KEMPO X!!

My neck is feeling much better today. Although my neck is still sore, I am able to move my head and neck more freely than I was able to yesterday. That meant I could push hard again =D

Today we slept in and didn't even hear the alarm clock go off. The kiddos woke up at 6:30 and knocked on our door wondering why we were not in the garage working out. Isn't that awesome!! Even our kids are making sure we work out now, I love it!

We waited until the afternoon to do our workout since it's harder when all three kids are around. Of course the downside to working out in the afternoons now is that it is warmer later on in the day. Anyway, enough about that. On to our workout.

As I mentioned we did Kempo X. We love Kempo X and we tend to push harder and harder each time. We can do all the jumping jacks at their pace. It is good to see that we are getting better at keeping their pace in most of the exercises.

Toward the end of the workout we do a series of exercises that require us to get down on horse stances. I don't know why I love horse stances so much. They are so difficult for me to maintain in good form. Since Tom has martial arts background I follow his stance. He can get pretty low on his stances and is impressive for me to see him do the exercises.

Although my stances are not as low as they should be, they are improving each time I do them and I am feeling stronger. We will take pictures and post some as we go on with the workouts so you can see what I'm talking about.

Tomorrow we will do our favorite workout of recovery week, Stretch X. Although right now we don't remember what the moves are, what has lingered from last time is how wonderful we felt after doing Stretch X. Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted =D.

RECOVERY WEEK!!!!

So we finished last week with legs and back on Friday and Kempo X on Saturday. This week we started our recovery week. How is that going? Well, Monday we started with Yoga X. Really? more yoga? Y'all know how we feel about Yoga by now. We are still chugging along and are seeing improvements in our poses. Which makes it better for us.

So, Monday we did Yoga X. It was hard to clear our minds on that day to concentrate on the poses. We pushed hard and did our best. We are amazed at how each time we do Yoga, even though we don't love it, we see improvement. Yes, every single time! Even if it's just holding a pose for the first time, or holding a different pose for a few more seconds than the last time. This of course is encouraging for us and helps us keep going.

Yesterday we continued our week with Core Synergistics. We woke up pretty early and I could not move my neck. I had a horrible krick on my neck that didn't allow me to move my neck very much. I could not turn to look to the left side unless I turned my body. It was hurting SO bad that we had to postpone doing Core Synergistics until I felt better.

I took some Motrin and kept tilting my head little by little until I was able to move it enough to work out. Wow!! I had forgotten how tiring and hard core synergistics is. We worked hard and succeeded in finishing the workout. We will be doing it again on Friday so we will keep you posted. Our next workout is Kempo X. Woot woot!!!

YOGA THURSDAY!!!...WOO HOO!!

If we pretend to be excited about Yoga X, will it be less boring?  I've heard it said many times that it is all about attitude. If you have a positive attitude you are able to face tasks without much trouble and have a positive outcome. If your attitude is negative you will struggle through your task. With that in mind we got up early and went to work out.

We did our best, since that is all we can do, and hoped for the best. In previous postings I've mentioned how the first 45 minutes are always the hardest for us. It is too many chaturangas, downward dogs, etc. Too many push ups if you ask me.

Anyway, we pushed on and finally completed the first 45 minutes! Then it was on to the last 45 minutes, which are not as torturous as the first (for us anyway). I know I complain too much about Yoga, but I can see improvement. Take Tom for example, he was able to hold crane a little longer than last week.

Isn't he a stud! This was as he was coming out of it, you can see that his toes have not reached the floor yet and his face if serious with concentration.

My stretches are also getting better and I was able to do wheel for a few seconds today. I used to be able to do it just fine. Now I struggle with it. My goal is to be able to do wheel and hold it for the whole time required.

Another exercise we've struggled with is the one where you stand on one leg and lift the opposite leg forward and go into toe lock. I don't remember what it's called but this is what it looks like.

Again, I am so impressed with Tom's improvement. They say females are more limber than men are, but I cannot do this pose yet. Look at Tom's facial expression, total calmness. I tell you, he's a stud!!!

He is still working on keeping both legs straight while I work on not stumbling all over the place. Next week we'll report on our improvements in Yoga. In the mean time stay tuned for our update on Legs and Back tomorrow =D



WOOT WOOT!!!

Today was a good day. Well... almost. Tom was feeling better last night but this morning he woke up not feeling as well. He still pushed hard and I feel so proud of him for doing so.

Today we did Shoulders and Arms. This is the other day I look forward to for the first 3 weeks. I love working my arms and I am starting to see some growth in my arm muscles. Tom's muscles are also getting bigger and you can see more definition in the arms. Not to brag or anything, but he is looking HOT! (hotter! because he was already hot =D)

Anyway, Tom pushed even though he was feeling sick. I tried to do a couple of the exercises with heavier weights. It worked because I am now feeling sore, a good sore of course. Tom did his best and I think he pushed too hard at times that he got sick. Poor Tom =(

During Ab Ripper X Tom did not feel good at all and he laid on his mat and tried to do a couple of the exercises but could not. He still wants to keep pushing but for now I think he should listen to his body. Feel better Love.

I had a goal to reach and I pushed as hard as I could. My goal has been to reach 300 on the 349 exercises they do total. As you may know, Friday I got really close and then Monday came and I was still close but not as close. I am happy to report that today I hit 311!!!! Woot woot! I was so happy but was sad that I could not celebrate it with my hubby. Friday will be another day and we hope both of us will be able to celebrate together breaking 300.

Tomorrow I will report on Yoga X, I hate it! but I... don't love it yet ;-D

TUESDAY IS PLYOMETRICS DAY, WOO HOO!!!

Tuesday is one of my favorite 3 days of the week for the first 3 weeks. I love doing Plyometrics. It is a lot of jumping and hopping around and it makes me sweat like crazy. I normally don't sweat very easily. I have worked my butt off many times and I do sweat but it's never like some people who have beads of sweat dripping off their noses. For me, I get very red and my shirt will be wet from working out, but I don't drip from my face.

This workout makes me sweat and I still don't drip but I do feel my face getting wet and keep wiping my face often. I LOVE it!!! Tom is always dripping. He starts dripping in the warm up.

The exercises we struggle with most are the Mary Catherines, SUPER STAR!!! We can't help it, we yell it each time. I have to do the modified version which is without the jump switch. The other one is the hot foot. We were so proud of each other today since we were able to finish the whole minute of hopping on one foot, thirty seconds on each foot. It felt great!!

When we were done the cool down felt great. I keep telling Tom to not skip the cool down but he doesn't always do it. Today when I did the cool down I noticed that I was able to stretch more than before. Here is a picture of the cool down stretch that I did and made me feel great!

With this stretch you open your legs wide and breathe in with arms up and exhale arms down. You then fold your arms and relax. I think I relaxed too much since my elbows are actually touching the floor. It felt great to be able to touch the floor while keeping my legs straight. Woot woot!!

I just wish my children would stay in bed longer. We have tried putting them to bed later and they still wake up pretty early. Oh well, at least they join in the fun =D. Tomorrow is the day when I will push to get 300 stomach exercises.  Let's do this!!



BYE, BYE CHEST AND BACK...

Well, not forever, just for a few weeks. Yesterday was our last workout of Chest and Back, for now. If you thought this routine was killer, HA! you haven't seen killer yet. I am looking forward to pushing harder, but at the same time I remember dying with the new routine last year when we did it. Of course we'll keep you posted =D

Tom was still not feeling well yesterday so it was easier for me to almost match his reps. Yes, I still can't match him, but I got very close. Again, I have to use the chair when I do the pull ups and chin ups but hopefully that will change soon.

I was really happy though because yesterday I did all real push ups instead of the girl ones. I don't think they should call them girl push ups though. I'm sure there are men who do push ups on their knees out there somewhere. Let's call them what they are, assisted push ups =D.

We then went on to doing Ab ripper X. I gotta say that when I did my totals I had mixed feelings. I worked harder at doing more reps of the exercises I struggle with most that I did not realize that I did not complete all of the ones I don't struggle with as much as the others. I by no means do any without trouble because each one makes me sweat. My total was 292 and I was feeling bumbed until I saw what my daughter was doing while we were working out. I won't spoil it for you. You can see for yourselves.

I guess she was feeling hungry at 6:30 in the morning and she could not wait for us to finish our workout to feed her. She can fend for herself. I just gotta teach her to make better choices. Oh yeah, we were out of bananas or she would've been all over those =D

Dad of course is very helpful and cleaned her right up. How? see for yourselves.

Aww, so helpful. The vaccum? Really?! Well, at least he got her clean =D



FORGIVE US TONY FOR WE HAVE SINNED...

On Friday Tom had to go stay at his parents' home because Saturday morning he had a final exam to take. We worked out Friday morning and planned on doing Kempo on Saturday afternoon when he got home. That unfortunatelly did not happen. He got home too late in the afternoon and came home not feeling well. We kept puting it off and night time came and we still hadn't worked out.

We had company in the evening and thought about working out after they left. We didn't, not because we didn't have time, but because we were just not feeling it. Tom still didn't feel well and I didn't want to work out on my own. Do you now see why we HAVE to work out first thing in the morning?

Sorry Tony, we feel bad =( Especially since Kempo X is our favorite workout of the week. Monday we will bring it and push ourselves extra, extra hard.

On a happier note... I signed up to run a 5k next month! It will be my first one ever! I have been wanting to do one since starting on the "Couch to 5k" program.

The nice thing is that I will not be doing it by myself. I will be running it with some ladies from the church's Relief Society. It will be next month after my birthday =D Isn't May such a wonderful month? So this is all I have to report for now. Tomorrow we will bring it again and start week 3. Feel free to chastise us for slacking off ={ Lol.

SOOOOO CLOSE!!!...

Yesterday we did Yoga X. We did much better than last week. How so? We didn't whine about it as much. Hey, to us that is improvement =D. We also improved in other areas too. We were able to hold some of the poses longer than last week and we did more of the repetitions.

Our biggest accomplishment was doing all the poses for the first 40 minutes. We were SO close to finishing the first 45 minutes, which to us are the hardest. It was the last five minutes of the first half that got us =( We are not giving up and next week we'll push harder.

Today we did Legs and Back. If you were walking by our house this morning at 6am and you heard screaming, those were our legs! Wow, what a workout!! Or it might have been Tom and I screaming too.

This week we focused on having good posture as we did the exercises. If we don't hold good form then the exercises might not give us the right results. I still have to use a chair for the chin ups and pull ups. I really, really, really want to be able to do one, just one, unassisted. I'll keep trying and hope for the best, after all, it's only been 2 weeks.

So which exercises killed us today? The wall squats, the single leg squats, and the chair salutations. They killed us because those are exercises where you hold the pose for a certain amount of time. You really feel it in your legs and they start to shake. We can't complain too much since this week we did better than last.

After we were done we did the Ab ripper X. Both Tom and I set a goal in our minds of how many total stomach exercises we wanted to complete. For me I wanted to do at least, 300. For Tom, over 300. What a stud, I don't remember how many he did total but it was well over 300. For me... 299! I was sooooo close!! Oh well, Monday will be my day. I can feel it.

Tomorrow we'll keep bringing it with Kempo X!! Yay yaah!

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (DISCOURAGED)... THAT IS MY QUESTION...

One of the reasons why I decided to lose weight before doing P90X was because, last time I gained weight before I lost weight. This seems normal for me whenever I do any type of exercise. It frustrates me because although I tell people "don't pay attention to the number on the scale", I can't seem to be able to follow my own advice. We took our measurements and our weight and I gained weight.

Should I feel frustrated because of it? Well, I didn't want to be frustrated but I gained 1 inch around my waist and lost 2 inches off my chest. HELLO!!! I'm already flat enough as it is. If I lose any more there I won't even have mosquito bites!! Sorry I know TMI, just frustrating to me when I lose weight in places I don't want to lose.

We are still pushing play and are still pushing ourselves. I am trying to not let this bother me since it is what happens to me usually. Last time we only took measurements and weight every 30 days and this time we are going to do it every week.

With that said, today we did Shoulders and Arms workout. I am using 10lbs weights for most of the exercises and then use 5lbs. weights on others. It was nice to compare my numbers from last week and see improvement. Even if it is only 1 or 2 more reps than last week.

Afterwards we did the Ab Ripper X and we pushed ourselves even harder. Mr. Incredible was doing so many reps it was hard for me to keep up with him. We are still very competitive and this time although I did more stomach exercises than last week, a total of 275! I still was not able to match Tom. He is such a stud! I know he is a man and therefore stronger, blah, blah, blah. I want to push myself harder though. I want to be at least close behind if not right there next to him in reps. Anyway, that is all for now. As before, it helps me to vent. I feel better now. Tomorrow is Yoga Dread, I mean X. Bring it!

WIGGLE THOSE HIPS! MAKE IT SEXY!!...

The first week seems to always be the hardest with anything new. Last week was our first week doing P90X in a year and it was hard for us. When we did Plyometrics last week we pushed as much as we could but we were too sore. Thankfully this week we were not AS sore as we were last week. That helped, a lot!

Today we pushed ourselves harder than last week. While last week we did some jumping on most of the exercises in the routine, this week we did ALL jumping on most of the exercises in the routine.

It felt great to be able to do so much jumping when last week we ran out of gas so quickly. This week I still struggled with "Hot foot", my least favorite exercise! You are basically hopping on one foot in a cross shape. You are hopping front to back and side to side on one foot. Sounds easy enough doesn't it? Well, when you have been jumping around with all the other exercises and then you have to hop on one foot for 30 seconds, those 30 sec seem like five. Or maybe I just don't like hopping on one foot =D

There is another exercise in the routine that is hard for me. You will probably laugh when I tell you what it is because Tom laughs when he seems me doing it. It's one of the last exercises in the routine, it's throwing the baseball. Really, I cannot throw the stinking baseball to save my life. I could out in a field, but I don't look like a baseball player. Anyway, if that made you laugh, I will share what makes ME laugh in this routine.

Tony is a pretty funny guy. During the videos he'll say things from time to time that make me laugh and help me to stay motivated. In this particular video I find it very funny when we do an exercise where you put a towel on the floor and then run around it in a circle. Sorry, I don't remember the name of that exercise. What I find funny is that he encourages the viewer with the words "Wiggle those hips! Make it sexy!" I don't know why I find it so funny. I know it's not too funny, but to me it is.

Well, now you are up to speed with what we are doing and how it is going for us. You have also learned that my sense of humor is very strange, not always. So tomorrow we will continue to press play as we work on our shoulders and arms. Oh yeah, and ab ripper X of course =D

BEGINNING OF WEEK 2...

I will be honest and admit that I did NOT want to get up this morning. It felt so good to lay in my comfortable bed but I was glad I did get up. We did the Chest and back routine. I will not say it was easier than last week because it was not. We did improve in the amount of repetitions we did. Again, not because it got easier but because we pushed ourselves harder.

We are keeping record of what we are doing, as suggested by Tony. We write down the amount of reps, the weights we use and whether or not we used a chair for the pull-ups and chin-ups. Today as I saw the numbers from last week I wanted to do better. If for one exercise I did 5 pull-ups with a chair, today I tried to do 2 more.

The same goes for the push-ups. If last week I did 2, today I tried to do 3-4. Of course I am not talking about 2 regular push-ups, but I am talking about the Dive-Bomber push-ups. These push-ups are hard for me. The way you do these push-ups is that you get down on the floor in a push up position. Instead  of having your legs close together you have them apart wide. When you go down you do it as if you were going under a fence (which is how Tony explains it). You go nose down first and then your chest. You then come back up the same way in reverse, chest first and then face.

For this routine there are 12 different exercises, but you do them twice with as many repetitions as you can. When you are done with the 12 exercises you do that routine again. When I was done with the 12 the first time I felt like I was done. When the second round came around I felt many times like collapsing on the floor from how tired I was. Thankfully I'm not doing this alone and seeing Tom push when he can't push anymore, motivates me to keep pushing too. After all, I gotta show off in front of him =D. Show him I too can do it.

After we were done with Chest and Back routine we did the Ab Ripper X. The kiddos were up by then and Joseph and Rachel joined us for it. It was a bit distracting and I did 3 reps less than Friday. Wednesday I gotta push myself more. After we were done I was so glad for the recovery drink. It is soooo good. If you are going to start P90X or if you want to order some follow that link and make Mike your coach, he'll take good care of you.

Now I am ready for tomorrow's Plyometrics, BRING IT!!!!

BRINGING IT ALL BACK!!!

Ok. So now that you got the short version of what we have been up to for the past year (almost), it is time to let you know what we are doing now. This week we started doing P90X all over again. Why P90X? I will tell you why =D

We had great results last time with P90X. For me it is hard to lose weight exercising. Before Tom and I got married my Mom and I joined a gym so I could get in shape for the big day. After months of working out I managed to lose 10lbs. To me it was pretty frustrating to work so hard and not lose weight fast. I was grateful for HCG that changed that for me.

Now that I am at a weight I am happy with, I need to tone up. This week we started P90X and it was great!!! Ok. so it kicked our butts, but it was still great.

We were sooooooooooooooo sore on Tuesday. We could not lift up our arms. I was not able to take my workout clothes because I couldn't lift my arms up over my head. I laid down to take a little break and fell asleep for over an hour.

On Wednesday our arms felt better and we could lift them. We just couldn't walk because Plyometrics had killed us on Tuesday. We were a funny pair to watch walk. Going up and down the stairs was painful. I didn't even want to drink water because I did not want to go to the potty room, (I know TMI, you'll get use to my sense of humor as you follow my blog though ;-p)

Thursday was better. Our body hurt a little less, but we had to do Yoga X. Yoga X is our least favorite exercise routine of all. We did our best though and kept on going. I must say that all the stretching you do with yoga helped our sore muscles to relax.

Friday was a bit tough. We worked out our legs and back. Our legs kept shaking as we did some of the exercises, especially the single leg wall squats. For those you lean against the wall as you go down to a sitting position of 90 degrees. You then raise one of your legs up and try to keep it straight alternating legs every 10 seconds. The calf raises had our calves screaming and us NEARLY screaming.

After our workouts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we do Ab RipperX. That part is always fun. Tom and I are too competitive for our own good. We keep asking each other how many reps we've done. We are supposed to do 25 of each of the 11 different stomach exercises. We cannot do 25 of each set yet, but we do the best we can. We always try and push harder to get one more than the other. We do the same when we have to do push ups and pull ups. I have no upper body strength and cannot get as many push ups as Tom can. Same goes for pull ups. I cannot do a single one without using the chair. My goal is to be able to do one by the end of the first 90 days.

Today was our favorite workout of all, Kempo X. Both Tom and I love martial arts and Tom has done martial arts for years so it is pretty easy for him. I would love to take a class some time. I'll have to look into it and see if I can find a place with classes that can fit into our schedule. No rush on it though so it will be later on this year or next. I feel great and tomorrow I get to rest =D. Next week... Week 2!! Bring it!!

WE ARE BACK!!!!...

It's been quite a while since I last updated the blog. We have come along way since I last posted. Did we finish the 90 days? How much weight did we lose? What happened? I will let you know don't worry. I know the suspense is killing you... NOT! Anyway, here is what happened...

We did not finish the 90 days =( I found my workout sheets a couple of days ago and after thinking we had done about 40 days I saw that we actually did almost 60!! No wonder the great results we had. How did the result show?

For me it was not in weight loss. I was hoping to drop at least 10-15 pounds. I only lost 6 pounds during that time and that includes the weight I gained when I first started exercising. I did manage to lose a few more inches and that was good. The thing for me is that I tend to compare my weight loss with other people's weight loss. I have learned now that we all loose weight differently. I have learned many helpful things actually and I'm still learning.

I gotta say that although I was happy with the way I looked and felt I still felt fat because of the weight I was at. Little by little I started falling away from my good eating habits and of course with that came the weight gain. It didn't help that we moved a few months later. We knew we were going to move and I was feeling a bit depressed at the thought of leaving behind the new friends I had made and a friend I had reconnected with.

During that time a friend of ours from church showed up the following week looking thinner, happy and she was glowing! (Not literally of course). I asked her if she had lost weight and she told me she had lost 13lbs in one week!!! Woa! How?!? Was my first question. And this is how she did it...

She introduced me to a product called HCG. She gave me the run down and then she told me of a website I could go to for more information. I told Tom about it and he was pretty skeptical. Fortunately he is very inquisitive about things that seem to good to be true. He did the research and in the mean time our friends were losing more and more weight.

After a couple of months of research (in Tom's part) we decided to do it. It was right before our move back to the East coast that we bought the drops and came up with a plan of attack. We decided that since we would be driving it would be best to not start quite yet. We would need to commit between 21-40 days to this protocol and those days are pretty strict. There are only certain things we had to eat, certain products we could use, etc.

When we arrived to Maryland we bought what we needed and a week after our arrival we started the protocol. We did two rounds and in those two rounds I lost almost 40 lbs! Tom lost a little over 60lbs!! And we both felt great and looked amazing. We have been completely off the diet for about 3 weeks now and are still maintaining our weight loss.

We have learned soooooo much during the time we were on the HCG drops that we decided that now all we need is to get toned. We are now back on track and we are at a new beginning.



This is a before and after picture collage we made to show our results. The before pictures are from our drive back from California back in August of 2010. The after picture was taken in February of this year after we were done with the HCG protocol.

So what is next for us?... P90X!!!