Real Life Fitness – Getting Fit With Brent

P90X Legs and Back day….I used to dread this day.  And, in some aspects, I still do.  To me, this is the hardest workout in phase 1.  It’s intense, it burns a lot of calories, and usually leaves me shaky and gasping for air throughout the routine.  And today was no different.  My legs were a bit weary most of the day.

I’ve been using a pull-up assist that I got with the Insanity – The Asylum Deluxe kit.  Basically it gives you a bit of an assist getting up with 3 small resistance bands.  Today, I removed one of the bands to make the pull-ups harder.  I would do unassisted pull-ups, then do as many assisted as I could do on just two bands as possible.

Needless to say, my numbers were MUCH lower.  Well, not a lot, but 2-4 reps lower.  After the first round of pull-ups, I added back in the third band.  I was pretty toasted after the first round.  Great workout, though.  I think I’ll keep working to using less and less resistance with the assist to see if I can get my rep count up there.

Nutrition was pretty good today, minus that I do not think I ate enough, nor do I think I got enough veggies in today (which is not always good on a low carb diet).

Tomorrow is Kenpo day, should be fairly easy compared to the rest of this week!

Brent P90X P90X, p90x ab ripper x, p90x legs and back

Wow, 3 nights in a row of horrible sleep and P90X the next morning.  I had gone nearly all summer getting pretty good sleep, and then this.  Not a great way to start a ketosis diet and intense exercise (makes me crave carbs too much).

But, P90X called my name this morning, and I responded.  Did Ab Ripper first, since the legs workout is really intense….or at least, I make it that way.

I posted this on my Twitter and I 100% stick by it:  If you do P90X Legs and Back and you are not shaking towards the end of the workout, you didn’t push hard enough.  I barely had enough gas left in the tank to finish this one out.  Towards the end I could barely muster a pull-up, and the leg work had me nearly collapsing.  Week 1 of P90X again….ahh, gotta love the feeling!

So with one day in week 1 of P90X to go, the only thing I can think of is this:

NEED.  TO.  EAT.  MORE.

I’m already thinking through my grocery list for this next week.  More variety in meats.  More veggies.  More things to eat period.  I want to eat clean and have done 95% well this week.  But, I’m simply not taking in enough, so I have to be willing to eat more.  In particular, I plan on adding more protein shakes in.  Those seem to work well as extra calories that deliver some type of high nutrition.

So I’m putting it out there:  I will eat more!

Brent P90X P90X, p90x legs and back, p90x nutrition

I’m the first to admit when a day of P90X isn’t my best.  Today….wasn’t my best.   By far.

I woke up tired.  A 20 month old kicking you all night is not a good way to stay rested.  So everything felt off:  Ab Ripper was marginal, Legs and Back was just brutal.  The only bright spot of anything was my pull-up counts.  They were decent.  The leg work simply sucked, though, to be honest.

I know everyone says that enjoy your kids while they are young, they grow up so fast, yadda yadda yadda…but to be 100% honest, I’m just ready for them to be at the age to where they sleep.  In their bed, not in mine.  And they sleep all night.  All the time.

Nutrition today was good.  I rearranged things today to see how it would go.

Pre-workout:  1/2 banana, 1/2 tbsp PB
Post workout:  BB Results and Recovery Drink
Breakfast:  1 cup oatmeal with honey and cinnamon, protein shake
Snack:  1oz cashews
Lunch:  Shakeology
Snack:  4oz 1% cottage chese
Supper:  Pork Tenderloin w/ BBQ sauce, steamed veggies, pasta salad made with whole wheat, protein added noodles.

Hoping for more sleep tonight and a better day tomorrow with Kenpo.

Brent P90X, The Abs Diet P90X, p90x ab ripper x, p90x legs and back, The Abs Diet

Ahhh…my old nemisis:  P90X Legs and Back.  This was always my worst routine and my hardest.  But you know what, that was the past.  This is now, and I’ve made it a goal to make this routine better and better.

So today it started.  I think if I could get a better chair for balance lunges, I’d start out better.  The best chair I have for it is cushiony, so it makes holding a balance on that back foot difficult.

But the rest of the routine went well.  I held wall squats for quite a while.  I did most of the reps.  And I did not complain.

Still need to work on pull-ups, though….

Tomorrow, instead of Kenpo, I’m going to be doing something from Insanity.  My friends on Facebook got the chance to pick for me, but it ended up in a tie of those who responded.  My wife is planning on joining me for it, so we do not know which one we are going to do yet.  Stay tuned…

Brent P90X P90X, p90x ab ripper x, p90x legs and back

Playing catch-up yet again on posting, one of these days I’ll stay caught up!

Friday was Legs And Back and Ab Ripper X. I backed my calories back down to “2400″ (Level 2) but I have a feeling it is a bit too few. I felt weak during most of the routine. I pushed hard through it but it just wasn’t in me. I was not sure if it was the lack of rest from this week that contributed or all nutrition.

Ab Ripper was good, fairly good, though. I am getting through most of the routine now, minus just a couple of moves. The first three are always toughest on Legs and Back day.

Saturday was Kenpo X. I’ll admit I ate off the diet Friday night (way off the diet….Pizza). So I knew I needed to push extra hard. I burned 882 calories in the 58 minutes, so not a bad push.

I think this week I am going to work on ramping up the nutrition a bit, adding 100 -200 calories and see how I feel during the resistance workouts. Today is my rest day (day 35) and I did add 100 more, so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Brent P90X P90X, p90x ab ripper x, p90x legs and back, P90X-Diet

I’m a bit behind on blogging, so I’m combining the last few days of P90X workouts into one post.

Day 33 (Friday) was P90X Legs and Back and Ab Ripper X.  I was concerned that I did not push myself well on legs and back until my glutes were really, really sore later that evening.  Ab Ripper is always a challenge after L&B due to your hip flexors getting a major workout.  I’m proud that I’m able to do more of the exercises in Ab Ripper and working to get better.

Day 34 (Saturday) was P90X Kenpo X.  The first third of Kenpo I can get my heart rate up.  After that I have a hard time getting any more intensity to get my HR up in the upper 140′s/lower 150′s.  Not sure what the deal is but I’m going to have to push harder in this routine to get where I want to be.

Today is day 35, a rest day.

Phase 2 diet is getting better, although after some research I’ve done I need to start varying what I eat more on a daily basis.  My typical menu has a calorie deficit of around 300-400 calories, and doing that everyday may slow my progress.  Today is my shopping day, so I’m working on getting a variety of things for this week.

Brent P90X P90X, p90x ab ripper x, p90x kenpo, p90x legs and back, P90X-Diet

P90X today was Yoga X for me.  It started out really, really bad.  Not sure what the deal was, but I was off balance during the easy stuff.  The vinyasas did not feel right and nothing felt right.  It was an off morning.  I took out one 11 minute section of it because it deals more with balancing which I knew I would not be able to handle this morning.

Needless to say, it was a struggle.  I made it through around 75-80 minutes of the 90 minute routine.  Yoga is not supposed to feel like this or be this much of a struggle (hard, yes, but not a struggle).

So I’m looking forward to P90X Legs and Back tomorrow (along with Ab Ripper, of course) to break out of the funk of today.  I’ve been icing my knee as a precautionary move.

Doing a lot of research on the diet plan during this phase.  I notice that a lot of people’s major muscle gains/fat loses come during this 4 weeks.  So far, though, myself and several others in our group on the P90X look and feel as if we are bloated.  This may be due to the change going from 1 carb serving to 3 carb servings per day.

The only cure for this (in my mind) is stick to the diet and push really hard in every exercise, going to near exhaustion on every rep and keeping the heart rate in the zone at all tims during cardio routines.

I’m still debating adding Cardio X or another form of cardio on resistance days.  My only hesitation comes from giving the body enough time to rest before waking up to another cardio routine.

There is a tennis tournament coming up the first of May that I’m considering playing in for the sake of it.  It’ll be interesting seeing conditioning if I decide to do so.

Brent P90X P90X, p90x diet phase 2, p90x legs and back, p90x yoga x

P90X Day 19 for me is Legs and Back and Ab Ripper X.  If you remember I said I was sick during Yoga so I was heading to bed early, taking on another carb, and going to see how this workout went.

I can say that it went very well!

In fact, I was able to push more in Ab Ripper after an intense leg workout.  I’m getting better and better at this routine and believe here in a few weeks I’ll do all 25 reps on all exercises.

Tonight we went out for dinner.  I had to consume a lot of protein in order to get close (was only at 4 or 5 for the day up until dinner), so I opted for red meat.  I’m trying to limit the amount of steak I have and if I have ground red meat, I usually buy 96% lean or better.

I was supposed to grill steak today for my mother-in-law’s birthday, but I’m going to opt for chicken instead.  Red meat is rich in protein, but also very rich in fat.

Kenpo X in the morning, but I’m sleeping in a bit to try to finish knocking off this persistent cold (not feeling bad now, just have the scratchy throat and sinus mess still).

Brent P90X ab ripper x, P90X, p90x exercies, p90x legs and back, P90X-Diet

I learned a lot about P90X this week.  In particular, I learned a LOT about it last night as I did Legs and Back and Ab Ripper X:

1.  If you think the diet is not important, think again.  Not being able to handle the diet properly over the last few days had me feeling drained last night.  Reps were down, I was exhausting easily, and really felt like the exercises did not go well.

2.  Don’t try to do the exercises if you are not feeling well.

3.  Don’t do them late at night if you have been up all day.

I “did” the routine but my pull-up reps were really, really low compared to last week.  I pushed myself but just was too tired and drained to get enough reps in.

If you are used to eating very well and then don’t, it really does have an effect on you, and that is exactly what I’m feeling right now.  Today I have to go shopping and purchase stuff for the diet, and I’m THRILLED to get back on it!  Sounds weird (and most people would never say this about a diet), but I missed eating well.  I felt better, I had more energy, and I performed better.

Today is Day 14, and based on illness, illness with kids in my house, and the fact that I need to use today to get 3k calories in, it will be a rest day.  I really need to do the X Stretch, but want to get my throat to feeling better and get back to 100% for tomorrow.

One more week until my first P90X recovery week.

Brent P90X eating clean, P90X, p90x legs and back, P90X-Diet