© Tim Pannell Photography

Well……..once again it’s been far too long between posts.  My work schedule has become…let’s say…..not very routine lately.  Yesterday my wife, my twelve year old son and I popped in the P90X Chest and Back DVD and worked out together for an hour.  My wife has been working at a full time job the last couple of months that required her to be at work by 6 am everyday.

To say it put a crimp into our daily P90X workouts is an understatement.  I struggled to stick to the workouts once she was no longer able to do them with me.  It was truly so much easier getting up in the morning  and starting out with P90X when she was doing them with me.

Her sister was also doing them with us everyday.  She ended up having her gall bladder removed about a month ago and came down with pneumonia last week…..not a good month for her.  Eventually she will join us again.  It was always fun working out with the ladies.

My wife starts a new job this week with more reasonable hours so we will be getting back to our daily P90X rituals.  The twist yesterday was adding our son into the mix.  Most of our kids have been ultra skinny, just like I was when I was a kid.  Our 12 year old is the exception.  From the day he was born he was always in the 100 percentile for both height and weight.

He is a man child to say the least.  He looks like he was born to play football.  Even though he looks like he could be 14 or 15 he’s just 12 and consequently behaves like a 12 year old.  He actually started doing P90X on his own last week.  He popped in the P90X Back and Bicep DVD and was off to the races.

He did pretty well with it.  Yesterday was a different story.  He struggled with the push ups and was getting pretty down on himself.  It made me remember back to the first time I did the P90X Chest and Back Workout and how hard……near impossible it was for me to do a single diamond pushup……..or divebomber.  I can now do over 20 diamonds and yesterday I did 15 divebombers.

I too was extremely frustrated the first time I struggled through the entire workout.  All I could see was this huge mountain I had to climb and I struggled to believe that I’d get the results I was looking for.  Fortunately for me I found great improvement in my overall abilities rather quickly once I stuck with the workouts for a couple weeks.

I’m hoping my son will see improvement quickly as well as he fights the temptation to give up and quit when things get difficult.  My wife did really well for having had basically a 2 month layoff.  She was able to do 1 or 2 P90X workouts every week or so.  She was really excited to get back to the routine though.

So…..here I am again…hopeful that we are going to be sticking to this morning ritual 6 days a week.  It should be a lot of fun for everybody.  It’ll be especially nice to be able to get the 12 year old developing good workout habits at an early age.  I’ll keep you posted on his progress.

Have a great day!

P90x With My Wife and Twelve Year Old is a post from: Losing weight with P90X

© Tim Pannell Photography

This was a crappy week for P90X!   There’s no other way to describe it.

I had a number of setbacks this week, mostly soreness in my left elbow and a fair amount of lower back pain.

I did the P90X Chest & Back workout on Monday and the P90X Shoulders & Arms workout on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I could barely move my left elbow.

This type of pain would come around fairly often in my right elbow when I was playing racquetball.

This is the second time I’ve experienced this in my left elbow.  If you’ve ever had tennis elbow…….that is what this feels like.

It got so bad I could barely play any low notes on my guitar without serious pain.

The twisting motion is just horrible.

I decided to take it easy the rest of the week……thinking that it would get better.

Well, it hasn’t really.  The left elbow is still really sore.

I’m guessing I overdid it with any of the bicep exercises in the P90X Shoulders & Arms routine.

I’ve added a lot of strength to my arms and I guess I just pushed it too hard.

As far as my lower back is concerned….I haven’t got a clue.  Throughout most of my experience with P90X I’ve been pain free in my back.

I did P90X Kenpo X yesterday with my wife, sister in law, brother in law and niece.

I figured this wouldn’t hurt my elbow any.  It was more painful than I expected it to be, but not too bad.

This workout actually helped stretch out my back and as of this morning the pain in my lower back is almost gone.

There is still some pressure, but nothing like the last couple of days.

I think this next week I’ll stick to the P90X Yoga X, Kenpo X and Aerobics X workouts to give my elbow some rest.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

P90X Setbacks is a post from: Losing weight with P90X

P90X / Biking © Tim Pannell Photography

We just got back from taking my 16 yr. old son to Lacrosse Camp up in Utah and I am anxious to get back in the workout saddle so to speak.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how easy it is to do P90X workouts on the road. That post was aimed more at business travel and staying in hotels. I never really tried doing P90X while visiting friends and family.

Let me just say this, it’s a completely different animal. I struggled with working out this last week. It was hands down the worst week I’ve had since starting out on my program. I feel like I lost an entire week.

I did a lousy job of keeping up with my workouts when we were away. I did a series of P90X shoulders and arms with my wife sometime in the middle of the week and the rest of the time I just kept getting sidetracked with other issues.

I got to play golf with my sister a couple of times and that was fun in spite of me playing the worst I’ve played in at least 5 years. Man did I suck!

I’m starting a new photography blog and that consumed me for most of the week as well. I’m teaching people how to shoot better photos of their kids. The website is just in it’s infancy, but check it out if you get a chance and you’re interested in photography. http://photomommies.com

In any case, I’m home now and I’ll be doing P90X chest and back and riding the bike this morning to get things started up again.

The old me would be beating myself up right now for not having worked out consistently all of last week, even though it was nice to get to see family and spend some time with them.

The new me sees the past as the past and today as the present. I can’t change last week, but I can make good choices today. If you’re struggling with weight issues like I do chances are you can get easily derailed from your workout goals.

It’s all too easy to just throw in the towel and give up when things don’t work the way I hope. This is always a major crossroads in my life. What I do in these situations will ultimately show what I’m made of.

I have a choice to give up completely and wallow in self doubt and pity or I can pick myself up and learn from the past instead of dwelling on it. What can I do better, where can I improve?

I’ve been working out with P90X for the last 2 months and 3 weeks. I haven’t last the amount of weight that I’d hoped for, but I am in much better shape than I was.

I would say that my biggest problem over the previous couple of months is that I haven’t been consistent enough and that is what I will be working on this coming month.

I am guilty of letting off the gas once I made a lot of progress. I have to do a better job of keeping my fitness goals a priority and not put them on the back burner.

I know that ultimately getting my body back into good shape will have a profound effect on every other aspect in my life.

So, for now, I’m going to stop writing and I’m gonna go hop back on my bike for an hour and then I’m dropping my P90X chest and back into my DVD player and I’m gonna sweat my butt off for a while.

P90X Weight Loss – Get Back On That Bike Dude! is a post from: Losing weight with P90X

©Tim Pannell Photography

Well, I made it through the 4th of July weekend and I porked out pretty well over the it, and yet…da…..dada…..daaaa! I’ve still lost weight! I’m now down to 268 and it feels like my body has finally turned the corner.

My body is actually looking for reasons to let go of it’s excess weight. In the past I’ve experienced the opposite feeling. No matter how hard or often I worked out my body would still put on weight.

I think that in my situation, I’ve been overweight for so long that it just took some time for it to get turned around. I’m just glad I hung in there long enough with the P90X workouts to start seeing the results.

Initially, I only wanted to lose 1 – 2 pounds a week and that is still my goal. This last week I lost a total of 4 pounds. I’m just going to put my head down and keep bulling forward.

I’m eating better foods. I eat more often during the day and am getting used to smaller portions. I am riding the recumbent bike about 45 minutes to an hour each day and doing 1 round of P90X everyday.

My favorite P90X to date is P90X shoulders and arms, followed by P90X chest and back. I know now if I stick with it I will be able to reach my ultimate goal of 210 within several months.

I also know that I’ll be able to keep the weight off. I have become quite used to the P90X workouts and on the rare days that I don’t get one in, I truly miss it. I love the buzz I get from pushing my body to the point where it wants to give up and I manage to go even further.

I’ve come a long way in just 2 months and look forward to seeing how much more progress I can make in the next 2 months.

Today, I get to start playing racquetball again, I can’t wait. I absolutely love that sport and have been missing it badly ever since my partner tore up his knee. He finally got cleared by his doctor to start playing again.

For anyone out there that is more than 30 pounds overweight, please read this: Don’t get discouraged if you actually start gaining weight when you start using the P90X workouts. I gained 8 pounds over the first several weeks and it wasn’t until about the 5th or 6th week that I actually started to lose weight on the scale.

Since that point I’ve lost about 15 pounds. In the last 2 weeks alone I’m averaging about 4 -5 pounds of fat loss each week. It’s worth hanging in there long enough to see those results. For the first time in a long time I can actually believe that I’m going to get back into great shape.

Gotta go, it’s time for my workout. Have an amazing day everybody!

P90X Workout Reviews – Fatboy Fitness – 7/6/09 is a post from: Losing weight with P90X