I guess it's my turn

No no... unlike my slouch of a brother I'm not dropping P90X ;) Actually, he's not really dropping it - I'll be addressing that in this post. However, I did think it was time for an update so people know where I've disappeared to. Apparently Muddy and I have been running into the same problems, and our solutions are pretty similar.

Alright, so where have I been? Working, heh. Yeah yeah, it's the typical excuse, but I really have. The past couple of weeks have been insane. First off, as I've probably said a few times I'm switching jobs in September, so I've been spending a lot of time getting ready for that. We've had to spend a good bit of time to determine who will be taking over for me, and while the decision wasn't mine it did take up some of my time. This past week we also were hosting a national instructor certification at my training facility, so that took up time because I wound up teaching on a few of the days. While teaching students can be draining, teaching instructors is worse because it takes a lot more brain power. Your job is to give them everything they need to prepare them for teaching their own students, so you have to be 100% on the ball.

To top it all off, on Saturday I threw out my back - badly. I was teaching my kids and doing some self-defenses with them, and it aggravated my back. I should know better by now not to go hard on them without warming up first, but that's neither here nor there. I went home, plopped myself down on the couch and decided to relax with my Xbox. After about 2 hours I stood up and *WHAM* the pain hit me like a ton of bricks. I've historically had problems with my lower back so it was nothing new, but when I went to stretch it out something in my lower back popped in a very gruesome, cartilage grinding on bone, kind of way. I collapsed to the ground screaming many obscenities and then managed to get back on my feet after a few minutes. Lets just say I didn't work out on Saturday.

Sunday I spent most of the day sleeping in a drug induced haze or lying on the floor with an ice pack. I was able to get to the chiropractor today, but I did enough of a number on my back that I probably won't be doing much until at least Friday. So basically this entire week (which should be week 3 of Phase III) completely out. Add to that minimal workouts in Week 1 and Week 2 and this month has sucked. However, there are some positives.

First off, to go back to my comment about Muddy, he's not a slouch :) He's actually doing exactly what we had discussed when we started this. He knew that he wasn't going to adhere to P90X for the rest of his life because 1) time is tough with a family and work and sometimes you're going to miss workouts and 2) he doesn't like some of the workouts (i.e. 90 minutes of Yoga hell). However, what he is doing is sticking to the diet, making his own routine out of the workouts he likes, and sticking to a healthy way of life. More than anything I'm uber-proud of my big bro because he went from doing nothing to completely changing things around. He looks friggin' awesome, and I'm excited that he's going to continue to stay in shape. The most important goal - the healthy lifestyle - is the one that he's achieved. Now that he knows what to do he's stubborn enough to stick to it, heh.

As for me, well, come next week I'm going to completely repeat Phase III. While I've fallen well behind of the 90 day mark, I haven't come this far not to complete the program. It might be closer to P120X, but hey, I'm going to finish. My plan was always to continue after finishing anyway, so the most important part is that I continue eating properly and put together a workout regimen that I'm going to stick to.

On the ultimate plus side, despite not doing well for what is going to be three weeks, I still look pretty good! Since leaning out and discovering that I have abs, I have admittedly gotten very vain and I look in the mirror every day to see how I'm doing. While I don't look much different than my pics from a few weeks ago, more importantly I haven't gone backwards. That's definitely a testament to eating well (err... mostly well) and having built a solid base. I've probably gained back a few pounds of softness, but that will melt away as soon as I hit the weights again. So really I look at it as nothing lost, nothing gained. I've just stalled for the past few weeks because of life.

Like I said in one of my posts a little while ago, the true test of P90X is being able to continue this for the long haul. I've never been a gym rat, and I know I'll never become one. I would like to say that I'm going to work out 6 days per week for the rest of my life, but the reality is that there's no way that can happen. The new job I'm switching to will just not allow that (the hours will be long and I will be traveling a lot), but I've learned a lot because of P90X. I know how to eat right no matter where I go, I have great workout routines that I can do almost anywhere, and I now care enough about my body to not allow myself to go back to where I came from. Monday will begin (again) Phase 3, and I'm looking forward to finishing this.

Come September my life is going to turn upside down, but the good part is that PT is going to be part of daily living for the next 7 months, so I know I'll be able to keep up with what I've done this summer. Even though I haven't finished yet, I will finally tuck my tail between my legs and say, "Thank you Tony." Yes, you heard it - Tony Horton is the man. I'll even say that he's moved out of the douchebag category. However, I'll still be using the "Silent with Cues" version of the workouts :)
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