The morning came quickly. I'd love to say I popped out of bed and ran for the first DVD, but that wasn't the case. I woke up after my wife Meghan got up, grabbed my iPhone as I always do. Checked e-mail. Read some news. Looked at the weather. Was I stalling? I didn't feel that sense of anticipation that kept me up so late last night. I started to worry that I was going to struggle getting motivated, and I hadn't even started the first workout! So I slowly rolled out of bed and muttered the old Nike slogan to myself as my feet hit the floor. I put some workout shorts on, including my trusty yellow Long Beach Island t-shirt.
[Stepping onto my soap box. Feel free to skip this paragraph!] You know how they have all those "dry fit" type sport shirts? Yeah, those. They suck. Sweat doesn't evaporate instantly. When you're a big guy you need something to soak up the sweat, so it doesn't just pool on your skin. I have a whole bunch of those shirts if anyone wants them. Size XL of course. No, I'll stick with my cotton t-shirts. They don't itch. They soak up the sweat. And you look tough at the end of a workout because you see exactly how much you've been sweating. I work out indoors, so I'm not worried about the downside of sweating in a cotton shirt in the cold outdoors. If I could wear a sponge, I would. [Stepping off my soapbox!]
I grabbed a bottle of water, thinking I would only need one (ha!) and proceeded to the basement, where my son's Xbox setup is doing double-duty as my workout area. It's carpeted, and there's a decent TV, but the ceilings are only 7' high (which I later learned will require some minor modification to some of the exercises). I grabbed the postcard-sized cheat sheet for the Fit Test that I'm supposed to write down the number of reps I do for each of the 8 movements. I would be doing each movement for 60 seconds. So how hard can today really be? It's only 8 minutes of actual exercise, right?
It started with a "warm-up", a very misleading and apparently misused term used to describe a high intensity aerobic workout lasting only four and a half minutes. I was already tired by the end of it, but I kept up. That was followed by several minutes of stretching that, after the [ahem] "warm-up" wasn't bad. I took all of this very seriously since I knew this was one of the keys to avoiding injury.
Time for the first Fit Test. The first movement was something called "Switch Kicks" that basically consist of hopping on alternating legs while kicking your either leg as high as possible. Your hands are in front of you like a boxer. One rep equals two kicks (one for each leg), and I completed 57 reps, which I thought was pretty good. I was already starting to feel that out of breath, constricted lungs and tight chest feeling, but I was okay. I went to record my reps on the card and the pencil tip broke. I didn't realize I was already that strong. Impressive! A quick pause of the DVD, run to the pencil sharpener upstairs, and I was back in business.
I won't bore you by going through each of the movements in detail, but they were called Power Jacks, Power Knees, Power Jumps, Globe Jumps (they suck), Suicide Jumps (they suck more), Push-Up Jacks and Low Plank Obliques (which I found to be the easiest movement, so I was probably doing them wrong). There was a 30 second rest period between the first few, then it went to 60 seconds, then 90, then 2 full minutes towards the end. All in all, it was about a 40-minute workout. So much for 8 minutes! The hardest part was having so little rest between movements. I'll admit I had to pause the DVD a few times to drink some water and walk off my exhaustion, but didn't delay more than a minute or so.
My results are below, and I'll be honest, I don't know if they are good or not. It doesn't really matter. They're my baseline, whatever it is, and that's my starting point.
Today clearly wasn't about getting in shape. It was just about proving that I'm not. It gives me a baseline to work towards a goal from. And my goal isn't a specific number. It's simply improvement. I'll be retaking this Fit Test every two weeks. Yay me!
In the end, I felt exhausted but very happy that I made it through. As I type this, about 7 hours later, I can tell that I'm going to be sore. EVERYWHERE. My armpits hurt! WTF? I suspect tomorrow will be much worse, both from a soreness perspective, and from a difficulty perspective.
After the workout I immediately made one of the P90X recovery formula drinks that I bought. It's basically a bunch of vitamins and protein to help my muscles recover. Those who know me know that I'm not big into supplements. If you eat healthy, I don't think they're necessary. But so many reviews seemed to indicate they helped with recovery, and with this being as intense as it is, six days a week, I'll give it a shot.
Finally, as for healthy eating, I've gotten a lot of good advice from people I trust who are in much better shape than me. I think everyone needs to find what works for them, and the one thing I know about myself is that if I deprive myself of everything I like, I'll never make it. So my diet goal is pretty simple. I'm going to target 2200 calories a day that is generally high in protein and lower in fat, plus I'm going to limit alcohol consumption. I don't have a sweet tooth so aside from natural sugars found in fruit, I just don't have the temptation. I'm not going outright "ban" anything. For me at least, that's a recipe for failure. And I don't think a small amount of anything is a bad thing. As they say, it's all about moderation. Smaller, but more frequent meals. No grazing. No late night french bread pizza (Mmmmmm). And lots and lots of water. I ate an entire cucumber this afternoon, which is kind of weird but it filled me up.
So that's it for Day 1. I should sleep well tonight! Here are my results and what I looked like after the workout. Note the cotton t-shirt!
Why does my finger look like a big sausage link with strings tied around it?
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