Losers!

Well, a lot has happened in the last 3 weeks!  We have been out of town every weekend and I have been trying to finish night classes.  Needless to say the working out took a back seat.  Chad says he also cannot get up at 5:30!  I am finally feeling as if things are slowing down and I am going to start up again on my own.  I am trying to decide whether to stick to the early morning workouts or do it right after I get out of work/school.  Anyways, we have been eating pretty good still and not snacking on bad things, so atleast we are still doing that!  

Day 13

Today is day 13, Friday, April 10, 2009.  Today is Yoga and day and neither one of us got up this morning!  I have a day off today so I had already decided I was not getting up early!  Chad set his alarm, but ignored it!  We are going to have to get caught up sometime today.  I really don't like Yoga so it is going to be hard for me to get it in!  My goal today though is Yoga and Ab Ripper X.

Day 12

Thursday was Arms.  Last time we did this, we did not have enough weight so we bought some resistance bands.  This made a BIG difference!  I felt it alot more.  I also used the 5 lb weights for some of the exercises.  My motivation level is still very low this week, so I am not sure I am getting what I need to out of the DVD's.  I feel like I am more flexible and have already gotten a little stronger in some areas, but my abs and midsection has not improved!  We were supposed to do Ab Ripper X with this, but we have not done it yet.

Day 11

We did Core synergistics on Wednesday.  Like I said, we are behind!  I don't really care for this DVD very much, but I felt today I did a lot better with it than last week!  I still don't know when I am going to get caught up!  We can't seem to find time to get 2 workouts done in a day!

Day 10

Well I have not posted in a while!  It seems like I never have time!  Day 10 was Tuesday, we are behind because of our trip so we did Cardio X.  We were supposed to do it Monday night but we were too tired after our trip!  I am not feeling real motivated this week.  Hope it gets better!  We have a few workouts to catch up on!

Day 9

Today is Day 9, cardio X, and we have not done the workout yet!  I guess life gets in the way!  I did get up this morning and workout before we headed home.  I did some cardio, then some exercises I could remember from the DVD's.  I broke a pretty good sweat and at least felt like I did something!  5:30 is going to come very early tomorrow and getting back to our schedule is going to stink!  Since we have missed the last 2 days, we are going to do 2 workouts tomorrow and not take Wednesday (our normal off day) off.  This week I also have morning duty at school, so I will have to leave earlier!  Yuck!

Day 8

Well Sunday was Day 8, core synergistics, and we did not do the workout.  We were at a hotel in St. Louis so we didn't have any place to play the DVD's!  We planned on doing our own workout but that never happened!  LOL!  I actually felt guilty and kind of yucky skipping a day!  We also didn't do too well on our eating habits!  

Day 7

So I have not posted in a few days because we were out of town, so I have to back track!  Day 7 was Kenpo.  We didn't get up until 7:00 because it was Saturday!  I enjoyed this one.  It is basically kickboxing.  It took me a few tries to get the moves right, but once I did, it was a great workout!  I feel a little cramped in our living room doing this one, but oh well!  After our workout we left for St. Louis! 

Day 6

So today was a workout!!  It was Back and Legs.  My legs were killing me!  The workout was an hour long, and I sweated more today than I have in any of the other workouts!  We needed to have a pull up bar for the back part.  Instead we did inclined pushups using a chair and used the resistance bands and made up our own stuff!  We couldn't have done the pull ups anyways, but we need to get a bar and do pull ups putting our feet on a chair for now.  I enjoyed todays workout, but my legs were shaking and I couldn't feel them very well! Ha!

We are going out of town tomorrow so we are a little worried about how we are going to do our workout!  We are going to take the DVD's with us and try to do them at the hotel!  We have done so good getting up early and surviving the workouts.  We don't want to miss any days.  Well, day 7 tomorrow, one week gone!  Tomorrow is Kenpo.  I have heard this is a fun one!

Day 5

Today was Yoga.  It was a 90 minute video.  We did 45 minutes of it for 2 reasons!  #1 we did do not have time to do it all in the morning.  #2 I knew we couldn't get through the entire thing right now anyways!  I have seen my high school athletes struggle through 45 minutes of this DVD so I knew we wouldn't make it quite yet!  I was right!  We did do our 45 minutes, but both of us were hurting pretty good and sweating quite a bit!  I could have gone a little longer, but I didn't have time in the morning.  I am satisfied with the 45 minutes.  Next week I will go minimum 1 hour of Yoga.  Tomorrow is Legs and Back.  I am kind of looking forward to that!  We bought resistance bands to use instead of dumbbells.  I am anxious to try them out!

Day 4

Well today I got to sleep in!!  Yippee!  Today is our day off.  It is Wednesday and we have decided that works best with our schedule.  I have volleyball open gym and class on Wednesdays so once I leave the house, I don't get home until about 9:30 pm!  Chad did the Ab Ripper X tonight since we did not fit it in yesterday.  He said it really sucked and he couldn't get through the entire thing!  I admit, I did not do it today.  I was too tired when I got home late and knew I would have to be up at 5:30 am for Yoga!  Yikes!  

Day 3

It was hard to get up today!!  Had some coffee and got started about 5:45 am.  We did Shoulders and Arms today.  We did not have big enough dumbbells, so we felt we did not get much out of the workout.  There were a few exercises that our little dumbbells were plenty heavy for, but overall, we needed more.  We headed to Academy tonight and bought some bands to try in place of the dumbbells.  The DVD shows the workout using either one.  I am not near as sore today as I was yesterday.  Chad said the same thing.  We went and set in my parent's hot tub for a while and that really helped our hamstrings and lower back!

Ab Ripper is the second part of today's workout, but because of time, we didn't do it this morning.   We planned on doing it tonight, but got home late.  It is a short video so we will sneak it in tomorrow sometime.  Tomorrow is supposed to be our day off.  Can't wait to sleep in until 6:30 am!  LOL!

Day 2

Well 5:30 am came awful early!  I got up at 5:30, drank a cup of coffee and ate a banana.  We started our workout at 5:45.  Today was Cardio X.  The warmup was yoga and it was a full workout itself!  After the yoga, I was sweating quite a bit and wondering if I would make it!  After that, I enjoyed the rest of the video more!  The workout kept you going for a full 45 minutes without any breaks!  There were many different exercises, from kickboxing, to core, to yoga, to plyometrics.  

I am pretty sore today all over!  My hamstrings, butt, and inside of my thighs hurt the most!  Sitting down and getting up is very uncomfortable!  I am glad I have the job I do so I can move around.  If I sit down for a while, I get really tight!

Well, 88 more days left!  Tomorrow is Shoulders & Arms and Ab Ripper X.  I think tomorrow night calls for some time in the hot tub! So far, the workout is great!

Day 1 Pictures and Measurements

Here is a before picture of me!  Chad won't allow me to post his!! LOL!

Okay, so here are our measurements!  Don't laugh!

CHAD

Body Fat % = have not done yet

Weight = 233

Chest = 43

Waist = 43

Hips = 44

Right thigh = 22

Left thigh = 22

Right arm = 16

Left arm = 15

AMBER

Body Fat % = have not done yet

Weight = 124

Chest = 34

Waist = 32

Hips = 37

Right thigh = 20

Left thigh = 19

Right arm = 11

Left arm = 11

Meals - Week 1

We are using the Extreme Home Nutrition Plan book that came with the DVD's as our guide.

SUNDAY

Breakfast:  recovery drink, low-fat yogurt, banana

Snack: no snack - ate late breakfast

Lunch:  chef salad

Snack:  protein bar (yuck), strawberries

Dinner:  salmon, asparagus, brown rice

**I had my regular morning coffee and evening glass of wine!

**Drink water or tea with meals

MONDAY

Breakfast:  recovery drink, low-fat yogurt, banana

Snack:  granola bar

Lunch:  Healthy Choice frozen meal

Snack:  tossed side salad with low-fat italian dressing

Dinner:  broccoli, grilled chicken breast, grilled potato wedges

**Coffee for breakfast

**Tea and/or water throughout the day

TUESDAY

Breakfast:  recovery drink, low-fat yogurt, banana

Snack:  granola bar

Lunch:  Chad - Healthy Choice Meal Amber - corndog, brocolli, pineapple, tatertots (school lunch!)

Snack:  peanut butter crackers

Dinner:  pork chop, fried potatoes, corn (ate at my mom's house)

**coffee for breakfast

**tea, water, or chocolate milk with meals

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast:  low-fat yogurt, banana (Chad) or granola bar (Amber)

Snack:  granola bar

Lunch:  Healthy Choice meal (Chad), nothing (Amber)

Snack:  granola bar

Dinner:  Subway roasted chicken breast (Amber), grilled chicken salad (Chad)

**coffee for breakfast

**tea, water, diet dr. pepper

THURSDAY

Breakfast:  Recovery drink, low-fat yogurt

Snack:  granola bar

Lunch: Healthy Choice (Amber), beef with broccoli and steamed rice (Chad)

Snack:  granola bar (Chad), cake and ice cream (Amber)

Dinner:  Oriental House (Rylea's choice!)

**coffee with breakfast

**tea and/or water with meals

FRIDAY

Breakfast:  Recovery drink, granola bar, yogurt

Snack:  granola bar

Lunch:  Smoked brisquit, smoked turkey, potato salad (Chad), pizza dippers (Amber - school lunch, yuck!)

Snack:  none

Dinner:  grilled chicken salad

**coffee with breakfast

**tea & water with meals

**1 beer

SATURDAY - on the road and in St. Louis

Breakfast:  Recovery drink (slimfast)

Snack:  sunflower seeds, doritos snack mix, vitamin water (in the car!)

Lunch:  McDonald's Southwest Salad (Amber), 2 snackwraps (Chad)

Snack:  ???

Dinner:  Chicken Quesedillas (Amber), grilled chicken chibatta (Chad)

**too many beers

Day 1

Well we started this morning!  It was not has bad as I expected, but my hamstrings and abs are going to be sore!  We have decided to do the P90X Lean program.  This is more cardio and less resistance.  It is for people that want to achieve maximum weight loss.  Today was 1 hour of core synergistics.  It was pretty tough!  I think we did fairly well though.  Chad said he had not sweat this much in a long time!  The only issues we had was that we could not always do as many reps or go as fast as the people on the video, but I am sure we will get better!  I am really impressed with how the workout does accommodate everyone.  It shows modified ways to do each exercise, to make them easier or tougher.  After our workout, we started our healthy diet!  For a recovery drink, we are using Carnation Instant Breakfast.  It, along with chocolate SlimFast, low-fat chocolate milk, and YooHoo works just as well as the high dollar powder recovery drinks.   Well, with day 1 behind us, we only have 89 more to go!  Tomorrow we will do Cardio X!

Getting Ready!

We decided to start a blog about our P90X experience for several reasons.  The main one is motivation!  It will help us to track our progress and hopefully see positive results.  If others are following our progress as well, we will keep going so we don't look like losers!! :)  We also want our blog to motivate others to give this a try!

We are starting tomorrow!  Today we are planning out meals for the week and getting our yoga mats and bands/dumbbells.  We have not purchases the pull up bar yet.  We are not even close to being able to do a pull up so we will purchase that soon.

I will be honest, I am not as excited as I was last week about this!!!  But I am going to do it!  Once I get started, I will be fine!

Today, I am going to be lazy, watch basketball, and eat this amazing chocolate cake and ice cream a friend made for us!  It will be my last big splurge for a while!

About Us!

Our names are Chad and Amber, and we currently live in Southwest Missouri. We have been married for almost 6 years and have a 3 year old daughter.  Chad is a software developer for Accenture.  I (Amber) am a middle school PE teacher and high school varsity volleyball coach.  Chad is 32 years old and I am 31.  We are very busy and can never seem to find the right diet and exercise program to fit into our crazy lives!  I am working on my second Master's degree and getting my TESOL certification.  Our daughter does gymnastics and goes to pre-school, as well as swimming lessons and she is going to try t-ball in a few months!  During volleyball season, our lives get even crazier!  We love sports, traveling, and camping!  We are huge Kansas Jayhawks fans (I went to college there!!), but we love the St. Louis Cardinals and Chad loves the Kansas City Chiefs!  We attend sporting events all the time (youth, HS, college, pro) and we love to travel every chance we get!  We used to live in Southern California so we love the beach and sunshine!  That is where our traveling normally takes us!  We have a ski boat and travel trailer so we spend our summers at the lake every chance we get!

We have decided to try P90X because we can do it at home.  With our daughter and busy schedules, we can't just go to the gym every morning and evening.  When we actually have a free evening at home, we want to spend it relaxing and enjoying each other.    We plan on getting up at 5:30 am to do the workouts.  This way our daughter will still be sleeping and we will not be interrupted.  

Our reasons for doing this vary.  Chad wants to lose weight.  His goal is 35 pounds.  He also has high blood pressure and cholesterol, so he really wants to improve his overall health.  He was in great shape when he was in the Marine Corp and wants to feel and look like that again!  I don't really need to lose weight.  My main goal is to just look and feel better.  I would love to tone up my body.  I don't weigh much more (5-7 pounds) than I did when I was a college athlete. The weight has just changed locations and form! LOL!  A common reason we share is we want to eat healthier. There are times we feel we live on concession stand food and fast food!   

I also want to make a note that we are planning a family trip to Las Vegas in August!  We got married out there and went back last year for our 5th anniversary.  We have decided to take our daughter there because she will love the big hotels, bright lights, and shows.  We are staying at Mandalay Bay so she can play at their "beach".  We would really love to have nice bodies to show off and not be the only fatty's at the pool!  If you have never stayed at Mandalay Bay, well it is full of beautiful people!!  LOL!

We hope you enjoy our experience!