Self Imposed Obstacles

Life has a way of giving you just enough to make it hard but at the same time not so much it drives you over the line into insanity. At least that is the way things have been going lately for me. I have been inconsistent at best with my nutrition and my workouts over the last few months just kind of bouncing around with no direction or set goals in mind and for me this is not a safe path. I need my own self imposed direction placed upon myself to keep me pushing forward otherwise a few months go by and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

Although I feel like I have accomplished so much personally and professionally over these past moths I feel as though I have neglected myself and I need to refocus my energy on myself again. Monday I will start P90X3 again and focus on it as if it were the first fitness program I have ever done.

It may be some form of undiagnosed disorder but I need to reorganize the garage (my gym) this weekend and clean the place up so I feel motivated and comfortable out there each morning. There is nothing like working out and being distracted about what needs to be done when you should be focusing on wheat you should be doing. Once I get that done I will be ready to attack each day.

When it comes to eating I have pretty much gotten myself under control when it comes to proper food intake and portion sizes. My biggest problem is that sometimes I do not enough during a long day at work. I have also grown into the habit of prepping my meals out a few days so I have clean options that I can grab and go with. This makes the odds of eating junk a lot less likely.

I know this will be the right thing for me because lately I have been feeling run down and a bit tired. When I am working out hard every day I have much more energy. I have completed my usual October of late night Baseball Playoff viewing causing a lack of sleep streak which always coincides with my having to complete the budgets for the next year at work. Now I can break away from the mental stress I subject myself to each year and apply my efforts back into my workout.

I have tracked all of my workouts over the past few years with a heart rate monitor which I was able to see the pattern I had created for myself and helped me to understand why my body was performing the way has been. Not trying to make excuses but really to better understand how my mind and body works so I may be able to better myself in every way.

This leads to one of my favorite quotes ever.

“Excuses are a list of self imposed obstacles that prevent you from having a better life.”

Life gets in the way. When you are driven to a goal you must make detours to get to your final destination. 

Looking for a Fresh Start.

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here and to be honest I have been struggling to get back into a routine. I have bounced around with my nutrition and have not had a consistent workout routine for a few months now. I have started a few programs and stopped and for this I am taking some abuse from some of my friends for constantly changing and not sticking to one thing. 

The good thing is I have held still on my weight and I feel good. I have been working out with my son's baseball team doing some coaching so I am getting a good workout twice a week. 

For me working out needs to be fun as well as provide me with some sort of fulfillment and accomplishment. For some reason I was not getting that for a while. I thought that a body building program would help me get the results I was looking for but that only helped me to pack on pounds, I then thought lets do just all cardio but that is just not me and all that does besides boar me to death is make me fell fatigued.

Although I love to lift weights, right now I think that body weight workouts are best for me right now so I created a hybrid from my favorite workout programs and I went ahead and started that this past Monday.  Using P90X2 and P90X3 for the first month I am getting myself back into some core work as well as some basic flexibility and resistance. The second month I plan on doing one week of each phase of the P90X3 program with a final week of the recovery week. I will follow up with a final month of Focus T25 in a somewhat same style of the way I will do P90X3.

See for yourself what I am talking about.

Monday               X2 Core

Tuesday               X3 The Challenge

Wednesday        X2 Mobility and Recovery

Thursday             X2 Total Body and X2 Ab  Ripper

Friday                    X3 Yoga

Saturday              X3 MMX

Sunday                 X1 Ab Ripper

That will be my next month of workouts, I feel it will keep me interested and allow me to get myself moving back in the right direction. I will post the next phase here when I get to that point. If you are interested or have any comments or opinions please leave a message below. 

The Challenge

The Challenge is just that..a challenge. Today was my second attempt at it and although I did improve on my performance I have work to do. I have never been a pullup guy; being big first off it is discouraging to only lift yourself two to five times per set, the reward is there if you put in the effort.

When I did my rounds of P90X I was using a 100 pound test band to get the same resistance as if I were doing a pullup. I never committed to a full round with just pull-ups so with P90X3 I decide to commit to all pull-ups all the time. The result so far is an increase in my repetitions after just one week.

Now pushups are a different story, I can pump them out all day since I have what has been referred to as a “barrel chest” and thick arms I love the way the sets are laid out and now look forward to this workout.

The goal from the start is to pick two numbers, your first number is the total number of pull-ups you will do for each set throughout the workout and your second number is the same thing for your pushup sets. Last week I started out with 4-20 and to tell you the truth four was a bit of a reach. I felt great at the end of the workout and although I did not complete my repetitions consecutively on all sets I did meet my numbers for the entire workout.   

Today I not only completed my repetitions consecutively I completed additional repetitions as well. This showed me the improvement I have made so next week we bump the number up and I will work at meeting the goal of 6-25.

Everything in fitness is about setting goals and then smashing that goal so I will set one here and now, by the end of this program I want to complete this workout with a set number of 10-40 if and when I am able to do this I will know I have pushed myself as hard as I could have pushed.

Kathy Update; she is doing great, and working hard. After today’s workout she actually made the statement that the Challenge is her favorite workout so far.