when faced with the responsibility for a decision they are accountable for, default to a group democracy to spread the blame.  They are also the ones who put no processes in place that will expose them as the accountable party.  If there is a chaotic and undisciplined decision process, it is almost always the result of leaders who want no accountability.  If you can’t show who made the decision, no one is at fault.  Right?

Parents, teachers, coaches, employers, politicians…everyone wants a seat at the table.  Everyone wants a voice.  Precious few are willing to own that voice.  Lack of accountability has cheapened every opinion.  A “voice” as currency is worth almost nothing.  Ever heard the phrase, “That’s only their opinion, every blank has one.”  That’s because it’s far too easy to express yourself and want your way without accepting the consequences.

This is a leadership dynamic that happens in any organization.  But it happens at the personal level as well.  Who owns your decisions?  Are you accountable for you?

When I began my weight loss and fitness journey in 2008, I was amazed at the number of people that did not tell anyone how much they weighed, how much they wanted to lose, how hard they were working on this diet or, for that matter, that they were even ON a diet.  Many said it was because they were afraid they would fail.  I never bought that.  It’s truly about accountability.  Once you put it out there, you are on the hook for it.  It’s bold.  Bold scares people…because it takes guts.  That boldness also does other things, it makes you feel accountable and demands performance.  In today’s society, very few want that.  If you never make you goals and work known to anyone, all you are doing is designing a massive escape hatch for your plan.  An escape hatch not "in case" you fail, but for "when" you fail.  Because it's coming.  It’s like getting married with a pre-nup…you have designed the outcome of your potential failure.

When I blog, I am accountable.  I am accountable for what I write.  When I share my goals…same thing.  I love my P90X group for just that reason.  They don’t hold me accountable, they don’t have to.  I write about what I am doing and share it with them.  I am accountable just for doing that.  I hold myself accountable.

Someone asked me the other day how I knew the people working with me were actually in shape and were credible.  The funny part is, it doesn’t really matter.  I am not trying to get them in shape.  I am trying to get ME in shape.  I don’t care if they are a team of the most overweight, obese, closet eating sugar junkies to ever walk the planet.  The illusion is working for ME.  It isn’t working because of them.  It is working because I am holding myself to my plan.

I own my fitness.  I am accountable for it.  Because I am writing it down, I am even MORE accountable for it.  I don’t just limit my writings to the private workout forum, I put it on my personal sites and make it public.

Are you owning your fitness?  Are you owning everything else in your life?

That is the question of the day.  Accountability.

P90X: "P90X is Your Opportunity" Day 39 of 90

P90X requires a choice.  I can go to my basement every night and pop in a DVD and do the workouts, or I can watch reruns of Big Bang Theory.  I can follow my diet, or I can eat donuts.  The level of instruction that came with the program is incredibly detailed and thorough.  There is online help in the form of personal Beachbody coaches and there are tons of websites to go for advice.  All I have to do is decide to do it.

I could decide to not do it.  I could rationalize that by many things.  Ninety days is too long.  I can’t be expected to discipline my diet that way.  It requires me to buy weights (it doesn’t).  I need yoga blocks (you don’t, you can use something else).  It’s mainly for men.  It’s mainly for women.  I don’t have time.  It’s endless.

I can blame almost anything at all for my failure to just “do it.”

What P90X gives you is an opportunity.  That’s all.  An opportunity is not ‘instant fitness.’  You don’t get the program and then suddenly wake up looking like the people in the DVD.  What it gives you is everything you need to have/know to complete the mission except motivation and determination to affect a change on yourself.  That has to come from inside you.

 I was a party to a very interesting online debate last night. 

One side was claiming that societal discrimination, oppression, sexism and a plethora of other things were the reason that women and minorities are not in the pantheons of leadership.  That side was citing the lack of those folk as CEO’s, millionaires, politicians as evidence that there was a lack of opportunity for those groups.

The other side to the debate was arguing that opportunity was more abundant than ever and what is missing is the drive to actually take that opportunity and convert it into success.

Guess which side I was on?

When I look around this country, there has never been more opportunity for people.  Education is as available as it is ever going to be.  A young man even founded a school online called Khan University, offering a world class education, online, for free.  It was featured on 60 Minutes the other night.  The online space has offered numerous opportunities for people of ingenuity to achieve their goals.  College educations, while becoming astronomically high priced, are still geared towards making it cheaper for the disadvantaged.  Jobs are becoming less and less about the ‘who’ is applying and more about the ‘what’ is applying.  ‘What’ skills, what attitudes, what behaviors and what motivation.

Opportunity is NOT the instance of being given a CEO’s job because you can locate the corner office as well as the person with 25 years of business experience and an MBA.  It is NOT the starting position on the basketball team because you know how to spell ‘shoot’ as well as the person who can hit a jumpshot from forty feet out.  It is NOT being handed the prize without the work.  Opportunity is an intern position at Microsoft, not Bill Gates’ office.

Opportunity is a chance.  It’s when you are given the means to accomplish something and then YOU have to do the work.

There was a day when all that was available to us in this society was a book on fishing.  We were responsible for finding the pole, the bait, the tackle box and the right lake.  There was a day when the most ingenious would go after getting the materials and then would also have to learn how to do it.  There were also, in that time, certain barriers to obtaining those things.  It created inequities.  But that did not stop the driven.

Today, more than ever, there is information on how to fish, on where to get a free rod, on where to find the best bait, on where the best waters are, on the top methods of fishing.  Fifty years ago, if that same driven person referenced above had been given access to that information, that person would have drained the whole lake of fish.

I wanted to write and publish a book.  There was a day when that would have been impossible.  I found all kinds of information, relatively cheaply, on how to do it.  I simply had to apply the knowledge diligently.  I also had to sit down and write the book…which took three years on and off.  It was work…but I wanted to do it.

I wanted to build an Online Bank at my old company.  Company decisions that were not mine to make were real obstacles.  But I found a company that wanted to do it, and I did it for them.  We opened it last week.  You may find it at http://www.smarterbank.com.

I wanted to lose weight and keep it off.  Done.  Four years and still cranking.  I could eat whatever I wanted.  I don’t have to be diligent about it.  But I would pay the price and lose what I have achieved.

I wanted optimum fitness and to see how fit I can get…and here I am with P90X.

Self-help abounds in today’s society.  There has never been more information about how to succeed from work skills, to people skills, to leadership skills.  You can find tons of information on how to make yourself more marketable by making sure you look your best, instill confidence and demonstrate poise.

The only thing that is not readily available is motivation and drive.  That, you have to find inside you.  If you don’t find it, don’t worry, you will always be able to grab an excuse from the rest of the folk who simply refuse to try.  Blame society, blame discrimination, blame…blame anything.

The real barrier to achievement today is the attitude of entitlement.  We give out trophies to everyone, just for trying.  Grades in school have become dumbed down.  Everyone has to do well.  We have thrown out every metric that grades achievement.  Everything is so readily available and given so freely that if something seems hard, no one tries any more.  That drive is most strong is those that have NOT had things.  They want them and will do what it takes to get them.  We are given so much without real effort that we have destroyed the desire that fuels motivation.  THAT is the real barrier to achievement…the lack of a work ethic...the lack of hunger.  Just give me my victory.

Sorry if you have that attitude…you will find out someday that you have to take the victory.

If you really want something, there is no greater time than today.  Just go find out the information on ‘how’ and then just go do it.  Don’t sit and talk about it.  Just do it.

People who are running their fastest, and not looking behind them, are never caught by a slower runner.

My thanks to Dr. Michele Noonan, star of the Big Brother TV show and my partner in crime in last night’s debate.  She inspired today’s blog.

http://www.doctormichele.com/about/

http://www.michelenoonan.com/

[later that night]


Yoga X and the Treadmill.  Did everything...nothing notable...except the weight keeps coming off!