P90X, 5K's, and Insanity (AKA: Just Three of the Signs I've Officially Lost My Mind)

Let's just get this out of the way once again ... I am not a fitness freak, nor do I love to workout and exercise. I have literally gone years between workouts in the past and never thought a minute about it. I will never be the fittest person I know, nor do I want to be. I hate to diet, and basically hate 96.4% of all vegetables. So how is that in the year 2009, I have completed the P90X home bootcamp, trained myself to be able to finish 5k's, and still plan to take on yet another home bootcamp program called Insanity later this fall? Well basically it came down to the fact that I got tired of just doing enough to get by. I might have been thin, and I might have been able to get back into my skinny jeans after each pregnancy, but I had never been truly fit, flexible, and strong. So I figured, what the heck, I'd give it a go. Either I have finally hit another benchmark on my journey of personal growth, or Tony Horton has given me a fitness labotomy. I'm leaning toward the labotomy.

Whatever the reason, we can't talk about present solutions without looking back in time and discovering the past causes.

First and foremost I was blessed with good genes. I have always had a tall and lean build, and even when I packed on extra weight, it usually got hidden well by my height. In my youth, I was just one of those lucky types that could pretty much eat what I wanted and stay skinny.

On the exercise front, I was a tomboy growing up and loved to play sports. This helped me keep in shape without even thinking about it. When you run 50 Suicides everyday in basketball practice, you tend to keep the weight off. More importantly, my mom worked in the fitness industry since I was young, and other than the scarring memories of her traipsing around in blue lycra unitards and legwarmers while my childhood crushes asked her out on dates, I was fortunate enough to exposed to the "healthclub/gym" lifestyle starting early on ... even if I didn't really think much about it on a personal level until later in my life. I do think that kind of exposure however, has to seep into you almost by osmosis, whether you realize or not. Gyms may never have appealed to me much, but they never scared or intimidated me either.

My college years were certainly not my healthiest, but seriously .... whose are? I played a few sports here and there, and maybe found myself in the college weight room less than a dozen times in 4 years. (Me working the front desk at the gym doesn't count does it?). I did my fair share of imbibing cheap beer, and I even DJ'd in a nightclub where the Budweiser and the extra 15 pounds were free! By the time I graduated to single working life in NYC, my body went into shell shock! I was at my heaviest weight ever and trying to adjust to a totally different lifestyle. This was really the first time I consciously took on the whole "lets get fit" mentality. This new lifestyle in NYC did work to my benefit in many ways. I had to walk everywhere, I could climb the 18 stories to my apartment everyday, and my building was choc-full-o-cute guys who liked to workout in the little community gym. So maybe not so coincidentally, I found myself there working out a lot more than usual. Ok, so my motivation wasn't that pure, but I did land me a hottie for awhile!

The diet part was a bit trickier. I've never ever ever been a healthy eater. Luckily, I've never had a big appetite, but what I do eat is rarely what you would call "the smart choice at the buffet." I have a wicked sweet tooth, I love my carbs, fried food and red meat. I literally gag when I eat most vegetables, and I'm in a very committed relationship with carbonated beverages. I was raised a total meat and potatoes kinda gal and we dined out more than the average family. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me.

On my own in NYC, my minimal discretionary income and I, were led to rock the "Ramen Noodle Diet" pretty dang hard. I even bought Susan Powder's "Stop the Insanity" book and learned that "fat made me fat." So with the few dollars I had for groceries each week, I filled my cart with lots "fat free" Smartwells, and the occassional can of green beans. Yeah .... not so healthy I know. BUT ... I did lose the college weight! Granted, my insides were probably toxic and glowing, but I was still riding the coattails of an early twenties metabolism, and still gloriously naive to the looming effects of age, poor diet, and 3 pregnancies yet to come!

So as my twenties came and went, so did most of my excerice regimes, and any inclination towards a healthy lifestyle. I moved on from NYC to DC, and even back home to Massachusetts with mom and dad for awhile. Yes, I did eat a little better than I had been, but what little good habits I did have in NYC all but slipped away. All the walking was replaced with driving, the gym was replaced with working more, and what free time I had, was filled more often than not with socializing over beers and cigarettes. On the bright side, I did meet the ultimate "hottie", who I eventually married. We settled in Florida for a few years, and spent most of our time working, playing, golfing, smoking, drinking and eating out, and not always in that order.

Honestly though I loved every minute of it! I look fondly back on my twenties as some of the best times of my life. Where the baby boomers might have their Woodstock era of free love and excessive drugs use to reminesce about, I have my Florida sunshine era with marriage and endless weekends at the pool with some beer, smokes and chicken tenders to reminesce about. And trust me ... if I hit 85 years old, I am adopting that lifestyle full force again! I figure if I make it that long, then I'll have earned the free pass on all that end of life debauchery. The good news for me though was, although my carefree ways in my twenties may have lowered my chances of making it to 85 years old just a bit, I was still keeping my weight in check. Yep, based on my very shallow and vein criteria, I was doing goooooooood!

When I was 29 that all changed. We had since returned to New England to start our family, and right on schedule I got pregnant and promptly gained 60 pounds! I had my first child and for the first time in my life, I realized that perhaps a long walk and skipping that 4th slice of pizza was not going to get me back into my skinny jeans. It was about the time I turned 30 that I finally learned that I actually had to "work" to accomplish what fortuidous genetics and an amped up metabolism had done for me in the past. I also started to care just a little more about making it to 85 years old after all. That's one of the first lessons I learned about what getting older and having kids will do to you. You no longer feel invincible and you care!

I dumped most all the bad habits upon learning of my pregnancy, and after giving birth, I joined a gym. When I plateaued still 15 pounds shy of my pre-pregnancy weight after a year of what I would consider light to medium excercise about 3 times a week, I joined Weight Watchers and tried to finally get my poor eating habits under control. Within six very strict and regimented weeks I had finally hit my goal weight and even fell below it for a time. But then guess what happened? I went back to work, my gym membership lapsed, and fried food made a welcome reappearance back into my life. But even with my little relapses, I was still able to do just enough to maintain my weight. That was until pregnancy number two and another 50 pound weight gain.

It was rinse and repeat after that child was born. Rejoined another gym, pulled out the ole' Weight Watchers calculator and dropped the weight in about 6 months. I hit my goals and stopped hitting the gym. I maintained my weight as I always had, by just doing enough to get by. I would cut back on the bad foods when I would gain a few pounds, and I got my exercise chasing 2 active girls around. In 2008 I got pregnant with my last child, and kept the weight gain to 40 pounds this time- an impressive feat I think since I was working in a restaurant during that time and was as inactive as Jaba the Hut during those 9 months. And not just Jaba the Hut, but Jaba the Hut with two broken legs. (Well not sure Jaba really has legs, but you get my drift). When my son was born I thought they had accidently left another baby in my uterus. I swear I had a 6 month baby bump for weeks after his delivery that I not so affectionately called "The Twin."

I did the Weight Watcher points again, but I didn't join a gym this time around. Rather, because it was summer, I took a lot of walks, and supplimented them with daily workouts from Fit TV. Gilad and I became very close. Do you know that he's "happy I trust him with my boddddayyy?"
I even made one of those Oprah-tastic "Dream Boards" and put a half naked picture of Edyta Sliwinska from Dancing With The Stars on it. Trust me, my hubby was really supporting my efforts 100% !!!

By the fall I had done it. I had lost the pregnancy weight again, and it was back again to lazytown. I broke up with Gilad and points were only counted when the scale started to creep upward. Yes, my fitness commitment once again became as eratic as Kanye West's social graces. But who cared ... I was back in those size 6 jeans baby!

Then came 2009 ... or as I now refer to it ... the year that I'm certain Tony Horton gave me a fitness lobotomy.

Maybe it was having a little more time with me not working, or half-naked Edyta staring me in the face every day, or being hypnotized by that scary professional tennis player in the informercial that finally convinced me, but clearly I lost my mind when I agreed to 90 days of intense home bootcamp in addition to its regimented 90 day diet.

I was commited. I would take the P90X challenge with my husband and I would take it on full throttle. The promise of getting in the best shape of my life and getting ripped for the first time in my life was pretty intoxicating. And all I had to do was keep putting the DVD in and pressing play everyday ... oh and then actually doing the workouts and not just watching them. Tony Horton, the totally jacked and ripped personal trainer became my closest friend and fitness mentor for 90 days. Even though I've never really met him, I swear he and I had a connection. I felt it. He always knew what to say and how to say it .... oh and he hadthecutestlittlejokes......

Ahem... anyway ... Tony kept me motivated, encouraged me "to do my best and forget the rest", and led me through a series of workouts the likes of which I had never seen in my life. I knew on day one that this wasn't a joke when our very first move after warm-up was Stacked-Foot Staggerd-Hand Push-Ups. Are you serious? Push-ups? I could barely do ten standard push-ups ... on my knees! Now Tony wanted me to stack my feet and stagger my hands and do push ups ... as my very first move!!!! Crap! What had I gotten myself into.

But never one to quit on a commitment, and not wanting to disappoint my dear Tony, I kept at it, kept pushing play. By the time my 90 days were complete, I enjoyed the push-ups. I became proficient at power yoga, kempo karate, and had moved from 3lb-5lb weights to 15 and 20lbs weights for much of my resistance workouts. I will never love the pull-ups or the demonic 16 minutes of hell they call Ab RipperX, but I did them. I got good enough to do banana rolls just like the lovely and talented Dreya Webber (do you know she flies through the air with the greatest of ease???). I was able to not only touch my toes in a straight legged hamstring stretch, I could grab my feet and hold them the entire time. Never once in my life had I been able to do this until now. I somehow found a way to get that workout in every day (with a few reasonable exceptions). If it meant getting up at 5am I did it, and if it meant 90 minutes of Yoga at 10pm at night, I still did it ... and I always felt better afterwards (if you don't count the first week where I felt like I had been drawn and quartered by Clidesdales).

The commitment was daunting as hell at times, as was the low carb diet (the high protein part was a breeze!). I even purchased the Jack Lelane Juicer so I could drink all those vegetables that I hate. Its amazing how good veggies taste in a drink with a little apple or banana to sweeten it up. I was determined to make this 90 days my chance to finally do it right ... 100% balls-to-the-wall commitment. I figured that if I couldn't make this one little 90 day commitment for my health and well being (and to look smoking hot in a bikini just in time for summer), then I was doomed to a middling existance for the rest of my life. If I quit or "half-assed" it, I would once again just be doing enough to get by. How completely comfortable and incredibly unremarkable that would be.

I would not, could not do that to myself, my hubby or my kids ... or to my dearest Tony whose face I would never be able to look at again. So with this alien resolve, I completed my 90 days in June with one of the greatest senses of accomplishments I've ever felt, and Tony was right! I was in the best damn shape of my life.

So now what?

Well what I didn't realize when I handed over my mind, body and soul to Tony and the P90X gang was that they were really lying to me ... it wasn't just a 90 day committment I was making. They often say it takes only 21 days to a form a new habit. Well if thats true, guess what 90 days forms? You got it... A lifestyle. I had just busted my ass working out for 90 days straight, getting fitter, stronger, and more flexible than I have ever been (and in a size 4!!!), and I wasn't about to just hop back on the couch and eat bon bons and let all my hard work go to waste. Nope, I decided to keep going, incorporating my P90X workouts into my new gym regimen.

Then one day I discoverd something else amazing ... I could run! Well let me just admit right now that I'm not "a runner" and I will never be "a runner". I don't love it and I won't be one of those people who wake up one day and decide they want to run a Marathon. Not going to happen. Ever. However before P90X, I couldn't even run a mile without huffing and puffing and having severe knee pain from an old injury. I'd quit and convince myself that "walking on incline" was just as effective. HA! Well one day right after my 90 days were complete, I just decided to hop on the treadmill and start running and see how far I could go. Imagine my surprise when I ran 3 miles! Now I was going at a very slow pace, but I was still amazed, and just a wee bit inspired I guess.

So I kept up the running, and tried to increase my speed a little each time, and even pondered the possibility that I might someday run an official 5k. You know down the road in the future sometime. Maybe even next year. Well imagine my complete horror one Friday when hubby proposed that I run my first official 5k that Sunday!!! 48 hours later!!!! Oh Good Lord, what had I done. I had gone and misguidingly convinced other people that I liked running and might even be good at it! Double HA!

Well again, the Tony Horton labotomy kicked in and I just decided to go for it. If you haven't read my Good, Bad, and Ugly blog from earlier this month, go back and do so. I detail the happenings of the race there.

The next day I tweeted about barely surviving my very first official 5k race, and some random "follower" of mine replied to me that he "ate 5k's for breakfast."

Jackass!

Yet the more I thought about it, I couldn't stop thinking that the idea of "eating 5k's for breakfast" was so completely and utterly cool. Here I thought eating "Special K's" for breakast was about the healthiest I'd ever get, now I had the option of eating 5K's for breakfast. Hmmmmm.... maybe he wasn't a jackass afterall. Maybe he was just laying down my next challenge.

So I have continued to run 5 days a week, on the treadmill and outside. I haven't really gotten much faster, or dared to add the hills back into the mix, but I have noticed that I can now indeed eat very flat, temperature-controlled 5K's for breakfast. Or at the very least, I'm snacking on them. I am planning my second official 5K before the end of the year.

Seriously, what did Tony do to me????

Now as the weather cools, and working out in a house without central AC once again becomes a viable option, hubby and I have decided to take on our next challenge. Another at home bootcamp called "Insanity." Only 60 days this time, but all intense cardio-based workouts, I think this one is very aptly titled. I do feel as though I have gone insane sometimes. I still don't see myself as that "gym rat" or "fitness freak" just because I work out at 5-6 days a week. I do it because I love the results and want to keep them. I'm usually game for a challenge, and I love knowing that I can now indulge my sweet tooth or cravings for craptastic food every now and then and I won't be drenched in guilt or worry about counting points again.

But most of all I am determined to make it to 85 so I can party like Lindsay Lohan on a weekend bender! So only 47 more years to go!

Damn you Tony Horton! 90 days my arse!

MEOW!