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

Ready for P90X2? Pre-order NOW if you want it before 2012!!

Click HERE then click on the Shop Tab in the middle of the page to pre-order your copy of Tony Horton's next Extreme workout! Warning!!! This is not for the faint of heart. You must be in good physical condition to attempt this workout.

Re-Starting with the $100,000 Beachbody Challenge!!

Hi everyone!

I have been "resting" my body for the past few weeks trying to recover from overtraining and a number of personal issues I have been dealing with over the past two months or so. Unfortunately, I should have stayed on my health program instead of letting life get in the way and distract me from one of the most important aspects of my healthy lifestyle, that is to stay focused and keep moving forward.

The result of my lack of discipline has caused me to go from 194 pounds back up to 207.4 pounds in about 10 weeks of sporadic exercise and slacking off on my nutrition. I can see how sudden events cause high levels of stress and you can lose focus on what is important to your personal health and fitness levels. I am a perfect example of what NOT to do! Eventhough I know better and have learned how to do the right things when it comes to my health, I allowed myself to fall right off the grid and back into a very unhealthy lifestyle.

Now, I don't have the energy I had only a few weeks ago and my my sleep pattern has been disrupted due to issues I really have no control over. This is having a negative impact on my overall health and well-being. I am tired all day long and end up falling asleep on the couch when I know I should be doing my daily workout routine. Then waking up and going to bed and not being able to fall asleep, resulting in less restfull sleep and lower energy levels during the day. This is a viscious cycle once you get in the pattern. I have to break that pattern and force myself to do my workouts and get in bed at a decent time.

To make matters worse, all the events in the past couple of months have resulted in me eating less nutritious and not as clean as I know I should. Instead of sticking to my plan, I made a bad decision for convenience to eat fast food to get me through all the hospital travel, court issues, and lawyer visits. The reality is that I needed to be eating especially clean and exercising consistently to cope better but I was doing the exact opposite. One thing I did manage to stick with was drinking my Shakeology almost every day. At least I was getting some healthy nutrition in spite of my lack of overall discipline. In the end, that probably kept me from gaining even more weight.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have let my body rest as much as possible and didn't do any of my workouts. I wanted to give my body complete rest as much as possible. I also refocused on my nutrition and have come up with a plan to eat better in the future. Now, all I need to do is add my workouts back into my daily routine and I will be back on track. And lastly, I have been getting more restful sleep by going to bed on time and getting up consistently to get my biological clock back on track. I have been averaging about 7 hours per night of restful sleep, which is on target for me personally.

As you know I have been using Beachbody workout programs since January of 2009 when I first "pushed play." The great thing is that I already own the solution to my fitness. I don't have to go out and buy anything else. All I need to do is get back on track and start using the programs again. With that in mind, I have decided to do a hybrid 12 week program that includes three of the workouts I used to lose 41 pounds of fat in 10 months and sustain that for over a year. I already know what to do, and how to do it, so my plan is simple.

Beachbody developes their programs over a 12 week "round" and for the most of their programs they are devided into 3 4-week blocks or phases. So to continue to recover, but get back to my workout routines, I have decided to do the Power 90 (P90) Boot camp for the first 4 weeks, then do the P90 Master Series workouts for the second 4 weeks and then finish this round with P90X Phase III as my closeout phase.

The reason I have decided to do a hybrid is that I already know how to do the programs and how they affect my body. Since I haven't been working out for a while, it will be like starting over so I don't want to risk further injury by over-doing it. Rather, I can use the different programs to quickly ramp up my fitness and get back on track in 12 weeks instead of several 36 months if I redo the programs individually.

I am confident that if I am consistent, and push myself to my personal limit and then just a little more, I will be right back where I need to be. So today is my Day 1 of my 12 week program. I plan to post at least once a week about my progress and let you know how it is going and what challenges I am facing. This will also help me be accountable and keep me on track.

I ask that you follow my blog and watch me to make sure I am posting regularily so I will be accountable. I would appreciate your support by helping me out. Make sure you bust on me if I slack off on my posts. I will post at least once a week and hopefully more if I have time.

Also, if you are interested in trying one of the programs and entering Beachbody's $100,000 challenge, let me know. I can be reached at jimwyatt556@gmail.com I will coach you for FREE and help you help us end the trend of obesity in the US.

To your health and fitness,

jw

My 4th Round of P90X

Greetings...

I am in my 4th week of my 4th round of Beachbody's P90X workout program. This week is supposed to be my phase 1 recovery week. However, one of the advantages of doing in-home workouts is that you can make changes to your schedule and modify the program to meet your needs.

I only make one basic change to the weekly schedule normally. Since I work full-time and have a terrible commute out of Washington DC, I only have a limited time during the week to get my workout in. Kenpo X is a workout that takes about 60 minutes to complete and is on the 6th day (Saturday for me) of the routine. On Thursday, the P90X Classic schedule calls for me to do Yoga X. Doing Yoga X on a weeknight is very difficult for me because it is 90 minutes long and a difficult workout, in and of, itself. So I have always swapped Kenpo X and Yoga X to fit my schedule.

P90X is divided into 3 training blocks, or phases, each lasting 3 weeks long with a recovery week. Since I've been doing P90X for a while now, I've developed more strength and stamina. This round I've increased my daily calorie intake and taking a Beachbody Creatine supplement to see the effects of using Creatine during the program. One thing I can say is I feel a lot stronger using the Creatine so I decided to extend my first phase of P90X by an additional week.

So, I am on day 23 and will be doing Shoulders and Arms and Ab Ripper X this evening. It's one of my favorite workouts in the P90X program. Since starting using the Creatine supplement I've noticed my strength increase and so added weight to every exercise. One drawback (for lack of a better word) is the creatine makes me feel bloated and I have actually gained weight over the past 3 weeks.

I am not too concerned since my research has shown that once I cycle off the creatine, the excess water will go out of my muscle and I will "lean" out and have a better indicaton of what my creatine cycle has done for me. I'm not ready to recommend Creatine at this point, but so far it looks promising.

I encourage you to move your body at least 30 minutes to an hour per day. If you can consistently do this, you will soon start to realize how much better you will feel, how much more energy you will have, and how much better you will sleep at night. It only small changed in your daily routine to make a significant impact in your health and fitness.

As Tony Horton always says, "Do your best, and forget the rest."

To your health and fitness,


Jim