When Desire Becomes Commitment
Beachbody says it in three words. Decide. Commit. Succeed. I often substitute the word decide with the word desire. I think this is because I’ve decided many things in my life, but I haven’t followed through. I think about how desire turns to commitment and ultimately success.
I’ve been thinking about different events in my life this week and what happened when desire turned into commitment. Like many 18 year olds leaving home for college, I felt stranded without the family car that had taken me through my high school days. I decided that I would get my own car. Not a big deal, right?
I was working three part-time jobs and getting the hang of my full-time “job” as a freshman. My aunt had a Datson 210B that she wanted to sell for $2500. Perfect! What a steal! Without much research beyond my emotion, I applied for a used car loan and bought the car. Yippeee! (By the way, when would I have time to drive a car?)…read more
Ramping It Up: Slim in 6 vs. P90X
I attacked Debbie Siebers Slim in 6 Ramp It Up workout yesterday for the first time. It was longer than the first workout, Start It Up and built upon the basic moves demonstrated in the first workout. 
I was amazed at the muscle soreness I was feeling during the workout in my triceps, glutes, and abs. These are three areas most women want to tone up, myself included. Debbie Siebers does a good job going right to the trouble areas, but she hits all the muscle groups systematically with the goal of getting slim in 6 weeks.
Hitting all the muscle groups everyday is a major change for me. Tony Horton’s P90X Extreme Training System is based on classic weight training principles…lift the maximum amount of weight that you can for 8-10 reps to gain muscle size or a weight you can lift for 10-12 reps if you’re wanting to tone without increased muscle size. Whether you choose to work in the shorter or longer rep range, you’re trying to use a heavy enough weight to challenge you during the last couple of reps. P90X works through two to three muscle groups during a typical workout and allows for rest days before working that muscle group again…read more
P90X Fitness Results
I just finished updating my stats and my fitness goals on my fitness tracker. It’s amazing to see how far I’ve come in just 90 days of P90X. I didn’t go for the “ripped” hardbody look. I wanted to tone up and fit in my clothes without having the “skinny” look. I receive compliments almost daily since I’ve toned up and dropped a few pounds. It feels great. I feel great!
The fitness tracker is one of the free tools I get to use as a Beachbody Club member. And, since I’m starting a new program tomorrow with new fitness goals, I used the calorie calculator to help me set up my nutrition plan. I want to drop 15 pounds and trim my thighs by three inches over the next six weeks. Now, I have my fitness program selected (Slim in 6) and my calorie intake targeted for weight loss. I can hardly wait to publish the results from my new set of goals.
Lost 10 Pounds
Lost 4 inches around my waist
Lost 2 inches around my chest
Lost 2 inches around my hips
Reduce my body fat from 24% to 16%
Increased my max push ups from 12 to 30
Increased my verticle leam by 3 inches
Increased my toe touch by 5.5 inches
Increased my max In and Outs ab reps from 25 to 60
It’s been an amazing journey. What are your fitness goals? Decide. Commit. Succeed. It works.
My Weight Loss Turning Point
I’m not an expert on the science of losing weight. Like most Americans, my experience with weight loss is up and down with my most successful weight loss episodes coming during hard times when I found myself depressed and just didn’t eat. I tried the South Beach Diet, the Peanut Butter Diet, Bill Phillip’s “Fit for Life,” and every new thing published by popular magazines like Prevention and Woman’s Day.
I was envious of the metabolism and muscle building capability of the male anatomy. It seemed like women had to work twice as hard and eat half as much to strengthen, tone, and lose weight. Like many women, I struggled with weight gain in my hips, thighs, and waist.
In my first post, I talked about how the P90X Extreme Training System helped me find what was missing in my fitness routine, namely consistency. As my 90 day program comes to an end, I find I’ve learned something else through this program. Weight loss is about consistency in both exercise and diet.
Maintaining a healthy weight and living a fit lifestyle requires desire and commitment. If you’re experiencing problems with weight, chances are your relationship with food may be part of the problem. I love the commercial that shows the happy Leave It to Beaver type family sitting down to dinner. Mom brings out a baked potato for Dad that has a whole stick of butter sticking straight up out of it. Of course I cringe every time I see that commercial, but that’s only because of what I know about nutrition now.
When I was growing up, everyone ate butter on all their vegetables. We ate a lot of carbohydrates (once called starches), flavored things with lard, and loved red meat. Our idea of having a bowl of ice-cream was to scoop out about a fourth of a half gallon container, add chocolate, whip cream, and nuts! Mmmm.
We’ve learned so much about nutrition as a nation over the last twenty-five years and yet, our nation is plagued with obesity and weight related disease. Here’s what I want to share about nutrition:
1. You can change your eating habits one small change at a time.
2. You must actively seek out information on nutrition – become a student of nutrition. Think of food as
fuel for your body.
3. No matter what you eat, you must know and only eat a nutritionally acceptable portion size.
Ok. So if nutrition is so important, why don’t diets work? The other half of the equation is moving your body. Yes, you’ve got to get some type of exercise to burn off the calories you’re taking in. Even if you ate the perfect amount of calories to sustain your current weight, exercise is a necessary component of a healthy and fit lifestyle. Did you know that if you took in just an extra 90 calories per day (the amount in one cup of skim milk) that you will gain over nine pounds in a year?
You’ve probably heard that muscle burns fat and that muscle weighs more than fat and thus takes up less space. Your metabolism goes up when your muscle mass goes up. This means you will burn more calories during the course of a day doing nothing other than your normal body functions. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you’ve got to replace fat with muscle.
Our caloric intake and expenditure requires a delicate balance. During the first 60 days of P90X, I was losing inches and building muscle. I was eating about 600 calories a day more than was required for my basic metabolic processes. I learned that it was critical for me to workout when I was taking in these extra 600 calories or I could actually gain weight.
After feeling better about the intense workouts I was doing, I wanted to lose a few pounds. What could I do? I really couldn’t increase the frequency or intensity of my exercise routine. After all, Tony Horton was already kicking my butt!
I went to the Beachbody Club website to learn what I could about weight loss. I found a cool calculator that takes into consideration three things: gender, current weight, and my activity level. I entered my gender and weight. Then, I selected the P90X program. I learned that I needed to trim my eating plan by 800 calories per day to start seeing weight loss. I did that and the pounds started to melt away.
Girls, not all charts are made the same. The gender variance made a big difference for me. I’m so glad that I found this tool. It’s one of the weight loss tools available to you as a club member. It was a turning point for me. I was so excited about it that I wanted to share this turning point with my readers…another little nugget from Just Get Me Fit.
