#43: How Am I Supposed to Lift Weights When My Arms Are Made of Jelly??

Have you done P90X? Have you made it through all 90 days? 

At a happy hour get-together, one of the guys I work with - who used to be a personal trainer - said he knew other trainers who'd done P90X and they hadn't made it to the end. I'm not going to lie - my reaction was "Oh, sounds like a Challenge. I'm all over that." And I set out to do all 90 days. No backing down. 

Then I did the first work out. 

Holy Crap. 

That mess is NO JOKE. 

So, for those of you who have no context for this program, it has a couple different components:

1) Intensive workouts that switch up daily to keep your body guessing and keep it from plateauing;

2) Portion controlled, well-balanced, healthy meals;

3) Supplemental shakes to help manage cravings and keep the right balance of nutrients in your body.

WORKOUTS

I mean, what the hell. 

Here are my truths: I grew up an athlete. I get into working out and I love a good sweat. I'm out of shape. I'm overweight. 

Given all of that, working out is usually a mentally tough thing for me and something that challenges me physically, but that I also LOVE love LOVE. Well, not this. This workout was a killer and I only finished 30 minutes of the 51-minute workout. Biggest fail, tho? I couldn't even do ONE incline push-up. Really? I could do diamond and military and wide and traditional, but not a single incline? FAIL. 

My goal is to DO every exercise in the workout the next time thru (Day 8), even if I can't do ALL of each exercise. Oh, and at least one effing incline.    *sheesh*

By the way, as I'm lying here typing, my shoulders and abs are sore. Guess it's working. 

EATING

Loving this. 

The nutrition piece was one of the reasons I decided to go all in on this plan. What I've found about my nutrition is that I know the rules and what is and isn't good for me, but I don't eat enough of most things so my body is worried about starvation mode. 

The other issue I have is that I really love protein and veggies meaning that my body often craves sugars that I don't really like because I'm not feeding myself any. So then it's 9 at night, my body is dying for sugars and I find myself eating Nutella by the spoonful because it's the only sugar in the house I can barely stand. 

So this plan gives me two options - preplanned meals for the whole day, week-after-week; or a proportion plan that you fix for yourself. I'm starting with the preplanned meals because it takes the guesswork out of the whole thing for me. And until I have a better idea of how much I'm supposed to eat and what combinations and what foods at what part of the day, I don't wanna mess that up. 

But I have to say that so far, I'm so full that I can't eat all the food. Ain't that somethin'.

SUPPLEMENTS

This might be the BEST part. 

Not that they taste amazing - at all - but they do wonders to get me all the fruits I need, the vitamins, superfoods, and have really curbed my cravings. 

Uh ... SOLD. 

I am looking forward to the one-week weigh in. Not that weight-loss is the #1 goal, because it's really about being healthy and feeling good, but ... come on, it's really just about the weight loss. 

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I have to also mention the letters. Man, it is hard to write a letter after writing all day for work and writing in my blog at night and then all the other little things in between. You know, like work, eating, feeding, working out, driving my kids around, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. 

But I am enjoying it and it feels good to be in communication with people in such a non-technological, heart-felt way.