13 Pounds...What?

I lost thirteen pounds in the past two weeks on the Ultimate Reset. I figured after last week's weight loss that I was about as light as I was going to get. Honestly, I can hardly believe it. I even checked the calibration of the scale that I have been using. Imagine if I would have done this before a race. I would have to think that not carrying around an extra thirteen pounds would allow me to run even faster, whether the weight is from water, fat, or wherever else it is coming from. I'm already planning my diet and exercise strategy for next year to see if I can hit that All-American standard time in the 400 meters. I'm not really sure I want to go through this again, but maybe in a year I'll forget and only remember the results I got from the program. Just like every time I would start up another round of P90X and then suddenly remember how tough it was.

I'm on the home-stretch. The last seven days of the Ultimate Reset program and I am looking forward to being done. The food hasn't been bad, but it's the convenience more than anything that usually drives how I eat. I keep a lot of bars and Shakeology shakes around because I'm all about convenience when it comes to eating. I need something good for me, but it also has be easy. I understand now that the meals that I am having are really good for me, but there's a part of me that just wants to be able to throw a pizza in the oven, take it out in fifteen minutes, cut it up and start eating. One more week left. I am feeling really great though and have had a lot of energy lately.

"Can you feel this?"

So we're getting ready for school now. My wife is getting back to work and the kids will be starting up in a couple of weeks. This is the first year that we will have both kids in school so it will be nice to be able to take them to the same place every morning.

T-Dawg started up football camp and this is his first year of tackle football. I never played organized football in school so this is all new to me. We figured it would be a good idea to make sure we could get all of his equipment on so one night we put all of the pads on. Then the kids decided they needed to test them. My daughter got out a big inflatable hammer and started hitting him everywhere he had protection. They quickly realized that he did not have a cup. My wife went out and got him one a couple of nights later because it seemed like a good thing to have. The girls were out so I had him put the cup on and then I hit him with one of my daughter's play kitchen utensils a couple of times. Seems to work.

The quote for today is from Shaun T - "I'm smiling because I love it."

The Ultimate Reset - Week 1

I've been doing this program from Beachbody called the Ultimate Reset. It is a cleanse, but I don't have to starve myself or just drink only juice for a month so I figured I could handle it. I'll explain basically what it is. It's a 21-day program where you follow recipes made with whole foods and take various supplements. It is set up in three phases which are seven days each.

This seemed to be the right time to do the program because it is recommended that you do not do any strenuous exercise during the 21 days. Since I just finished up my last race for the summer I would normally take a little time off to give myself some rest. Well, that time for me often ends up being where I get back into some bad habits and gain back some weight. This way I can take a good amount of time off to recover without gaining weight. In fact, I should end the Reset quite a bit under where I started which was already pretty light for me.

I don't want to go into too many specifics about the program. You can get more information at UltimateReset.com if you want to know more. I would rather just focus briefly on my experience during this first week.

When I weighed in on Day One I was 169 lbs. Today I weighed in at 161 lbs. That's as light as I can ever remember being since college. I don't know exactly what to attribute that to, but with that kind of loss I think there must be a good amount of water weight. My biggest change has been giving up diet soda. I have been drinking a lot of Pepsi Max lately. I often lose track of how much I drink, but I'm sure it was a lot. That has been a challenge. I'll call it my very own Pepsi Challenge. The first few days my head was throbbing and I had  a feeling of just not being sharp mentally. It was hard to focus and I felt groggy. This did go away and I'm feeling pretty good now. I used to just be tired and feel like I have to drink a soda to get my energy back. Now I don't seem to have that dip that I use to have.

The food is also a big part of that. It's mostly things you would expect. Lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and little dairy. It does adapt as you move through the phases so there are things you can eat in the first week that you won't have later. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of Japanese food items. Many of them are very alkaline-type foods which are good to counter the normal acidic foods that we usually eat. There is an entire collection of recipes and an online cooking segment for each recipe that you can access with your Team Beachbody username and password when you purchase the program. My favorite recipe so far has been the Nori Rolls, which are a lot like sushi. That's something I think I will eat even after the program is done.

One thing that really surprised me was the feeling I had during the first week which is very similar to working out. They say in the program that you are giving your body a workout from the inside out. Your body is working to remove the toxins that you've been putting in it for years. This is part of the reason why you aren't supposed to work out. Your body is already working hard.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the supplements. There are some pills that you take each day as well as a packet of green powder that you mix with water called Alkalinize. I do not like Alkalinize. I have to plug my nose and then I can drink it down, but I just do not like the taste. I looked up the ingredients and did some research on the benefits and it is some good stuff in there, but I have a hard time with that one.

So those are some of my thoughts on the first week. I'll be posting more of a full review on PromiseToBeFit.com as I go through the next two weeks. I'm already 1/3 of the way there so I'm confident that I can make it through the program.

"Your journey won't always be easy. But like all journeys of growth, it can change your life for the better."
 - Isabelle Daikeler - Cocreater of Shakeology and Beachbody Ultimate Reset

Finished Another Round of Insanity Asylum

I recently finished my best round of Insanity: The Asylum. I really tried to push hard this time and follow the program exactly as it is written. I did not do a good job toward the end of P90X2 and ended up putting some weight back on. I think that since the USATF Indoor National meet I let myself slide a bit.

I took a lot of video of this round and hope to put something together soon. For now, here are my new fit test numbers and before and after pictures.

I started out at 174 lbs and weighed in at 165 after the 30 days was over.

Not a lot of difference in the pictures from this round other than my chest hair disappearing, but I was able to cut some fat especially in my midsection. I also feel so much better and don't get tired as easily during the workouts.

As Shaun T says, "I'm smiling because I love it."

One week of Asylum left

I'm on my last week of Asylum. I've actually got a day off today, which is rare. There are relief days, which consist of mostly stretching, but only two actual "off" days. I can tell that I'm toning up and have dropped about seven lbs in the three weeks so far. I sometimes feel like this is the program that was made for me. Even though there are parts of the workouts that I don't do well with, overall it just seems to work for me. There are always those few last pounds that don't seem to come off well without a lot of effort. For me, this is the program that gets me there.

I'm also feeling pretty good about my cardio conditioning. I would still like to get better, but overall I've improved quite a bit through these past few weeks. I've been capturing video of my progress through the workouts and hope to put some recaps up on this blog or over at www.promisetobefit.com soon. One thing about being a video producer is that I edit video every day. Sometimes the last thing that I want to do after doing it at work is to go home and edit video. I'll get some videos posted in the next couple of weeks.

I'm going to quote Shaun T this week. "If your body left it up to your mind, you probably wouldn't do it."

Still Fits

I had a red carpet premiere event of a video I worked on recently. I decided that I should probably wear a suit to the event. But wait, I have a tux that I had to buy back in 1992 when I was in my college Concert Chorale. I have no idea when the last time was that I wore the tux, but I thought I would try it on to see if it fits. Sure enough it fit just fine. I was able to wear the tux for the night pretty comfortably.

At the time I purchased the tux originally (1992), I had been through my first season of college cross-country. I wasn't able to put weight on if I tried, so it's pretty impressive that I am able to wear anything that I used to wear at that time. It's a great feeling to know that even after all the weight I put on since college, I have been able to get myself back to my college shape.

I've started up my second week of Insanity: Asylum this week. I feel like I've hit it pretty hard and I'm really feeling strong right now. I weighed in today and I'm down four pounds from my weigh-in last week. Some of that is probably water weight, but it's still good to be back down under 170 again. That's pretty low for me, but I think I can probably still drop about five more pounds by the end of the 30-day program.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

—Jim Rohn