P90X Adventures: Week 6 Round 2 and a look back at one hell of a 2012...

This year has been pretty crazy.  It's been pretty cruel to me, but yet, it's been really good to me.  I guess I've become the physical manifestation of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Looking back through the year feels completely surreal.  I've always felt like one night, I went to sleep looking like this:

 

Then woke up looking like this:

It was completely unlike any other change I've ever experienced in my life.  Hell, I thought my transformation during my initial 60 day juice fast was astonishing because I'd lost the most amount of weight I'd ever seen myself lose.  People noticed the difference, but at least in pictures, I just kinda looked the same.  

Now, for those of you just tuning in...  2012 was the year that I was putting Michael T. Jones Jr. , as everyone knew him, to rest.  I had no real idea of how or even if I was going to be successful in this.  Most people (including myself) didn't think I'd even be able to follow through with the plan I'd set forth.  It was pretty damned ambitious.  I'd seen what my 60 day juice fast in 2011 did.  I lost 47lbs.  I'd only heard about someone doing a 120 day juice fast and that got my little hamster upstairs running.  I started thinking about what would happen if I did that.  By the time the new year hit, I felt like I saw myself almost completely revert back to the person I was before the fast.  I was back to eating terribly, and the weight was climbing back up again.  The holidays... they're goddamn dangerous!  I set out in January to juice fast for 120 days.   I was then going to follow that up with another 2 months of basically eating vegan and hope that at the end of all that, the desire to revert back will have passed.

My mom was having hip replacement surgery in February and I hadn't found work yet, so I took off to Cincinnati to take care of her for 2 months.  That was tough... Unbelievably tough...  The second night of getting home set the tone for how difficult it was going to be when she sent me out to pick her up some White Castles.  If it's one thing that actually makes a fast of any sort become the toughest thing to face in life, it's when you have to deal with food.  I had to cook for my mom, and not touch any of it for 2 months. 

Well... it worked.  I just remember waking up one morning and everything just felt different. I actually felt way lighter.  I felt like my stomach had sort of half disappeared overnight.  I went to the bathroom and Holy Shit... I barely even recognized the face I saw in the mirror.   That's when I took the above picture.  Shit, I couldn't stop staring at myself.  That 2nd picture was only 27 days after the first one.  I kept on the fast and the pounds melted off.  In another 23 days, I was down 85lbs.  

I'd made the commitment to attempting the Seattle to Portland Classic this year.  That's a 204 mile bike ride literally from Seattle, WA, to Portland, OR.  Being in Cincy and taking care of my mom made it hard to really get any serious training happening, but I took all the opportunities I could and anyway I could.  There was a crazy unseasonal change in weather, so it was like 70° in February and March.  I found a park with a path and rented bikes in Miamitown. 

This was totally what I needed.  It was calm, serene and let me get out on a bike.  It felt so awesome.  It was only about a 7 mile trail, so I just started increasing the number of loops.  Much of the time, I was just riding a fixie and the fact that it had some hills made it pretty great.

I got back home in April and still had about a month left on my juice fast which had now become a 122 day event.  One day Zu came to me and told me that she figured out that 122 days was basically 1/3rd of a year.  I figured what's two more days right?  When I got back, I seriously stepped up my training and started riding at least 25 miles every day and at least 50 miles once a week.   I signed up for a Metric Century (100km) ride sort of as a practice lead up to the Seattle to Portland thing in a few months.  My whole plan was to do this ride using my hybrid cruiser.  That was pretty awesome and I got a lot of props from the people participating in the ride.   Some people started out confused because they thought maybe I was on one of the shorter circuits of the ride.  They hadn't expected that I'd attempt this 65 mile ride on a cruiser.  Let alone my first ever riding event.

I kept riding and training and finally the day came for STP!!  I was so nervous wondering at what point was it actually going to be ridiculously difficult.  Well, thanks to all that training, it was a cinch.  It was a total blast and I can't really say it was ever really difficult.  Being on the road with 10,000 other bicyclist changes the game completely.  I'd only heard that you can kinda get pumped by being around so many people.  It's totally true.  I was maintaining an average speed of about 19-22mph the entire time.  On a friggin' cruiser.  I can't describe how awesome it felt passing up dudes on carbon fiber bikes that probably cost thousands of dollars on my big bulky hybrid cruiser.  I kept every accessory on it.  I think I only finally decided to take my bike lock off at the last minute.  I also recorded a time lapse of that entire ride...

2 weeks after STP, I went with Zu for her first ever biking event.  We did the Oregon Tour De Cure!  She did the 43 mile ride, and I did the Century.  I got the start time mixed up and I started an hour later than I was supposed to, so by the time I finally finshed, they were basically tearing down everything.  Thanks to Zu though, they kept the finish line up just for me and as I got in, they had like 4-5 people and Zu all cheering me on to the finish.   That made me happy.  I was so proud of her for finishing.  She called me a couple times wanting to quit.  It was a hell of a ride.  Way tougher with hills than STP was by far.  I kept telling her to stick with it and she did.  I think she surprised herself, but I know she was definitely proud of her achievement. 

After all this, I finally decided to give P90X a try.  I figured after doing all that, maybe I'd be ready to do this.  I'm so glad I got on it.  It's been pretty damned awesome so far.  

I'm currently on Day 41 (day 131) of my round 2 of P90X.  I didn't let the holiday get too much in the way of my workouts this week.  I did take Christmas day as a rest day and I've just worked out the other days around it.  Everything has been on the same steady path to improvement.  I'm so stoked that for the last two weeks, I'm able to perform every move from yoga x except one.  I'm still struggling to get into the crane balance pose.  At least I can get into it, but I fall out of it pretty fast. 

Zu and I are starting the new year off with a bang. We're doing a midnight 5k on new year's eve.  I've never done any running before so this ought to be interesting...   I'm also doing another juice fast for January.  I'm not sure how long I'm going this time.  Definitely not 4 months, but at the least 31, possibly 60 days.  So, while everything wasn't perfect in my 2012, it was still pretty damn awesome and hopefully a great beginning to a triumphant rise that I hope will come in 2013.  2012 is still one of the best years I've ever had... Ever!

P90X Adventures: Week 5 round 2... you still alive?

I know my posts have become less and less frequent.  By outward appearances, it would seem as if my workout is likely falling through the same cracks.  Well, it's not (thank god) but it's definitely seeming harder and harder to shoehorn these guys into my day.  I've had many times this week where I was just battling my own desire to be lazy and just say "fuck it, I can miss one day right?".  The problem with that, as I observed the week after thanksgiving is that it's all too easy for that "one day" to widen into two, then basically a week.

It's a lot easier to just not write things though.  I get so wrapped up in daily distractions and maybe it's just the holidays, but this time of the year is always so stressful.  Maybe it's also due to the fact that there's so much less sun this time of year.  I dunno, it just seems like difficulty being productive becomes magnified.  Anyway, I'm here now, and that's what counts.  On to the workout report!

This week was actually pretty awesome!  This was the start of "phase 2" and I was hoping these things would get a lot easier to perform... I'm also used to being wrong a lot when it comes to P90X.  That's not necessarily a bad thing though.  It's probably a bad thing if things do become a lot easier to do, because that likely means it's not being very effective.  I finally bit the bullet and started my way toward upgrading my weights.  Once I learned that not all resistance bands are created equal and the ones I bought I'd essentially outgrown by the time I started using them, I knew it was time to just fix what really works.  I didn't get to grab exactly what I wanted, as it was too expensive to do, but I'm making small moves and that's definitely working for me because this week turned out a lot tougher than I was first expecting.

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps kinda wore me the hell out. It's funny because I was expecting to just shine through some of the routines that appear in other routines.  For instance the side-tri-rises.  They appear in Shoulders & Arms and when I do them, I blast through like 26 of them on each side.  It's pretty impressive.  However, the way the moves are stuctured on Chest, Shoulders & Triceps... oh god...  I felt like such a chump because I could only do 8 on my right side and 12 on my left.  Throughout the week, I kept feeling like I was under-performing myself from previous versions of this workout, but upon looking at the notes, I'm pretty much on par. On routines where I do have lower numbers currently to what was written previously, I know that I'm basically trying to accomplish every move unmodified (except pull-ups).  I still did myself proud with my 25 chair dips though.  That made me happy.  My pike pressers were also full of win.

When it came time for Plyo, I was really just not feeling it on tues.  I was just dragging all day and once I finally got to that point of needing to do it before it was "too late" Zu happened to come home early.  Thanks to her, she kinda gave me that final kick in the ass to get on it, and man did I feel so much better after finishing it.  I guess that's what I love about doing these workouts now.  In years past, I'd just feel like crap and then stop doing the workout because I didn't wanna feel bad.  When you make it a habit or routine, you get past all of the really tough garbage and you always end the workout feeling like a million bucks at the end.  Some days are better than others, and I think it mostly has to do with nutrition and energy levels when I try to attempt doing the workouts.

Back & Biceps was awesome.  I felt like a friggin beast after that one was done.  Arms all swole.  Upping the weight is doing it's thing and I'm glad I did it.  It would be pretty lame if I just kept with the plateu.  Where I really impressed myself this week was with Yoga X.

I was actually able to attempt and hit every single pose this week.  The biggest of all was Plow.  Now, I wasn't all like toes on the floor or anything, that would be ridiculous, but there's a section in yoga x where you're essentially shoulder standing the entire time.  I was doing that shit.  I'd been able to get the straight up and down shoulder stand move but anything else like doing the leg splits or scissoring the legs, I was always just like... nuh uh.. eff that.  Well, this week, I gave it a serious shot and holy shit.  Zu was home and here I was looking like this:

So I yelled out "Zu! Come quick!!  Check this out!"  I was so excited and sort of in disbelief.

Zu walks in and goes "WTF!! are you trying to give yourself a blowjob?!"

Let me tell you, that's not the position you wanna be in when somebody says something like that.  I probably almost broke my damn spine trying not to laugh.  Then she walks over  and starts inspecting closer, leaning in like she's about to "help" me and says "well, you're almost there... just a few more.."

"Goddamnit don't touch me!"

Yeah, nothing would be worse than having paramedics show up to find me stuck like that and end up paralyzed because of it.

I finished the rest of the week pretty strong. I ended up taking my rest day Friday and did Legs & Back yesterday.  Now all that's left is a little kicking and punching today, then bring on next week!!

I'm going to be starting an actual juice fast again in January.  I think I'll start by just juicing only that month and see if I wanna keep going from there.  At which point, I'll probably be blogging about juices and about how shitty the first week is.  It's really tough, and that never changes, but the feeling at the other end is pretty damn awesome I have to admit.  I know I have the muscles now, and now I kinda want to see them.  So here's to uncovering a little more awesome!

P90X Adventures: Week 4 Round 2 Recovery

This week has definitely been a bit of a recovery in many ways.  Trying to come back from what was supposed to be my actual recovery week was pretty damn difficult.  All the routines just seemed extra tough. I was feeling down.  It was just a mess.  Despite my wanting to finish the week strong with Legs & Back and Kenpo X, I really didn't do anything.

Monday came, and things turned around.  It started with a check...  Over the weekend, I finally got payment from one of the projects I'd been contributing to.  Now, what was so uplifting wasn't so much the money itself, though I'm not gonna lie, I was really fretting for a bit.  What had me so stoked was what this represented.  For at least 11 years, I'd been talking about making my own company to work in the game industry.  Of course, back in those days it was going to be more like a giant game dev studio/ omni-corp of awesome.  Back then, I was only like 19 so whatever.  My company's acronym was always DSGS which, at the time, stood for "Dat's Some Good Shit".   You can probably see why I decided to make a slight change (on paper anyway ;-P).  So, what this check represents is the actualization of a dream.  Yeah, sure, it's not a giant game dev studio.  Hell, I'm not even sure if I'll even be able to do enough business to live off of at the moment, but it's a start.  It's the start I needed to show me that I'm still in this and despite all the career and financial hardship, 2012 has basically been the best year of my life.  I spent all day Monday trying to open a bank account for my business and as a result, ran out of time to do a routine.  I took Monday as the rest day and started in on Tues with Yoga X.

Yoga X this week was amazing.  I can't remember a time where I was able to roll through all of the moving asanas so smoothly and actually hit every pose.  I get that I was essentially recovered since I hadn't done anything in like 5 days, but it felt great.  It also proved that these changes are real.  I'm also getting really close to being able to do the crane balance pose.  I think I just need to overcome whatever fear must be gripping me for some reason.  I had it held for a split second a couple times.

Core Synergistics was a different story.  One of my problems was that I decided to go out and have dinner before doing the routine I think.  It actually took me 2 hours to complete it, and it's only an hour long routine.  That was not a smart move on my part, but when you get cooped up in your room all day every day like I do, you kinda gotta jump at the chance to get out sometimes.  I did 6 prison pushups unmodified!  I was impressed.  Every move is improving. All the superman, banana, boat, and bow poses I can see and feel myself with my limbs raised higher, with those muscles engaging.  It's incredible.

Then yesterday, I blasted through Kenpo X without pausing.  I was on fire or something.  I've never been able to go through that routine without having to stop and take some sort of 1-2min breather or something more than once.  I know it was working because I'm starting to feel the soreness now in my back and shoulders.  I'm so looking forward to X Stretch today.  I haven't done a progress pic in a couple weeks so I snapped a couple today.

I've gotten back into powering up with juices specifically in the mornings.  Just trying to keep my immune system up and get as much fresh fruits and veggies in to start the day and set the way for a good day.  This week, I've been in an orange color phase.  It's always good to take in as many different colored fruits and veggies as you can each day.  Each color grouping carries specific beneficial properties. Even if they're technically the same plant, different colored versions of that plant will help you sometimes in completely different ways.  So bear that in mind, and try to eat the rainbow.  Here's what I had this morning:

Golden Paradise:
1 Small Sugar Pumpkin
1 Head of  Green Leaf Lettuce
2 Granny Smith Apples
1 Golden Beet
4-5 Carrots
1 Lime
1/2" piece of ginger
1 Orange (not pictured)

P90X Adventures: Week 3 Derailment...

The last couple weeks have been difficult to handle.  I've been in too dark of a space to really write anything, but I need to push forward and try to climb out of this hole.  This is probably going to be long and I am gonna vent a bit, so just warning ya.

What happened?

Well, The week of Thanksgiving was going pretty well.  Things were pretty rocky since I began my financial "free-fall" since I hadn't found any solid work yet and my unemployment ran out. However, things felt fairly hopeful as it seemed prospects were coming.

We'd been planning on going down to Stockton the day after Thanksgiving to spend time with my Uncle and his family.  We rarely get to see family and we're actually not all that far apart from each other (about 8 hours).  I also figured this would be a good opportunity to drive a little further to San Fransisco and check out a few of my friends who'd recently moved down for new game gigs and do a bit of "networking" and see if maybe I can dig up an opportunity or two.  Things almost got cancelled when the whole unemployment thing ended, but I decided to press on because I didn't wanna let my Uncle down.  He was really looking forward to seeing us and Zu and I really needed to get away, even if for just a brief weekend.

We rolled out and I tried to handle Thanksgiving the best I could.  Sure, I didn't eat the best Thanksgiving day, but I sure as hell did a lot better than last year.  I was kinda halfway caught between being proud of myself for doing only 1 trip through with no real seconds, but still a little down on myself for going for some of the old bad comfort foods.  I guess all in all, it wasn't all that bad.  That could've been the end of the story...

We headed down to Cali, and it was a pretty beautiful drive.  We were worried about show in the passes, but it turned out clear and awesome on the way down.

This is where things started to get "tough".   Now if it's one thing my family loves to do... well any family for that matter... it's eat.  My uncle and his wife are so awesome and they're amazing hosts, but for a guy that's basically a recovering "food-a-holic", it was like lighting a book of matches in a powder keg.  I tried to keep things under control for the weekend.  I definitely upheld my P90X routines while I was there.  I guess in the end, it wasn't all that horrible.

Things fell apart when I got back.  See, the following week was supposed to be my Week 3.  I spent Monday and Tues driving all over San Fransisco and the surrounding towns catching friends and doing things and we didn't get back home until super late tuesday night.  I figured I'd already offset my schedule for P90X that week too much so I'd just make it a free-for-all week and just mix it up with random routines while I resume my schedule the following week...

...yeah... that never happened.

I can't particularly say what had me stuck, but I just couldn't bring myself to start or follow through with a workout that week.  It took it's toll on my body.  I could feel what the inaction was doing to me.  Allowing myself to basically backslide like that.  It was pretty terrible.  It came to a head Monday morning when I got on the scale and it read 249.8lbs...  Thanksgiving morning it had read 235.  Yeah, I was not feeling happy.  To exacerbate this issue, one of the companies I've been doing a bunch of sound work for has yet to pay me a single cent and it's been months.  Also, I'd just been turned down for the one job prospect I really thought I had nearly in the bag.  I was low...  Hell, I am low...  Last week was like a crippling punch in the gut, and this week started with a secondary kick while I was still down.

I have to say, this was one of the hardest P90X weeks I've had.  I couldn't make it all the way through Chest and Back on Monday.  It was so tough.  I'm actually still sore from Tuesday's Plyo  but I at least pushed through the entirety of the other routines.  I'm recovering and I'm starting to get back on track, but this feeling I've got right now.  Just down in the dumps.  It's taking it's toll.

One of the worst combinations is food and emotions.  One of the lines that stuck with me the most from watching the documentary Hungry for Change, came from Dr. Christiane Northrup and it was simply "If you're upset, don't eat".  The body senses all manner of stress, and it's typical reaction to stress is to gain weight and store fat.  I was pretty damned stressed these last couple weeks so I get the near 15lb gain.  I've come down  some and I'm working my way back, but as long as I'm feeling like this, it's just a harder, uphill battle.

Today hit me pretty hard since I went to go have lunch and hang with friends and everybody's got new jobs. Many of them just got hooked up at this place I was really hoping to be so that certainly knocked me down some more.  Oh well, I'm glad they're all doing better though.  Things will have to turn around for me eventually right?  Not sure how much more "falling" I can endure heh.

Well, I can't control a lot of what's going on that's getting me down, but I do know what I can control.  That's P90X!  I just gotta keep pressing play.  Cool thing about working out, is at least it helps elevate the mood some.  I'm taking my rest day today.  I'm gonna finish my weekend up strong with Legs & Back and Kenpo X.  Maybe I can kick and punch some of my troubles away and elevate my mood for the first recovery week of round 2!!

okay... done whining for the moment.  Catch you next time!!