Celebrating! The ol' stroke-beaten, dystonia body has made it 3 weeks as of today. Three weeks, 6 days a week! A week from Monday I take my second set of pictures. That's a scary thought. LOL Anyway, it went great and I felt terrific afterwards. I think a lot has to do with not only my body slowly adjusting to the new schedule, but downing vitamins.
I'm taking:
- multi-vitamin
- calcium/magnesium/D-3
- CoQ10
- B12
- Vitamin C with rose hips
Anyway, it's helped me go from having to take a nap afterwards, to doing what I did today:
- Ride scooter in town to deliver AVON & pick up litter.
- Work in mom's garden, clearing & picking green beans & tomatoes.
- Clearing my garden.
- Hauling debris to the compost bin.
- Sanitizing the litterbox.
- Hand-washing my sleeping bag.
I'm impressed! : )
Have a great weekend everyone! See ya Sunday when we begin week 4 with sculpting!
I've been reading a book here lately called "Radical Simplicity." The guy talks about simplifying our lives, solitude and enjoying nature. The more I read, the more it intensified the longing to get back to Good Medicine Camp.
GMC is a spot on our hillside, not far up the ravine from the pond. I found a rare flat spot on the right that would allow me to pitch some form of shelter and watch wildlife making their way down to the pond.
With the aid of my boy scout handbook (1918) edition, I created various shelters with my big blue tarp and baling twine. My favourite was my tepee! You can see pictures of it here. Jeffie, Bindi & Squeeky loved it. They would play outside in the snow and run in to warm up by the fire. They would either curl up on the evergreen bows I'd dragged up from the yard or crawl onto my lap and keep my legs warm.
But, thanks to the coyote, wild dogs & the stupid neighbours dogs, we haven't made our daily trips in a couple years. It's become too dangerous to take the cats. Yeah, there's no limit to immediate escape routes, but I still worry when they go up there alone. Anyway, the cats miss those times and so do I. How do I know they miss it? Because every time I go near the barn, the 3 of them run for the lower pasture and look back to see if I'm coming.
So, now I'm looking at creating a hobbit hole on the front part of the hillside. I wanted a hobbit hole a couple years ago, but I think now I can pull it off. It's a great location and gives a full view of the valley. The grass & weeds are too high now, but come Fall I should get to work on it. Looking forward to posting pics when the work begins. : )
And if that falls through - there's always another tepee. : )
Moved up to phase 3 this morning just to see what it was like and how well I'd do. I did great! I think this is what I've been needing to do all along. I wasn't out of shape when I began P90, but my joints and that irritating right knee kept me doing the first two phases for 18 days. Phase 1 & 2 workouts will be perfect for those days that I just don't have it in me, so the dvds won't go on the shelf and get dusty. : ) Super stoked to get P90X. Two months to go and it's mine (iy"h)! : )
As for my body on this one. Blasting out the push ups naturally sent a bit of pain through me, but I think it was just a natural pain from the push ups themselves. Same with blasting out the squats. The difference came about a 45 minutes later when I was over at mom's. My quads suddenly spazed out on me and I was holding on for dear life. That pain I know very well! : )
Anyway, one more workout for the week and that's tomorrow. Using the fat burning vid again for cardio. Next week I'll start using the phase 3 dvd aerobics.
Until tomorrow- keep pushing play!
This week I'm changing the routine a bit. The regular cardio dvd is great, but not all that exciting. So, this week, I changed off and started using the "Power 90 Fat Burning System", which is an extra video in the set. I love it!!!! It's fun! It's exciting! It's just plan cool! AND! I get to use my medicine ball!
First of all, it's filmed in Hawaii, where the other video is in a plain room with a blue background & two assistants who look bored to death. P90 FBS dvd has a lot of happy people in the background who are really going at it. That's much more inspiring.
Any who, I'm going to stick with that one for cardio for at least another week. Then I'll use it once a week to break up the monotony. : )
So, excellent sweat-to-death workout. Can't wait till tomorrow. I'm going to try the next level up on sculpting just to see how it goes.
Today's bright side - I've lost 1/2" off my waist. : )
Last week was tough, between fatigue & a nasty sinus headache, I really struggled to get my workouts in. If I wasn't so determined not to miss a single day, I would have surrendered during the headache. But I'm proud of me for hanging in there and giving it the best I could. : )
On to today! Increased the dumbbell weights this week. Using my 10lb db's. Pushups are easier. Right knee still giving me fits, but adjusted the lunges today to compensate and it did wonders. Going back to using the bent exercise bike daily, it was the only thing strengthening that knee up.
Right elbow did pretty good today. If I pay more attention to placement & form it will help. Also adding my regular yoga dvd's to the routine a couple times a week and my P90 coach said I can use the other dvd that came with the set for a little mix up with aerobics. Probably using that one tomorrow for the fun of it. : )
All in all, excited to be starting week 3. : )
Workout done and gone! It was great. Kept a good pace so I didn't have to stop. Didn't feel like working out when I first got up. I was sore from the day before and tired. I didn't sleep much last night. Anyway, I'm proud of me for having at it. Can't wait till the end of the 90 days to order P90X. : )
Yesterday I finally signed up with the online program at beachbody. It's pretty cool. I also have a coach who contacted me last nite. That was pretty neat.
Anyway, lots to do today. We're under flood watch and I need to get the ditch cleared so the water doesn't pick up the debris and cause a jam in the old batman tunnel. : )
Until tomorrow - keep hitting play!
Awesome day! Lower back hurt really bad this morning, so I did 20 minutes of yoga zone power yoga before doing my P90 sculpt. Really loosened the back and arms up. I might continue doing yoga as a warm up to P90. The warm up on the P90 program isn't really enough to loosen me up to workout without problems. Yoga is the perfect solution.
Found out last night that my heart rate monitor has left a nasty heat rash. I was lathered in baby diaper rash ointment last nite. LOL The stuff works great. Can't wait till I'm healed up. The monitor is a must, so I've got to come up with a real solution to the problem.
Anyway, brilliant workout! Proud of me! : )
Today was awesome! Felt great and strong. Really surprised considering yesterday I didn't get to workout until about 7PM. That workout, btw, was absolutely awful. I had to hit pause a couple times and thought I'd bite the dust. Gave it my best though.
Today's excellent workout made up for the bad day. Need to watch my diet more. I'm not doing bad on it, but I could do better.
So glad shabbos starts in under an hour. It means I don't have to workout tomorrow. LOL
Today's workout was a killer. The last time I had to use the pause button was the first day of my adventure. But today was tough. I was tired, despite having gone to bed at a respectable time. I did great through the punching, but that was about it. I gave it my best though and really proud that I didn't give up. I'm determined this is going to work. The extra weight has to go so I can feel good again.
Right knee felt a little weird. Had to back off the right side kicks and not do as many.
Anyway, off to finish getting ready for Shabbos, and hopefully get a little cartooning in before lighting.
Tomorrow ends my first week of Power 90. I have yet to lose a single pound, but so what. Push-ups were much easier today, except for that one set where I couldn't push myself off the floor and I lay laughing because it reminded me of falling out of my wheelchair and not being able to get up. LOL (long pause) I don't miss that thing.
Anyway, it's been a good week. Tiring, but good. My body is having to adjust to a schedule it's not fond of, but it's learning. My right knee is a lot stronger than 5 days ago & I did lunges today with no problems. B"H.
Looking forward to tomorrows aerobic workout. But! I admit, I'm looking more forward to Shabbos. : )
Totally underestimated today's workout - and that's an understatement. When I watched the vid earlier it didn't look like the workout was going to be that big a deal. I watched and never winced once. Where every time I watched a Tae Bo Boot Camp vid, I winced through the entire thing. So, the Power 90 In-Home Boot Camp
sweat day was going to be nothing. Ha! The joke was on me.
I lost track how many times I had to hit the pause button because I was going at it too hard. Glad I was alone because it was beginning to get embarrassing.
Another shocker was it's the first time I had chest pains when working out. I slowed down considerably after that. Kinda freaked me out.
Any who, really liked the power yoga part & of course the "martial arts" part. Power yoga showed me how inflexible I've allowed myself to become again. Martial arts? Bang on. : )
Gave myself a 10 for today's workout. I gave it my best and learned a lot about the shape my body is in. I've obviously not been pushing hard enough in my own made-up workouts with my: total gym, gazelle, medicine ball and kettlebells. Wait! Correct that. Aerobically I haven't been going at it hard enough or at least not hard enough to keep up with the sweat vid for Power 90.
Also, left out what I learned yesterday about eating. Going back to the P90x chart to track my food, & eating 3 snacks/day, not 2. It should make a big difference & I won't overeat. : )
So, tomorrow's workout is back to sculpting. Note to self: Keep watching that form. Slow down. Focus. Breathe. : )
Day 1
Today was Day 1 of my Power 90 workout. Today was body sculpting. My weakness is push-ups. I hate them. I liked them in high school when I could do any push-up variation you could ask for, but that was many moons ago. : ) Anyway, I was able to keep up with everything but push-ups & my muscles started acting funny during triceps press, otherwise it was great. : )
On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give my diet a 4. I wasn't really that bad, I just decided I'd punish myself with a low score because I didn't fully hold to the diet. I kept snacking on dried bananas & dried cherries toward late afternoon. I couldn't figure out why I was so hungry until I remembered I'd taken a b12 pill. That explained everything. Tomorrow, I'll leave out the B12 & I'll score a 10!
Looking forward to day 2 - aerobics. : )
