Goal Girl’s Blog

Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my order of p90X.  I got an email that the order had been shipped on September 10th, six days ago now… and UPS’ tracking system is marvelously uninformative.    For the past five days it simply says “In Transit”.   At least with FedEx, their tracking system tells you where in the world your package is, physically… e.g. “arrived Dallas, TX”, “Received, Irving, TX”, “Out for Delivery”…

sigh.

Even though it won’t become a necessity for some time, I’ve been pricing pull up bars.  Almost glad I won’t be needing that right away (I need to lose probably about 50lbs and gain a lot of strength before I can do a pullup.   I’ll be doing the “simulated pullups” using the resistance bands initially!).

I’m keeping up my excitement by watching p90X workout/results videos on Youtube, but seems like the same ones keep popping up.  Would like to see more vids of women working out.   Guess I’ll have to (gulp) get out the camera…  the thought of publishing tapes of myself working out gives me pause, but if it will help motivate someone else in a similar situation…

Today I got the email confirmation that my order has been shipped!!! Hurray (man they are fast!).  When I made my order, I was a bit annoyed with the endless attempts at up-sell… I understand one or two, but I think there were something like seven times I had to click the “no-thanks” button.  I did get the insurance at $9 bucks though because I know the life-span of DVD’s in my house with the four year old :-)    They’ll replace DVD’s for free if they get scratched or damaged.   It’s worth the $9 bucks not to have to spend hours trying to circumvent their copy protection just so I can make a backup copy.

I have to admit I’m nervous… I really want this.  I just looked at some photos my 4yo snapped of me two weeks ago and I was shocked… my goodness, I’m huge!!!  But I’m determined…    I’m also anticipating going through a lot of ibuprofen, reminiscent of my soccer days in my late 20’s/early 30’s…

I’m going to post on my blog every day, even before I get my dvd’s, to establish the habit…   so, see ya tomorrow!

I have not told my family yet that I’ve ordered it…  even though I can say I’ve more than offset the cost by cancelling the gym membership I almost never use.   I’m thinking… for most of the workouts my living room is going to be adequate, but my floor is pretty hard for plyometrics, especially considering my chronic knee problems.     I need to get a chin-up bar sooner or later, but since I already know I can’t do chinups yet, I think the resistance band will suffice for a bit.   Later I can use the resistance bands to assist pullups for a while until I build up to unassisted (at which point I’ll do as many unassisted as I can and finish the set with assistance).  I’ll definitely need to get the pushup bars though… my wrist isn’t going to put up with the pushups otherwise.

I’m going to have to be very public about all this once I start… if only to have folks respect my workout schedule and nutrition plan.   Hey, there’s a good goal-setting article on creating accountability checks in there somewhere, eh?     I will probably use my wavemaster for the kenp0 X workout, just because I already have bad knees, and kicking empty air full-throttle is a good way to strain ligaments, hyper-extend, etc.    Eight years of martial arts has taught me that at least!

Tonight I’ll take my “before” photos.   Y’all won’t get to see them for at least 60 days though… I want to post them next to some 60-day photos to make myself feel better.

While I wait for my package, I’m out searching for the best p90X online community I can find.  I’m  sure I’ll have lots of questions, and the one on the Beach Body site seems a bit anemic as far as number of posts… censored maybe?   I found the same to be true on the BodyBugg forum.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to be different is the definition of insanity.   I kept trying to get a 24Hour Fitness workout to fit into my schedule/routine, to make it a habit.  Just wasn’t working for me.     So today I cancelled my membership.   That would be quitting, if I didn’t have another route in mind.   I also today ordered the p90x workout.    A guy at work has been doing it and he’s lost 30lbs in 3 months and really looks great.   I justified the price (~$120) by the fact that I won’t be paying >$45/month for 24hour fitness any more (well, I have one more payment I have to make due to contractual obligations, but then I still get to use 24Hour Fitness for another month… ).

p90X for those of you who don’t ever watch infomercials at 2am, is an extreme 90-day workout program that combines cardio, various strength routines, yoga, kenpo (looking forward to this since I’ve been studying kenpo for the last 8 years!), stretching, plyometrics, nutrition, quite a bit of sweat and pain…  I’m wondering how the plyo will be for my knees. I think as long as I don’t blow one out, it may actually be good in the long run, strenthening the supporting muscles/tendons and helping me take a lot of the weight off of the joints.

I’ll eventually need a chin-up bar, but I already know I can’t do even a single one, so for now I’ll be doing the resistance bands.   I do think I’ll buy some pushup bars as I have a bit of a problem with my right wrist (recurring cyst) that limits the flexion.

My CD’s should be here in about a week.  I’ll use this blog to journal my journey… I’ll take some before photos, but I’m not going to post them until I’ve got some decent “along-the-way” if not “after” photos!

I’m excited.  I’ll work the workouts in in the early morning after I do my morning checks for work and before my 4yo wakes up (who knows, she might like to join in).  I can also do it on my lunch break or after work if I can sneak out a few minutes early… afterall, I end up working through the night most of the time anyway!

So stay tuned… in about a week I should start putting up posts about pain, puking, exhilaration and excitement… hope i get addicted!