Yep, I had pretty good success with round 1 that I thought I’d try it again. Although the original plan was to start over right away, that didn’t happen. So now 3 weeks later and it is time.

So today was spin class for cardio and Chest & Back with Ab Ripper X. I burned about 777 calories today. Below is what I ate. Thought that might be insteresting, but no I’m not going to post that everyday. That’s what Posterous is for. Take a picture, send it to Posterous, and it posts to the mobile blog. Pretty simple way to keep track of your diet. Anyway…

April 27, 2009

Dinner 6pm

Day 1: 4oz baked salmon, grilled squash and 1/2 cup black beans. Sent from my new Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm!

Snack 2 3:30pm

3oz baked salmon and 1/2 cup black beans Sent from my new Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm!

Lunch 1:30pm

Protein and raw cashews 
Sent from my new Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm!

Snack 1 10:30 am

6 inch turkey on honey oat. Sent from my new Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm!

Breakfast 7:30am

Day 1: cereal and milk. 2 servings. Sent from my new Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm!

Read more: “soul4real’s diet & exercise – 90 days to fit & trim” -http://soul4real.posterous.com/#ixzz0Dvjs6y9S&A

So my 90 days of P90X and 12 weeks of the Body Challenge ended last week, P90X on Wednesday and Foothills on Saturday. I didn’t win, but I have some good news on my progress to share. I lost 10% of my body fat during the 3 month period of eating healthy (between 1400-1600 calories) and working out daily. I started at 40.9% body fat and ended with 30.19%. It was actually amusing watching Nicole trying to grab the fat on my thigh for the skin caliper fat test. Look out! There’s muscle there. lol. Here are the top three finishers:

We were all winners. 18% change in 90 days is pretty good. So good, I think I’ll do it again. “Thank you, Sir! May I have another.” P90X round 2 begins today! X

On Wednesday I did a yearly health screening at school where they take your vitals and draw a little blood to analyze your blood sugar and cholesterol levels.  I’ve never had a problem with either, but it was still fun to see those numbers go down. My blood pressure on Wednesday was 100/64 and was even lower on Saturday when they took it at Revolution. Optimal is less than 120/80. My total blood cholesterol level was 118, with the desirable level being less than 200! Sweet! My HDL cholesterol level was 59. 40-59 is the normal range. Optimal is 60. My LDL cholesterol was 39, with less than 100 being optimal. So diabetes is NOT in my future. That’s a good thing.

I didn’t lose a lot of weight during the challenges, but I did lose inches. Weight wise I lost 6.5 lbs according to my scale, but I lost about 4.5 inches in my hips and about 2.25 on my waist. My thunder thighs just traded in the flab for muscles. I lost 1.75 inches in my thighs. My legs have always been like that. Rub, rub, a chub, chub!

Here’s the run down on my numbers:

• Upper Arm: 12.5 —> 12.0
• Chest: 34.5 ———-> 34.25
• Waist: 33.5 ———-> 31.25
• Hips: 40.5 ———–> 35
• Thigh: 25 ————> 23.25
• Calf: 12.65 ———–> 12.5

I have before and after photos from the challenge and P90X. The challenge photos so more of a change, but here is my own P90X before and after photo. For some reason I just don’t look as fat as I was on day 1 in this picture. But I do in the Revolution photo.

Now for my P90X Pre and Post test numbers:

• Pull-ups: neither one of us could do a pull-up at the start — I did 3 after!
• Vertical Leap: We marked up a photo from our jumps on the side of the house. I didn’t have a measuring tape that long. See photo. Minimum is 3 inches. Before 8.5 inches — After was about 9 inches.
• Push-ups: I did 10 in the beginning – 23 in the end.
• Toe Touch: I was 4 inches away from touching my toes in the beginning. Now I still can’t touch my toes, but I did improve my Sit & Reach in the Revolution challenge from 11 to 15. 
• Wall Squat: I sat on the dang wall for 1:30 in the beginning. End was 3:00.
• Bicep Curls: I did 22 curls with the 10lbs weights. I did 35 in the end.
• In & Outs: I hate ab work. I could only muster up 11 in the beginning. I did 40 on a regular basis through out the program.
• Heart Rate Maximizer: We had to do jumping jacks for 2 minutes with the last 30 secs as hard/fast as we could to get our heart rates up. I did the full 2 minutes. Heart rate after 2 minutes and then every minute for 4 minutes: Before –>156-126-102-96-96  After –> Can’t get my crappy heart rate monitor to work, so no after on this one. I did increase my V02 Max in the challenge from 41.5 to 43.4.

So that’s the tail of the tape. I’m off to do Day 1 of P90X (Round 2) – Chest & Back.

A Picture Worth 1000 Calories?

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

Week 8 is in the books, so that means only 4 more weeks to go for the Foothills Revolution Body Challenge. I’m also in the middle of week 10 for P90X. There are 13 weeks total for that, so I should be finishing up around the same time for both: April 1st for P90X and April 4th for Revolution. But enough about the finish, I still have 4 weeks left.

I’ve hit a bit of a rough spot and the only thing I’ve lost in the past two weeks is my mind and a bit of my motivation. My weight is stuck in “I Love the 140’s, please don’t go” mode. That has been my weigh-in weight for the last 3 weeks. I shouldn’t really expect much since I didn’t have a great week of dieting. I’m not usually one to over eat. My problem is when I get busy I under eat. I just completely forget about it and my body doesn’t do a very good job of reminding me.

Workouts are still good. That whole high protein diet thing was a bust. I much prefer cold cereal or oatmeal in the mornings to fried egg whites or protein shakes, plus I had no energy to workout. I did, but I was pooped. So my diet morphed into something else completely. I couldn’t even begin to analyze it. My best guess is Girl Scout cookies (Thanks Michelle) are probably not good. Completing my 60 days of no beer probably didn’t help and eating out more sucks.
Week 8 Progress Report

• Week 8 Sunday Diet
• Week 8 Monday Diet
• Week 8 Tuesday Diet
• Week 8 Wednesday Diet
• Week 8 Thursday Diet
• Week 8 Friday Diet

Week 8 Workouts:

• Sunday: P90X Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: P90X Legs & Back
• Wednesday: Spinning
• Thursday: P90X Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, Ab Ripper X, Spinning
• Friday: OFF
• Saturday: Spinning, P90X Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Next week will be equally challenging since I’m traveling to San Francisco for 5 days. I’ll be downloading my P90X workouts to my ipod and packing my workout bands. I don’t leave until Wednesday morning, so I’ll be spinning Monday and Tuesday, back to back.

Snack

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

I was in a rush today so I had to eat out for lunch. It’s amazing that even when you think you’re eating healthy, you can still consume a lot of calories and a lot of fat – even in a salad. I had the half sandwich and salad at Paradise Bakery. The Chicken Walnut Salad sandwich and salad are so good, but I’m sure there was a ton of mayonnaise in the chicken salad. For a whole sandwich it is 570 calories. Good thing I only had a half, and I removed the top piece of bread. Anyway, it was good, and I enjoyed it. Even the chocolate chip cookie.

The rest of my diet today was decent. I ate:

• 4 egg white omelet with tomato, onion and bacon (2 pieces)
• Protein shake (1 scoop) with 1/2 cup low fat milk and 1 scoop DetoxFiber
• Paradise Bakery Chicken Walnut Salad sandwich (1/2) and salad (1/2)
• 1 oz raw unsalted cashews
• Protein shake (2 scoops) with 1 cup low fat milk, 2 scoops DetoxFiber and 1/2 banana

My workouts for today were a spin class with Nicole at 9:15am and P90X Plyometrics at 7pm. I burned over 700 calories today. Yay me!

Snack at 3:30pm

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

It is week 9 and I only have 4 weeks to go until I’m ripped. Well, at least that’s how it’s suppose to work. I finally got my legitimate copy of the P90X program, so I actually have the diet plan now. Better late than never, right? So I’m starting from the beginning with the diet –> Fat Shredder. Basically that is just a high protein diet. I can do that.

They have some pretty good recipes in this diet plan. The major difference for me is I have to switch from having whole grain cereals for breakfast to more egg white omelets and protein shakes. Normally my protein shakes were my snacks during the day and after a workout, but now I have to add in new snacks to replace that. I can add things like turkey jerkey, string cheese (not!), cottage cheese, nuts and protein bars. I’m not much of a snackers, so this may be tough.

Today I ate:

• a protein shake with low fat milk, DetoxFiber, 1/2 banana and 2 strawberries for breakfast at 7am.
• protein drink with low fat milk and DetoxFiber at 11:00am.
• McDonald’s Southwester grilled chicken salad with low fat vinaigrette at 12:30pm.
• Planter’s Trail Mix Nuts & Chocolate at 3:30pm (in photo)
• 4oz salmon steak, squash, black beans, and tomato, red pepper soup at 6:30pm.

I ate 1625 calories today broken down to the left.

My workout today was P90X Chest & Back, which is a whole bunch of push-ups and pull-ups. I still can’t do a pull up yet though. Also, I missed spin class today so I won’t be able to get in 3 spins this week. But I still have Ab Ripper X before bed. I guess I can smile about that.

We do a ton of push ups in the Chest, Shoulders & Triceps workout in P90X. Here’s me struggling through a few.

Lunch at Paradise

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

We just completed week 5 of the body challenge. I’m still doing everything I’m supposed to be doing for the challenge: spin 3 times a week and record my food intake. Easy peasy. I’ve also been doing extra cardio and strength training with my P90X workouts, I’m working out 6 days a week, and on some days it’s twice in one day. My schedule this week looked liked this:

• Sunday: OFF
• Monday: Legs & Back/Ab Ripper X
• Tuesday: Kenpo X
• Wednesday: Spin
• Thursday: Chest, Shoulders & Triceps & Spin
• Friday: Spin
• Saturday: Trail Run (4 miles) and Back & Biceps/Ab Ripper X

I need to catch up on posting my diet logs. I wish there was a widget or something to make it easier, but there is not, so I’m creating pdf files and posting. Below is Week 4.

• week4sunday
• week4monday
• week4tuesday
• week4thursday
• week4friday
• week4saturday

I met all my calorie goals for this week, and thanks to a new supplement, I’m also getting plenty of fiber.

Are you getting enough protein in your diet? If you’re not using a protein supplement, you’re probably not. I mean you can only eat so much meat, fish and beans. I shake my way to meeting my protein needs. It’s fast, easy and tastes great. Check it out.

Here’s what I use in my shake:

		Pro Complete 40 Vanilla Protein – 0.5 servings of 2 scoops Counts as Cals: 101.5, Fat: 1.5g, Carbs: 2g, Protein: 20g, Fiber: 1.5g, Sodium: 17.5mg, Cholesterol: 2.5mg, Potassium: 0mg
		DetoxiFiber – 1 serving of 1 scoop (10g) Cals: 25, Fat: 1g, Carbs: 6g, Protein: 2g, Fiber: 5g, Sodium: 0mg, Cholesterol: 0mg, Potassium: 0mg
		Organic Lowfat Milk 1 percent – 0.5 servings of 1 cup (240 ml) Counts as Cals: 60, Fat: 1.25g, Carbs: 7g, Protein: 5.5g, Fiber: 0g, Sodium: 75mg, Cholesterol: 5mg, Potassium: 0mg

So make sure you’re getting enough protein in your diet so you can build muscle and burn fat. For me, I need between 94-164g of protein in a 1425-1675 calorie a day diet.

P90X 6 Weeks, originally uploaded by dr.coop.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m looking at one of those puzzle photos where you are supposed to pick out the differences in the photos. I can see the jog bras are different, my socks and shoes. I wear a watch in some, but not others. A bandanna in one. But I’m not seeing much different in the body. I don’t feel it in my clothes either. So I’m still trying to figure out where the 5 lbs came from.

I can see patterns in my photos. Looks like I’m due for a new jog bra next week – a blue one. Then after that maybe switch to red? Something has to change. If it’s not my body, might as well be my jog bra. Six more weeks and we’ll see what happens. I’m on the down slope now. Weeeeeee!

That’s the comment I get just about daily these days since all my friends know I’m doing P90X and the 12 Week Body Challenge. Most see my daily updates on Twitter or Facebook letting them know I’ve finished a spin workout or plyometrics or met a goal on Gyminee. I’ve even posted a video here and there just for fun. Well, today is Day 42, the end of Week 6 of P90X and Day 31, 4 1/2 weeks into the 12 Week Body Challenge. So I’m half way through P90X. I still can’t do a one arm push up yet.

Anyway, here is a half way update for P90X. Tomorrow is progress photo day, so I’ll post those tomorrow. Below is my fitness report from Jan. 1 to today. Green shows exercises performed and orange shows food consumed. Weight loss is 4.6lbs.

This chart isn’t completely accurate because I allow myself at least one day where I don’t record my diet, and yet I’ve obviously eaten, but it’s not figured into the totals. What’s really interesting is that I’ve recorded just over 20 hours of cardio over the last 6 weeks and traveled 189 1/2 miles. That’s like riding my bike from Phoenix to Sedona and back. Sweet!

My favorite graph is the the weight loss one. It’s all down hill.

So no, I’m not ripped yet, but I’m on my way.