Day 90 Les Mills Pump Results.

Hi everyone! If you have been following my blog, you know I have been doing a new workout program from Beachbody called Les Mills Pump. It is a in-home barbell workout program that lasts 12 weeks and is broken into 3 phases. This is the typical way Beachbody sets up their programs, 3 phases lasting 12 weeks with the exercises getting progressively harder so your body is forced to adjust and keep improving. So here are my final stats with the day 1- day 90 pics of my porogress through the program.

Body Part Day 1 Day 90 Total Change

Weight 207.4 188.2 - 19.2 lbs

Chest 43.5 42 - 1.5 inches

R. Arm 14 13.75 - .25 inches

L. Arm 14 13.75 - .25 inches

Waist 42 35.5 - 6.5 inches

Hips 38 34 - 4 inches

R. Thigh 22 21 - 1 inch

L. Thigh 22 21 - 1 inch

Total weight lost = 19.2 pounds
Total inches lost = 16.5 inches

All done from 2 Jan 2012 through 31 March 2012. I believe this is the most change I have seen in my body of any workout program I have used since starting Beachbody workouts in Jan 2009. I am very pleased with the program and believe it would work for anyone who wants to get in better shape. I highly recommend it.

Day 60 Les Mills Pump Update

Ready for 2012 with Les Mills PUMP workout!!

Greetings and salutations!

So 2011 is coming to a close and I have been reflecting on my overall health this year and making plans for 2012. One thing I am sure of, time will keep rolling along whether I have a plan or not. For 2012 I have decided to take a little break from my primary workout program, P90X, and try a new program just introduced by Beachbody called Les Mills PUMP.

As you may know, I was in terrible shape by 2009 after suffering from the ravages of two heart attacks in my early 40s and spending years listening to doctors about how the next one could be the one that does me in. As a result of basically zero physical activity, I got a stent implant, my weight climbed, I was put on blood pressure medications and my health steadily declined for almost a decade. I had to make a change in my lifestyle so I started using Beachbody workouts to get back into shape and take control of my overall health and fitness. I don’t have time to go to the gym every day so the in home workout programs are a great way for me, and so many others, to get and stay healthy with our busy schedules. I was 234 pounds, had high blood pressure, poor eating habits, and was generally on a downhill slope headed for type 2 Diabetes when I made my change.

I stared using a workout called Power 90 (P90) and lost 18 pounds by doing that 90 day program. Then I moved to the Power 90 Master Series workouts as a continuation of the P90 program and lost another 8 pounds. I could have lost more but my diet frankly sucked and I wasn’t really paying attention to it. Then, I felt I was ready for the big leagues and decided to give P90X a try. By the time I was finished with my first round of P90X, I had lose a total of 41 pounds and was taken off my blood pressure medications and was taken off the risk for diabetes! I went from 234 pounds on 5 Jan 90 to 193 pounds in Oct 90. I also won $1,000 in the Sept 09 Beachbody transformation contest. Since then, I have maintained a weight of about 195 pounds using P90X as my primary workout program doing 4 to 6 days a week.

I made a couple of attempts to do another Beachbody program called Insanity, but I have bad knees and shoulders and have only been able to get through about 4 weeks before I have to stop the program due to pain in my knees and feet. Insanity may well be the most intense workout ever put on disc for home use. Fortunately, I can continue to keep my body in pretty good shape and I have enough programs to mix things up every month or so to keep my body guessing and stay in pretty good shape.
I was due an annual physical around Aug 11 and at the same time was assigned a new doctor in my “government ran” health care system. As a disabled veteran, I still have to see doctors in the TriCare system for military and veterans. I made the visit in Aug and had some blood work done prior to my appointment. When I showed up for my appointment, my doctor said he had found some issues with my blood and I would have to start chemotherapy IMMEDIATELY!

Needless to say, this freaked me out but being a good airman, I followed orders and started that day on a medication called Hydroxiurea. It is a chemotherapy medication you take orally twice a day and it is designed to kill cells in your body, the good ones and the bad ones. If I refused treatment, I would lose my insurance benefits so I followed the program to the letter.

To make a long story short, the drug wreaked havoc on my system. I experienced most of the side effects including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weight gain, and overall feeling of sickness. I was supposed to do 90 days of chemotherapy but within a couple of weeks I was crapping blood and going to the bathroom 6 or 7 times a day. Ironically, I gained 13 pounds while on the medication. My blood count got so low that I was barely able to function but had to wait an extra week for the doctor to get back from a conference he attended before he reviewed my blood work and determined I didn’t need to be on the stuff in the first place! The Lab had just made a mistake with my test and he misread the results! He took me off the medication immediately once he saw photos I emailed him of the clotting you could visibly see on my skin all over my body.

Finally off the medication in Sept 2011, it took me about 7 or 8 weeks to recover from the experience. By then I had gone from 195 to about 208 pounds. I was very weak and still feel weaker than when I started the treatment. I tried to get back to my workout by doing a round of P90X “Lean” starting in Oct and finishing in Jan 2012 but was only able to do about 4 to 6 days a week throughout the program due to no energy.
Since I am older than most people using P90X, I guess my body doesn’t recover as quickly as someone in their 20s or 30s. This is natural and since I abused my body most of my life, I am lucky to be able to recover at all in my humble opinion. I’m pretty sure I would be in much worse shape if I hadn’t been working out and eating better over the last couple of years. So, you never know what might happen to cause you to need good health to get through a tough challenge.

At least I have been drinking my Shakeology

every day and ate mostly clean through the holidays, except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve. I managed to lose about 3 or 4 pounds since Oct. Now I am ready to move forward and cut my losses, so I will be doing the new workout starting Jan 2 with a Facebook support group of about 288 people and counting!

If you have been to a gym lately, there is a very popular gym program produced Les Mills International, called Les Mills Body Pump. Well, Beachbody has partnered with Less Mills International to create an in-home version of the Body Pump called Les Mills PUMP. It looks like a great program for me to get back on track with my fitness and I am so stoked about getting started. I ordered my program on 22 Dec and hope to get it by 29 Dec.

I plan to do the program as it is designed and not add workouts or exercise not scheduled in the program, at least for this first round. I want to see how effective the program will be doing it as designed. From my past experience with Beachbody workouts, I know they are designed well and I will get great results if I just FOLLOW the program.

I also plan to blog about my experience with the program so others can see my progress and the challenges I face going through it. I will post at least once a week with my weigh-in on Sunday mornings. This will help me keep on track and stay accountable to myself and to you if you follow this blog.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year! Remember, you only get one body in this life. Do whatever you can to take care of it. Check back if you want to follow me through my program.

To your health and fitness,
Jim

My 12 Week Workout and Nutrition Plan

Hi everyone! Hope you are doing your part to help reverse and end the trend of obesity in the US! This past Monday I started a new 12-week program for my personal health and fitness and have made several changes to reduce my body fat and improve my overall health.

First, I have to admit that I slacked off my program for about 10 weeks starting with our dive vacation to the Bahamas in late May. That is where my plan and routine went awry. Just to show you a good example of how easy it is to get off your program, no matter how long you have been exercising and eating better, I want to use myself as an example of what NOT to do.

We had our vacation all set up and I took my workouts with me to stay on track. However, once we got to the resort, I quickly fell off my program. Here is why. Since I was scheduling 2 or 3 dives per day, I rationalized that I really didn’t need to do my workouts because I would be burning an average of 900-1100 calories per dive. Therefore, I would be burning about 2000-3000 extra calories per day diving so why workout? Sounds pretty good, huh? Then, since I was burning all those calories, I decided I could eat more, and add a little junk to keep my energy levels up so I could power through those dives, including diving with Sharks (I have pics on my Facebook page if you want to see them.) So this is how my week went. Throw in a few beers and drinks every day and I was completely off program.

OK, it’s just a week, right? I have been good for over a year and been sticking with my plan and getting good results and still had a few weeks before the Beachbody Summit to slim down and be at my peak when I showed up at the conference. Life has a way of changing your circumstances without warning. Once I got back from vacation, I found myself in the middle of a family emergency that resulted in a lot of travel to hospitals, lack of sleep, eating fast food, and got getting any exercise for almost 4 weeks going to the Summit. The result of those bad choices was a weight gain from 195 before leaving for vacation up to 207.4 pounds in about 8 weeks! Yikes. It was just a bunch of circumstances, and my own rationalization that ended up packing on the pounds in just a short period of time. I managed to wipe out about 10 months of effort in just a matter of weeks by not sticking to my exercise routine and nutrition plan. It is just that simple.

To make matters worse, my energy levels went down, I started feeling sluggish again, my stress levels are up, I looked terrible at Summit with all my Beachbody friends and I am just disappointed in myself for my lack of discipline. And, I only have myself to blame. I am not going to beat myself up too much over it because in the end, I know what I need to do to get myself back on track and I already have all the tools I need to get out of the mess I have gotten myself into.

I have a number of Beachbody workout programs I have successfully used to get in shape and live a better lifestyle. I’m not a Gym Rat so the at home workout programs fit my lifestyle better. I guess they are not for everyone, but millions of people around the country and world are literally changing their lives with Beachbody workout programs. My personal preference are Tony Horton’s workouts. I have several of his workouts, but I also have Insanity, Turbo Fire, Slim in 6, Turbo Jam, Hip Hop Abs and other programs I can use in the privacy of my home. With my busy schedule, they are a great way to keep myself in shape and improve my lifestyle.

I don’t have to fight traffic home, grab my gym bag and go back out into traffic to get to the gym and then fight other people to use the machines and all that is included in that environment. I get home, change my clothes, go into my spare bedroom, put in my workout disc and press play. Then it is a matter of me “doing my best and forgetting the rest” as Tony Horton would say. I just do the best I can on any given day. I may not feel like doing the workout, but I find that once I push play, I get pumped up and start kicking it into high gear and pushing myself. I don’t spend any time waiting for some machine to open up or hanging out BSing. I just follow the workout on the TV and move through it at a good pace and level of intensity. Before I know it, I am soaked with sweat and have blown through a hour workout and can get in the shower, and enjoy the rest of my evening.

Doing workouts from home don’t require any more discipline than schlepping to a gym every day. It is just more convenient to most people. I also like the idea of the Team Beachbody community where thousands of people are logging on and helping each other stay motivated and accountable. I have made friends with people all over the country who are trying to get and stay health and fit using Beachbody workouts. Celebrities, professional sports figures, and even Michelle Obama and her staff use Beachbody programs to get, and stay fit. How cool is that?

So this round I am doing a hybrid program to get myself back on track over the next 12 weeks. I will be doing the Power 90 boot camp for the first 4 weeks for phase 1, then I will do 4 weeks of the P90 Master Series videos for phase 2 and finally I will finish this round with P90X Phase 3 of the Classic version. This should have me right back on track with my functional strength, fat loss, and stamina improvement. This is where I need to be to feel better and know I am on the right path.

My goal is to lose 15 pounds this round and I know from past experience this is easily doable. I also want to reduce my body fat percentage to 12-15 percent. This is more challenging than the weight and diet becomes a important factor to achieving the fat loss.

I am going to use Michi’s Ladder and a balanced approach to lose the weight and fat over time. My macro-nutrients will be 50% Protein, 30% Carbs and 20% fat. This ratio seems to work best for me personally. The standard guideline is 30% protein, 40% carbs, and 30% fats if you are interested. This should be where you start and then tweak your ratios to find what works best for you. Remember, everyone is different but the above ratio covers about 80% of the people to get results. Next, I will try to adjust my calories up or down to find the zone that will help me keep my energy up and reduce body fat. Ironically, sometimes you have to eat more to lose weight. My starting calorie target is 2600 calories per day. I will only make minor changes in my intake about every 2 weeks or so.

Finally, my nutrition is centered on Shakeology. Why? Because in all my research, Shakeology is hands down the most nutritious meal replacement you can get. I have been drinking a glass of Shakeology every day for nearly a year now and I know how it makes me feel. Plus, there is nowhere in the world that you can get more than 70 super food ingredients in a single serving. At only 140 calories, it is literally “The Healthiest Meal of the Day”. You can click HERE to read all about Shakeology. I am completely satisfied with the Chocolate. It satisfies my chocolate cravings, gives me an instant energy boost that lasts all morning and it has helped me stay regular and keep my body cleansed of the junk I put into it from time to time (no one is perfect.)

I will be posting my accountability pictures this weekend so you can see what I look like now and I will do 30-day updates so you can see what kind of results I get this round.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you will follow me and watch my progress over the next 11.5 weeks. Feel free to comment on any of my posts. If you want to contact me for help on your personal health and fitness journey, please email me at jimwyatt556@gmail.com and I will be happy to help you any way I can.

To your health and fitness,
jw