P90X: "It's Not About Looking Good, It's About Feeling Great" Day 81 of 90

There are no mirrors on a mountain peak.  That’s all I can say.

For many of you who are in my current age group, you may be looking at P90X or any other Beachbody product (Insanity, the Brazil Butt Lift, Thirty Minute Power , etc.) and thinking that having a body that looks like those people on TV is not that important to you.  And it probably isn’t.

So, based on that rationalization, you may simply think about the program and immediately dismiss it.  I need to say this right up front.  The value of this program is not that it will make you look good.  The value is that it will make you ultimately feel great.  You will be putting yourself physically in a position to live happier for the rest of your life.

There are no mirrors on a mountain peak.  As I spent last week hiking and climbing, the only thought that went through my mind was, “I feel great.”  No kidding.  I didn’t go look in windows for my reflection and say, “You look mahvelous!”

The marvelous part of the experience was that, as a thirty degree mountain incline was sitting in front of me, I felt so strong that I could trot up the hill.  All I could think of was the time spent doing plyometrics and the power it had given my legs and hip flexors.  I was literally flying up the hills.  At one point, I passed someone and heard them say, “Show off.”  It was in jest of course, it wasn’t malicious.  But as I looked back at them, they were younger than me and had obviously spent time doing the things I used to do.

How did they feel?  I knew.  I used to feel that way.  Tired.  Sweaty.  Wondering if I could do the next hike.  Wondering if I WANTED to do the next hike.  Hoping I had another clean and dry shirt in my pack.  Wishing I had brought less stuff cause the pack was heavy.  Too exhausted to actually look around and focus on the awesome spectacles I had come to see, and not inspired to lift my camera.  Wondering where I had put the life insurance policy and whether my wife knew where it was.  Wondering why there were no gravestones on the hill and where they could bury me if I collapsed.

Okay, so maybe they didn’t think all of those things.  But they thought some of them.

The bottom line is, you are never too old to put your physical shell back in shape.  You may have done some damage to your body along the way.  Maybe that was your ‘ah hah’ moment that made you consider a better physical condition.  Let’s face it, aching joints, muscle pulls, back issues, acid reflux…those are actually the common ones.  If you have spent a lifetime of largesse, maybe you are dealing with some more complicated things.  Type Two Diabetes, cholesterol levels that require drugs, high blood pressure, hip or knee replacement, and, believe it or not, the list can get worse.

If you have none of these things, consider yourself blessed.  But you should also consider that we all, in the forty to fifties age group, are looking these things dead in the eye.

What are you doing about it?

You can stop many of these things.  You really can.  I know you can, because I did.  I am not special or unique.  I just did two things.  I recognized my condition for what it was and then took action to correct it.  It was really that simple.

Why did I do it?

So I would feel great.

So, when you see these infomercials and see all the beautiful people, don’t think that you have to look like them.  You should be thinking, I want to feel like them.

Will you look good when you are done?  I’m not going to kid you.  Yes, you will look good.  At the very least, you will look better.  It will start, though, with the new smile on your face because you feel better.  Your stomach will shrink and your thighs will 'lean' out.  You may see some muscles in places you don't recognize.  Your posture will improve.  You will lose weight.  If improving those things make you look better then, yes, you will look good too.  You will have more energy.

But looking good is a byproduct of feeling great.  So, that’s one of the thoughts I came away from the mountain with.  There were no mirrors.  It wasn’t ‘how I looked’ that had me stoked.

Don’t NOT do a fitness program because you don’t care to be beautiful.  If you do NOT want to do it, let it be because you are already fit.  If not, you should consider doing it.

 Let’s face it.  We have a long way left to go.  Right?

P90X: "I Am Younger Today Than I Will Ever Be Again" Day 80 of 90

I was happy.  Not just ‘doing okay’, I was really happy.

That was my reflective thought as we sat down this weekend and looked at all the photographs of our family vacation.  My kids looked at the pictures of me standing at the top of Angels Landing.  After a 2.5 mile jaunt that led me almost 1400 feet up in elevation…there I was perched atop the Landing with a real wild smile on my face.  It was almost manic.  You could see it on my face and in my posture.  Happiness.

I took several hikes alone on the vacation.  Hikes my family was too tired to take because they would be filled with hills.  Or mountains.  The hikes gave me time to reflect on my last 70 days of P90X and the last four years of my life.  I had time to think about all that had changed.  As the thoughts played through my mind, I found myself many times jogging up the mountains.  The inclines were there and sometimes steep, but I felt great.  I felt light.  So I would pick up the pace.  Why?  Because I could.  Really, there’s no other reason for it.  I could go faster.  So I did.

A thought that keeps playing through your mind when you take unfamiliar mountain hikes is, “Where do I go from here?”  You hit these plateaus and think you are at the pinnacle of the journey, but you’re not.  You come around a corner and there is another hill looking you in the face.  It had a kind of symmetry to my life.  Five years ago, I was saying the same thing.  At forty-five years of age, I was asking myself the same question that a lot of people that age ask themselves.

That question had a lot of implications.  Am I ready for the next thirty years?  How do I want my career to ultimately be?  How do I want to spend this time?  Have I done all the things that I think a life should contain?  Do I still have dreams left?

The driving force for the last five years has been that last question.  What dreams are still left?  The answer for me, and I bet a lot of you if you are honest, is ‘many.’

The first thirty years of my work life were spent learning as much as I could about goals, incentive, motivation, people, money, family, balance…the list can go on and on.  So what do you do with it?  It was obvious to me that it was time to apply all that learning to good use.  The first step…the very first step…was to make sure that my body was ready for the trip.

Every vacation we ever took as kids started out with my father giving the car a good “once over.”  Clean it, change the oil, check the rest of the fluids, and replace all the plugs if need be.  Any trip can end real fast if the vehicle is not ready for the journey.

That first step I took five years ago was the most valuable one.  It was a difficult one too.  It required a lot of discipline.  It meant a complete physical overhaul.  Lose 85 pounds.  Change my eating habits to be more healthy.  Change my fitness routine to be permanent and lasting.  It was not only the most valuable, but also the most needed.  All my gauges were off the charts.  Weight.  Cholesterol.  Back and joints.  Endurance.  My physical health was declining.  That’s right, ‘declining.’

Why was I so driven?  Because mentally, I was as sharp as ever.  I had spent a large percentage of my life learning about banking, technology, and business.  I have never been the kind of person who thought I “knew enough” or that my learning was complete.  I had a sharp mind inside a physical shell that was now failing me.

So I made a decision to change.

What are YOU waiting for?  That’s not a challenge, it’s a very sincere question.

As I took every next mountain last week, I did it with a smile.  My body was and is in better shape right now than when I was twenty-five years old.  At one point, I was hiking up Angels Landing with three guys.  They were remarking how I was just flying up the hill.  They were working to keep up.  I stopped and looked at them, loaded with sweat and breathing hard at the last steep ascent.  It took them a while to recover.  “How old are you guys?” I asked them.  One said, “twenty-eight.”  The others were the same range.  I laughed.  I said, “C’mon, you guys aren’t supposed to be breathing heavy.”

I will say this though, I was ready for every new hill.

P90X is the best gift I have ever given to myself.  It has put me in a position to really take the next twenty to thirty years and milk the time that is left.  That’s right…I said it.  THE TIME I HAVE LEFT.

Be honest with yourself.  We are here for only a finite amount of time.  No one lives forever.  But how are you going to close the curtain on your life?  Are you going to sit in a reclining chair with a drink, watching life pass by?  If that’s your choice, I respect that.  But that won’t be me.  I have too much left that I would like to do and see.  I want to make sure I am physically prepared to do it.

So, “Where do I go from here?”

If you ask yourself that question, do you know what the answer is?  When I ask myself, I do.  Based on how I felt last week and right now, the answer is, “Anywhere I damn well please.”

Why?

Because I can.  That’s all there is to it.

You are not ready to retire.  Not in your forties or fifties.  This isn’t the nineteenth century and the average life expectancy is not sixty years old anymore.  It's a lot more than that.  You are going to be around for a lot more time than you think.  Are you ready for that?  Are you going to let people have to guide you around for the next thirty years in a debilitated state?  Or are you going to be the best you have ever been?  You can be, if you want.

Because as I hiked those mountains, all I thought was, “I am younger now than I will ever be again.”

You know what?  So are you.  Think about that one.  It's kind of sobering.