Baseline...day one is tomorrow

First, I want to thank Stephanie Osborne for all of her information and help.  Her site is http://www.facebook.com/#!/osbornefitness .   Go "like" it now.  I ordered the P90X through her and she has made herself available for all sorts of questions about the program.

For future records, here is where I am now...

Weight: 166 lbs
Resting Heart Rate: 65 bpm
Waist: 33 3/4
Chest: 39 1/4
Hips: 38
Right thigh at midpoint: 19
Left thigh at midpoint: 19 1/2
Right bicep at peak: 13 1/2
Left bicep at peak: 13

I'll probably update this info on a weekly basis.

Previous Routine

• 4-5x/week 30 mins on Sole Elliptical at 10 of 20 resistance
• I break a sweat after 8-10 minutes.  Haven't checked HR in a while, but I remember it getting into the target zone (75-80% max) after 10 minutes. 

2x/week weights routine 1 (3 sets of each except crunches and situps)

• On machine - triceps pulldown, 12 reps, 72 lb (5 plates)
• On machine - bench press, 8 reps, 135 lb (10 plates)
• On machine - front raise, 12 reps, 46 lb (3 plates)
• On bench - leg extensions, 12 reps, 90 lbs
• Side crunches (both sides) 60 reps.  These consist of laying on my back with my knees together twisted to the left or right and against the floor, holding that position and crunching straight up.
• Front sit-ups, 60 reps.  These consist of laying on my back and bringing my knees all the way up to my forehead.

2x/week weights routine 2

• On machine - preacher curls, 12 reps, 80 lbs (6 plates)
• On machine - lat pulldowns, 8 reps, 154 lbs (12 plates)
• On bench - leg curls, 12 reps, 90 lbs
• On machine - leg press, 12 reps, 305 lbs (12 plates)
• Same crunches and situps as previous routine.

Overall shape/activity:
I'm actually in pretty good shape.  I don't take elevators where I work, so I'm going up and down stairs quite a bit...probably 10-15 flights (up and down) a day through the week.  I don't have a problem with that either with cardio or with my knees.  Other than that, I have no other physical activities.  Other than a little pain in my right knee (and really only during squat-like movements), I don't have any physical problems.

Eating:
I'm probably taking in almost 3000 calories a day.  I eat a 200 calorie protein bar for breakfast everyday.  From my memory of when I was tracking things, I probably eat around 1200 calories for lunch and 1200 calories for dinner.  My weakness is Coca Cola.  Part of those meals include one.  I probably have 1-2 a day on top of that.  I've been able on and off to break the habit, but I always fall back on it.  Unfortunately, it results in probably 25% of my caloric intake.  I have very poor discipline when it comes to staying away from any snacks...I have to keep them out of my house.  Even so, an Oreo Blizzard or chocolate shake always seems to be calling my name (add on 700 calories on those days). 

When it comes to eating, I've met three kinds of people.  There are well adjusted people who don't have any eating problems, there are stress-starvers and then stress-eaters.  I'm a stress-eater.  When I get stressed, I immediately get hungry.  As I diminish stress in my life and learn better ways to deal with it, I'm hoping that phenomenon will go away.

Life:
I've got an awesome and supportive wife (Melanie) who has in many ways enabled me to take this challenge.  We have two incredible kids...Reggie who is almost 4 and Morgan who is 1 1/2.  I really enjoy being with my family and I spend most of my time with them.  I've scheduled all this workout stuff so that it doesn't interfere with the time that I spend with them.

First workout is in the morning.  I'll post how it went!

Fears and concerns...

So as I approach starting this insanity Thursday morning, I thought I'd list some of my fears about it...

1. Bad knees.  I've had problems before with my knees.  Right now, the left is 100% but I've got a little pain in my right as I approach 45 degrees in a squat (coming up or going down).  This is a little worrisome as I approach some of the exercises that will make me do that.  Not sure how well that is going to go.  I think that will be on Friday.
2. Time.  The workouts look like they are about an hour with 15 min abdominal exercises added on.  The Yoga day is 90 minutes.  And you work out 6 days a week.  I'm starting so that Yoga is on a Saturday.  The only time I can really do this is in the morning.  If I run out of time, I may be able to push the ab stuff to the evening.  But I'm not going to fool myself.  Life will make me miss days here and there...there is no avoiding it.  You can't just skip a day, so it may push me off schedule here and there. 
3. Stopping my current workout.  I've went through lulls of not working out before.  And then it completely sucked getting back on the elliptical or doing weights.  Since I won't have time for both P90X and my current routine, I'll have to dump what I've been doing.  Although I know I'll improve in many other areas, I wonder what I'll lose by not being on the elliptical or doing weights.
4. What to do after P90X.  This seems foggy in everything I've read.  I'm not a huge workout guy.  Once I'm done with this, I know I'll want to keep whatever results I get, but I'm not going to want to work out 75 minutes a day for 6 days a week.  I wonder what the next step will be to maintain things.
5. Quitting.  This is why I'm not going to post any pictures for a while.  If I quit, it won't be because it was too hard.  It will be because I'm lazy.  I've seen that pattern before.  Hopefully I won't repeat it.  But if I do, I'm not going to have a bunch of flabby pictures of me on the internet.  I'll probably start putting up pics after 30 days or so.

Anyhow, that kind of sums up my fears and concerns.  I got the DVDs today.  The scary thing was when I went to the website and printed up the worksheets that show the exercises for each day.  Holy cow.  Day one is 24 exercises which consist mainly of different pushups and pullups.  Wow.  This should be interesting.

I'll post all of my baseline stuff tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.

Background...

Switched the blog over to blogger.com...seems to work better.

So tonight I'll post a brief background and then put in more about my baseline Wednesday.

I'm 40 now.  I was always super skinny through my early 20's.  I was 6'3" and I believe I had a 28 inch waist...all skin and bones...and I think I weighed in about 140 or something close.  At about 27 my metabolism changed.  In about 6 months or less, I gained about 35 pounds.  That would normally be a good thing, but every pound of it was all around my waist.  I looked like ET...super skinny but with a gut.  Kind of gross.

Once I got to my early 30's, I got into weights and was able to get into a better proportion.  I have never been bulky at all, but at least I looked like a muscular ET...still with the gut.  I leveled out at about 165 pounds and a 34 inch waist.

Last year, I did an experiment.  I decided to try to get back the early 20's waist and try to keep the muscle.  I still did weights, but I did a crash diet (~1700 calories a day) and a lot of cardio.  In 3 months, I went from 167 to 147 pounds (WAY too much) and went from 34 inches to 30.5.  I still didn't lose all the gut and love handles, and I looked completely emaciated.  I knew it was crazy to be that skinny and that this wasn't the way to go.

Within a few months, I was back to the pre-crash diet weight and shape.  To maintain general health, I do weights on a machine four times a week and 30 minutes on an elliptical (with resistance) around five times a week.  I'm probably in great shape for someone my age, but that gut still bums me out.

Enter P90X.  I've heard about it for quite a while.  I've known some people who have done it (some successfully and some not).  I'm not really into fads and I'm not obsessed with working out.  But I'd like to take another shot at getting my body where I'd like it.  P90X looks like a good regiment...very organized and well rounded for the entire body.  Plus there is a lot of knowledge and support out there. 

So there is a little background.  Perhaps someday, someone with the same history will see this and benefit from it.  I'll probably post some of my concerns about doing this tomorrow.  And Wednesday I'll post some baseline stuff.  Then it starts Thursday morning.

Starting out...

I'm not going to lie...it seems incredibly self indudgent and self important to blog. It is kind of like writing a personal diary and and publishing it thinking that everyone else is dying to know what you do every day.
I'm starting this blog for three reasons:

1. I'm starting the P90X workout program and I'd like to be able to look back and see what I went through and how far I've come.
2. It creates some accountability. Making a big change in your life is hard. It is easy to quit, especially if no one else knows you are trying. If I'm putting updates on a public forum, it creates at least a little bit of an embarrassing consequence if I just pack it in after 7 days.
3. It might help someone who is going through the same experience. Before I purchased the program, I was encouraged by seeing someone else's blog...someone who was at about the same fitness level as me before they started. It was nice to see how far they came and what they went through.

So there it is. I am currently planning on starting the program this Thursday. Before then, I'll blog a little bit about my current fitness level...kind of a baseline before I start.