I’ve written before about my journey with fitness – finding what worked for me and made me happy, finding time to do it. I spent most of 2012 doing my own little thing: mostly resistance workouts with dumbbells and kettlebells and body-weight moves, and I was really pleased with myself. I know that I feel better when I make the time to invest in myself in this little way.
At the start of 2013, I was still trucking right along, and in May, Chris took a HUGE step and joined the HealthPark. He signed up with a personal trainer, and today he’s about 45 pounds lighter and in much better shape! As a result, I got a HealthPark membership too (one of those, “add your spouse for only a little bit more!” deals) and started trying to go over there for cardio occasionally. But using a gym just wasn’t working for me at this life stage — there is a charge for the childcare room, and I can’t justify spending that kind of money for a half-hour on an elliptical machine! Only using the HP on days when Chris had time to keep the kids at home meant it was a rare occurence.
And when school started in August of ’13, my workout time just fizzled and died. Keeping up with a 3rd grade schedule, a Kindergarten schedule, an inquisitive and still-nursing 2-year-old, and a household proved to be too much. By December, I was pretty unhappy with that state of affairs. It’s not that I had gained a ton of weight – I was still hovering around my ‘comfort zone’ in the 120-123 range – but I just didn’t feel as good as I knew I could. My energy level was lower and my stress level was higher. I missed that feeling of strength I’d had just a year prior.
A friend from our homeschool group, Sarah M., started posting on Facebook about a new daily workout routine she had started. She’s a tall, thin, whole-food-eating kind of mama –so I knew that if she was doing it, it must not be crazy or based on bad nutrition. Curiosity got the best of me, and I asked what the program was.
Okay, I remember hearing about P90X a few years ago. When we lived in Elsmere, our friends Misty & Axel did that. But I had the impression that it was CRAZY and HARD and IMPOSSIBLE for a normal person to do. So I kept asking Sarah questions and reading reviews of this new version, X3. It’s similar to the original: it’s a high-intensity interval workout program. It uses “muscle confusion” by varying 16 different workouts over the course of the 90 days to keep your body guessing – cardio, weights, power, agility, and flexibility are all covered. Unlike the original, though, X3 is only 30 minutes a day.
That sounded perfect to me! I love weights, yoga, pilates… I need some help with cardio and agility. I had a hunch that the variety would help me to “stick with it” through the stuff I dislike. And I knew that I could carve out half an hour. I’m a morning energy person, so ideally I would work out in the mornings. I decided it wouldn’t kill my children to take a break from school and entertain themselves for 30 minutes; on days when I can’t fit it in around 10:30 a.m., I use “quiet time” (around 1:00 p.m.) as my time.
I decided to order the DVDs, and then Sarah asked me if I wanted to get Shakeology while I was at it. I had heard of that stuff, too. Another friend had posted lots of photos of shakes and recipes when she was using it a few years ago. But I didn’t think I wanted, or needed, a meal replacement shake. HOWEVER – Chris had been drinking protein shakes for breakfast or as an on-the-go meal ever since he began his fitness journey back in May. I knew that his shakes were better than nothing, and better than some of the food options he used to pick (Little Debbies and chocolate milk, not exactly a breakfast of champions!) but I didn’t love the list of ingredients – like high fructose corn syrup. So I decided I’d order a one-month supply of Shakeology and try to convince Chris to give it a try.
Today is Day 60, and I still love it! It has taken me about 68 days in reality – travel and illness have made me skip workouts here and there. I have only lost about 2 pounds, but over 9.5″ overall. See for yourself:
We have a week of vacation coming up, and I think I’m going to bring my DVDs with me. I may divert from the written schedule a bit (I’d like to do all no-equipment-needed routines on vacation, so I won’t have to bring bands and dumbbells along in my suitcase), and I may not do it every single day – it IS a beach vacation after all! With 30 days to go, I’m really excited to find out what my final results are going to look like. If you’re looking for a new exercise program to shake you out of your rut, or if you’ve heard about P90X3 and wondered if it was really do-able as a non-gym-rat, busy mama: I’m telling you, this is a good plan and it’s worth the effort.
