Day 17 - Shoulders and Arms

I had a long work day again yesterday and I didn't finish up until about midnight. That was far too late to do strength training, so I just went to bed.Today, I seem to be having a similar time, but I was able to do my workout in fits and starts throughout the work process. It took me two hours to do the routine, but I got it done. I don't have anything going on tonight, so maybe I can make up Yoga this evening. Historically, that has not panned out, but I did miss doing it last week, so maybe I will get up the gumption to drop 90 minutes of my evening on it.

Day 16 - Plyometrics

The third round of plyometrics for this iteration of P90X was not too bad, but still not awesome. I did it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach again, figuring that would maximize my calorie burn. The workout is supposed to burn 700-900 calories, so if I have zero carbs in my stsem when I start, that should be a total fat burn. You have to weigh that sort of thing against how intense you can make your workout on a carb deficit, but I still seem to be hitting it pretty hard. I do suck down a recovery shake (not a P90X brand) immediately after the workout.

A friend of mine had some whey protein that he got sick of and he gave it to me. I've been using it for post workout and it is delicious. He had been using it for a year and suddenly got sick of it immediately after buying a 5lb canister. I had generally been using EAS Chocolate Pure Whey protein in my shakes and it was getting the job done, but this stuff is just plain good. It's Dymatize Berry Blast and I am a convert for now. I'm curious to find out if they make more flavors. My shakes consist of 8oz skim milk, 1 scoop of berry blast, 1 tsp (5g-ish) of creatine, and 1 tsp of table sugar. I know, I know. I should use some other form of sugar for my insulin spike, but I'm not going to research the ideal sugar and go buy something freaky. I have table sugar and it works. It's not the most efficient, but it's fine for me. Some people say the fructose portion of the disaccharide slows down the insulin spike but others say it doesn't. I'm lazily siding with the people who make my life easier in this regard.

Day 15 - Chest and Back

11:00pm and I just finished Chest and Back. Tomb Raider Anniversary was on sale used at Blockbuster for $5 for XBOX 360. Damnit. 6 hours. :)

Day 13 - Kenpo X

I opted to do Kenpo X this morning and do my regular Chest and Back workout this afternoon. I feel slightly better getting that workout in and not having another skip for last week. I still wish I had gotten the Yoga done.

Day 14 - Rest X

I was right. The trip was even longer than I thought. We got back home to NC very late. I spent the whole day doing all the stuff I planned on doing and then the entire afternoon at some sort of festival in Waynesboro. It was hot and humid and we walked eleventy miles around River Ridge Park (or something like that.) We got home really late and went right to bed. We all slept until about eleven and then we unloaded the furniture, rearranged our own furniture, and integrated the new stuff into our stuff. Taxing. I was going to make up Yoga or Kenpo today, but that just didn't happen, so it became a rest day.

Day 12 - Legs and Back

rouI did my legs and back workout in the morning knowing that I would be driving to Virginia this afternoon. If I had missed the workout this morning, it would have been a guaranteed skip because I won't get in until about 10pm. I'm not optimistic about Kenpo X tomorrow. I'll be staying at someone else's house and then getting up to do some DMV stuff and then load furniture onto a truck. After that festival of fun, I'll be driving back home. I may get to do Kenpo after I get home, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Day 11 - Yoga

Today I feel guilty about last night's indiscretion. Burke Street Pizza followed by Edy's ice cream does not build a strong, lithe body. I punished myself this morning by doing an unscheduled Cardio X. My workout today is Yoga, which actually burns quite a few calories, so I should be down by a lot after that combo, but I'll probably do something else tonight just to help me remember not to be a dumbass again.

Day 10 - Shoulders and Arms

This routine went by without much trouble. I made sure the weights were challenging for each exercise at 8 reps. There were a couple of them that I misjudged a little, but I just did 12 or 15 reps in those cases and I'll know to increase next time. On a bad note, mistakes were made later in the evening. Steph got me some ice cream. I ate more than I should have.

Day 9 - Plyometrics

Plyometrics again already? Wow. Today's plyo was really good. I'm getting a little mad about the fact that the puzzle mats I'm using won't stay together and the whole assemblage always rotates to the right and back while I'm exercising. I have to move the mat back to position after almost every set. It's still better than nothing, but I need to look at other options. Or glue and carpet tape. Not sure if that would help.

Day 8 - Chest and Back

Chest and Back was good today. It's amazing how straining an hour of push-ups and pull-ups can be. I'm still surprised by how my strength is improving on both exercises, although I wish my close grip pull-ups would get a little better. I get the lowest number on that exercise and I don't know if it's because it's the last one or because it's just that much harder. I also got an ab roller and a balance ball today, so I may be ready to start my ab routine.

Day 6 - Kenpo (Day7?)

I just finished up my Kenpo. I woke up late again - apparently I still needed some sleep catch-up, and filled myself with egg whites and toast and milk. After about an hour or two, I came down to "the gym" and did my Kenpo X workout. It was nice. It had been weeks since I had done Kenpo and I enjoyed it a lot. I got a copy of Tae Bo aerobic workout that I may throw in sometime during the next 90 days, but I'll stick to the Kenpo for awhile because it's fun and I know it really well now.

I didn't double up yesterday, so I'm gonna try to day. If I don't, all I really lose is the X Stretch, but I've only ever done it twice and I'd like to get into the habit of doing it weekly. I may try to talk my wife into doing it with me. She's due in 3 weeks, but she should be able to do mild hatha-style stretching.

Update: I didn't do my X Stretch.

Day 5 - Legs and Back

I slept until noon, which was awesome because I caught up on the sleep deprivation from on-call. I got up at a leisurely pace and puttered around the house for awhile. Eventually, I made my way to my gym (read...basement) and popped out the Legs and Back workout. I am continually amazed at how my pull-ups are getting easier and easier. It is nothing for me to do 60 - 80 pull-ups in a session. WTF? And the guys in the video are doing twice that. I imagine I will be eventually. At some point, I may be wearing a weighted belt while I do my pull-ups. I'm down with that.

It's possible I will do Kenpo tonight and get back on track so I can do X Stretch tomorrow, but we'll see...

Day 4 - Yoga

I missed a workout. !@#$%#@$%@#. I didn't want to, but I never had a chance to do it. I was so glad to give the pager up this morning at 8AM. This was easily the worst week I've had since I worked in the firewall group. I hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon. 14 hours of overtime is plenty, thank you. Anyway, since I already had 54 hours at 8AM today, I didn't have to work at all, so I logged off and did Yoga. It felt great. This was my best day of Yoga yet. The only thing I still have trouble with is the sequence after Warrior 3 and the standing splits. Other than that, it's cake. It's hard, but I can actually do it now.

I also tried my hand at Aikido tonight and I really enjoyed it. It was kind of a chaotic class because I was shown a sampling of a lot of stuff to catch my interest and it was just me, a friend who knew no Aikido either, and myself. It piqued my interest, so it may become part of my workout. I can also pay a flat $100 a month to take Judo, Aikido, Tai Chi, and Kundalini Yoga. Included in that price, my kids can take the kids' Judo class. That's tempting as hell.

Day 3 - Shoulders & Arms

I almost missed my workout today because of on-call. I swore I wouldn't miss a day this round, but on-call can really take you down a notch. I actually got paged at 7AM and I was supporting calls until well after midnight. I somehow managed to get my shoulders and arms workout in at 11:30pm while I was doing some stuff at work. I was connected via VPN and the stuff I was doing involved making a change and waiting a half hour to see if it worked. I had to do this 3 or 4 times, so it wasn't that hard to get the time. The difficulty was doing strength training at midnight when you've been up since 7AM and didn't sleep well before that. Anyway, I got it done. No ab workout again, but figure I'll work that in when I get my equipment for my alternate ab workout.