It is absolutely normal to gain weight after leaning down so much for a competition. As of Sunday of this week, I had gained 4 pounds and then I made an agreement with my hubby that I needed him to hide the scale from me. I did not want to become obsessed with my weight. So he did, I woke up yesterday and realized that the scale was gone and felt SO much freedom to not be tied to that number. I looked at the mirror and said “hey! I look pretty good today!”

After taking two weeks of rest to recover from such intense training, I started another round of P90X this week and I have to say, EVERYTHING I have read about rest and recovery is absolutely true. I am stronger and was able to lift much heavier with the bands and free weights. I woke up pretty sore today and it feels GOOD.

It took me 14 months to reach my fitness goal and along this journey, I have met people who have been extremely supportive and maybe one or two who are a bit uncomfortable with my commitment to fitness. This morning on my way to work, someone asked me “do you have to workout so extreme all the time?” and I replied, “I workout as extreme as I feel like working out. So if I am waking up early to workout, you bet I’m going to make it count.” I was then asked if I was working out because I was preparing to compete again next year since I have said I want to do it again. I explained that the truth is that even though I do want to compete again, I am not training to compete, this is a lifestyle. My friend protested “No it’s not!” I replied, “It is, I could decide not to compete and I would STILL be working out.” Then I got “the look” you know which one, the terrified look of “she’s going to convince me to do the same.” Followed by the “judging look” that I am familiarized with because I’ve mastered that one (and can laugh about myself which helps break it up.)

 Not everyone will understand and that’s the truth. Not many will step up their game and want to get in shape and do what it takes. Most people just complain about their health, about how their joints hurt, or how their lower back hurts, or how they have lack of energy, or their clothes don’t fit (and the list goes on.) I decided to break the mold, that’s all. Complaining day by day was not an option for me when I had a say in the matter and could change my lifestyle, feel better and live longer. There is nothing special about me, NOTHING. The only thing different about me is that I got in action.

 I now have the tools, know what to eat, how to eat, how to prepare my meals and what to do to stay healthy. I don’t work out to compete. I workout and eat healthy because I want to stay healthy and the truth is, that I have the utmost respect for my body and how it works, which is why I take such good care of it by eating what it needs and how much it needs. Is living this lifestyle extreme? Yes, staying healthy, being fit and living longer IS extreme and revolutionary. It is what Brett Hoebel (who was on “Biggest Loser” and is the creator of Rev Abs,) has called the “health revolution.” Yes, I am part of that revolution and although I cannot force anyone to join me, I am here if someone does choose to take those little steps that compounded over time will make a difference. I will empower you, cheer for you and help you along the process.  Not everyone will like it, not everyone will support you along the way and that’s okay… if they don’t support you, encourage and empower you, then you may want to look for other friends who do.

 Taking a stand for your health and fitness is revolutionary and extreme and I am absolutely okay with that. Are you?

I was reading an interesting article a few weeks ago, that whenever an important chain store opens up in a town, the obesity rate in that town increases. The reason the experts say, is  the amount of processed pre-prepared foods that this particular super-store sells. We have one here where we live, and I can tell you first hand how when I had to go there so that my daughter could use their restroom the other day, out of 10 people walking into the store, 8 of them were obese. I could say that I don’t care, but I do. I really, really do… as someone who was close to being obese and as a mom, I know how challenging it is to lose weight, I know how preoccupying it is to not know what to do about our weight and I know the many diet fads out there cause people to yo-yo into heavier and heavier weights. Yep, I’ve been there, I’ve done that and I’m glad that I was finally able to beat this tendency and actually do something to transform my fitness and health.

I worry about children falling into their parent’s footsteps. I hear about kids being bullied in school all the time because of their weight. It’s difficult enough to try to fit in, let alone, try to fit in with a weight problem. It hurts their self esteem. I’m sure that no parent in the world would want their child to grow up with low self esteem, I know that none of us wants to have low self-esteem. The problem is that many of us just don’t know what and how to transform this trend of eating to death. If we did, it wouldn’t be happening. Right?

The answer is TCP, time, consistency and perseverance. Those three little words which have been forgotten in our fast society. Think about it, we no longer have to wait til harvest time to pick up our produce, we now have grocery stores with a large supply of them,  hence the tendency to look for a fast and easy solution to lose weight. If we could push a button to fitness, trust me there would be a line for it, but then there is! Right in the comfort of your home, push a button, play one of the many fitness DVD’s and you have a trainer right there in your home to help you with fitness. Seriously! You don’t even have to drive to the gym. This is one of the things I love about the Beachbody products. They really did hire some of the best trainers in the U.S. to help you get fit. So now you have the time thing taken care of, you just have to work on your consistency and perseverance. That’s where I come in as your free coach. Beachbody pays me to coach you so you don’t have to pay me.

If you are interested to hear more, contact me.

Click here for the link to the report on the super store.

I have had to increase the weights as the weeks have gone by. On Friday, as I was working on one of my routines and was increasing the weights with each set of repetitions I was doing,  I picked up a pair of dumbbells and felt intimidated by the weight, “Oh shoot, can I do this?” I thought. I backed away from the weights looked at them, went back, was about to lift them and backed off again. It was as if I was being invited to dance by my high school crush, saying yes, holding his hand and then sitting down again thinking that I’d fall on my face.

I looked at myself in the mirror with thoughts of “I don’t think I can do this” and asked myself “do you want to whine, or do you want results?” I knew then what I needed to do: I went back to the dumbbells and said “if the weights are so heavy that I can’t keep proper form, I’ll put them down, otherwise, I will do this” and so it was that I worked out with the heaviest weights so far. Yes, it was tough and left me sweating but I had discovered how strong I really am not only physically, but also mentally.

Training for this competition has taken my tolerance for whining to a whole different level, the one of “I can’t stand a minute of it.” It’s amazing how much I have learned through this process. I have grown in ways that I never expected and I have  learned a great deal about myself, including discovering whether or not I have what it takes to not quit and keep going forward, I am no longer the wilting leaf of lettuce that I thought I was, I am strong and have the muscles to prove it AND I still look feminine, how cool!

So here I am, 11 months after starting my fitness journey with P90X, literally training my butt off for this thing called competition. I have to say that the level of commitment and time is a lot more intense but the truth is that I enjoy training hard, I always have. I enjoyed training for the marathon years ago. I guess I have always enjoyed pushing my physical capabilities to the limit just to see how far I could get. I have always enjoyed a good challenge and the benefit of having a beautiful sculpted body really entices me, I won’t lie about that.

Since my commitment to being truthful of where I am in regards to my fitness is important to me because I know it will make a difference for someone out there who is reading this, I must also be truthful of where I am in regards to my motivation and this is what this post is about. So here it goes…

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a blog from a girl who is about to enter a competition after a great loss. Her husband worries about her because she is moody all the time and told her that if she were to consider doing this again, it would be the end of their marriage. She posted an angry blog stating that she was planning on competing for the rest of her life. I had already noticed how many angry blog posts she had written and I have to say it saddened me. One thing for sure is that I will never, ever put a competition or my fitness before my family so my priorities are extremely different. Joseph has been completely supportive and wonderful in this whole process, encouraging me, cheering for me and giving me pep talks when I feel discouraged.

Yesterday was one of those days. One of the things I am required to do is to take pictures and measurements once a week. It helps to a degree, except when the problem areas don’t seem to shift and in my case, my waist seems to not have changed much for the last couple of weeks, in fact, it seems to have somehow increased a bit which really doesn’t make sense. Yes, I know it’s the last thing to go and the area that we all struggle with the most and if you are doing P90X, you’ll notice that this is the area that we focus on the most, in the sense that we do it every time we do resistance training (weights). I have to consider that it may be possible that I just have not been taking the measurements correctly or that the measuring tape may not be in the same place every week, because my favorite jeans that did not fit a month ago, the ones that I have had hanging on my closet door as my goal now fit PERFECTLY not only that, this week they fit better than last and I have no “muffin top.” And for some reason, I seem to have forgotten that my arms are looking pretty shapely and for the first time in my life, I can say I have entered the category of “moms with guns.” No, I’m not talking about the NRA types of weapons, my arms are really looking pretty hot and I am excited about that

As I wrote in my group “girls, I am discouraged about the stats” one of the wonderful girls wrote “Veronica, remember that your jeans fit?” So this morning I looked for the jeans and put them on, sure enough, they fit even better than last week. When I came downstairs with this huge smile on my face, Joseph told me that the problem with me is that I don’t listen (to him) when he’s telling me that my tummy has shrunk. But as you know, it’s hard to listen when the numbers tell a different story because I always think, well “numbers don’t lie” (by the way, neither does he). Since I know myself well enough to know that I’m going to not listen to him again, I have to find something that is going to work to help me snap out of it. For me, it’s the jeans and I know it is. The jeans somehow remind me to stay grounded and not get discouraged so easily. I guess instead of thinking that “numbers don’t lie” I am training my mind to think, “the jeans don’t lie.” I made an agreement with Joseph that next time, he is not to give me the usual “pep-talk,” instead, he just needs to say “put the jeans on.”

When someone is on our side, cheering for us, it’s so easy to dump on that person when we think that we are not getting the results we want. I am guilty of that. But that’s when we need to find something that will work. Put something on that didn’t fit a few months ago and that fits now or find something that will work for you. We really don’t want to discourage our cheerleaders when we feel discouraged.  We will need all the cheering possible and all the “you can do this” words of encouragement at times when we don’t feel like we can. What I realized this morning is that not only do I need to exercise my body and follow the nutrition plan to a “T”, I also need to start exercising my ability to listen to my biggest cheerleader and finding something that works for me in the process is as important as following the nutrition and exercise plan.

So what happened was that on Monday night I had to go lift weights. I happily went to the gym, thinking “Alright! I am ready to get this thing called fitness done.” I am at a point in my training where I am lifting pretty heavy weights and my workouts are intense. The gym was seriously jam-packed and probably full of people who have decided “I am going to start Monday!” As I went to the pull up machine to get my warm up started, there was a line. Five guys waiting patiently for their turn… I don’t have patience! People should know that, they should have been given a fair warning when they walked into the gym “see that lady there? Beware, she has no patience… open the line and let the diva workout.” Because the gym was built for ME after all.

“Fine” I thought to myself, I will just do push-ups and come back to the pull ups. When I was done with the push-ups I went back to the machine and it was STILL packed. Seriously? Seriously??? I had the decency to go do push-ups and you guys didn’t hurry up for ME??? Why are you STILL on MY machine?????? Of course the diva didn’t speak, they are supposed to read my mind you know.

After about 20 minutes of waiting in line for 3 machines, I ended up getting frustrated and went back home. I was in a serious bad mood. How could they just hog MY machines???? What’s up with that? It wasn’t until the next day that I got what a diva I am. Geez, I could have just done a session of plyometrics and allowed those who are never at the gym to do their workouts, saying “the machines were busy” was just a lame excuse to NOT workout. Yes, I am acknowledging that I really didn’t want to be at the gym and was just looking for an excuse to walk out. It was Monday night and I did not want to work out. All I wanted was to plop in front of the TV and watch a good show. What those guys unknowingly did was offer me (well the diva) the perfect excuse on a silver platter to head back home. Oh and I didn’t head back home peacefully, I headed back home with a freaking attitude. Guess what I watched when I got home? Yes you guessed it, I watched an episode of “Hot in Cleveland” (I’m behind on my shows)

Lesson learned. I have successfully switched my workout program to do sprints on Monday nights and plyo on Tuesday nights when the gym is packed. My weight lifting will be done on the remainder of the week and now the diva has no excuse to come out and complain about the machines being packed.

There were people of all ages, shapes, sizes and fitness levels. All of us in this huge room where you could feel the energy and excitement of what was about to transpire. Tony was introduced as a down to earth, humble man… I thought to myself “really?” And then Tony walked on the stage. He did a couple of poses, showed off his abs, all in a playful way all to “oohs” and “aaaahs” from the boys and even more cheers from the girls (alright, I confess… even me). The man is 52 years old and he looks hot, so in my book he is totally and completely entitled to show off

We then started the warm up, all of us in that room. I was concerned because it was a little tight but we all managed to move around and workout. The workout was amazing. Between jokes,  laughs and tons of encouragement he guided the whole room into a workout that left me sore for 3 days (soreness of the good kind of course). The exercises were tougher than the ones on the DVD’s except there were no weights. It was push ups, planks,  lunges, ab exercises, jumping jacks, etc., with the advantage that he gave the modifiers some very cool options if certain exercise was too tough for them.

At the end of the workout, he took the time to sign each one of our books and pose for pictures. My camera had accidentally somehow switched to “movie” mode (it’s a new camera) so Tony asked us to wait so we could take the picture again… yes, he waited for us and had the patience to retake the picture how cool is that?

Not only did he wait for us, he tickled Angelina who instead of saying “P90X!” got really shy and was giggling the whole time. Never once did I see him lose his patience, or his graciousness, or his awesomeness.  People would approach him and announce: “Tony, I lost X amount of pounds!” and Tony would announce it and celebrate with them; so of course, I wanted to do the same. I said “Tony, I lost 30 Lbs. and I want to thank you.” He looked at me, and said out loud “30 Lbs, right here!” and then patted me on the arm and said: “No, thank you for doing the work.” I wanted to make sure he got acknowledged for putting the program together but instead, I was acknowledged for following it.

What I thought was truly amazing  is that he took the time to encourage us, acknowledge us, regardless of our fitness level and  spend 2 -3 minutes with each one of us, chat and joke around and he had patience with those of us who brought our children along. At the end I realized that this is just who he is… he’s just committed to seeing us succeed in our fitness goals. How awesome is that? A modern Jack LaLanne for sure

But how did he get started? Well, at 15, he listened to Paul C. Bragg give a speech about nutrition and health. It impacted the young LaLanne so much, that he changed his life around by changing the way he ate and exercising. He opened his first spa and gym in the 1930’s and encouraged women to workout and lift weights.

I don’t know if Paul Bragg knew what an impact his legacy would have that a young man would take his message of health and fitness and run with it, making it his life purpose. This just teaches us that we never know what impact our words will have in the world, seriously. Thankfully for us, there are people like Paul Bragg,  Patricia Bragg, Jack LaLanne, Tony Horton, Shaun T., Brett Hoebel, Chalene Johnson  and many others who are out there making a difference in the fitness world and thankfully for us, we have access to their trainings.

So here is to you, Mr. LaLanne thank you, your legacy will live forever.

I know I have mentioned before that we get up at around 4:00 am to workout and that Saturdays are particularly difficult because we have a 3 year old who loves to climb on us when we’re doing push-ups and of course she just wants to join in the fun, you know, why not climb on daddy’s back while he’s sweating like heck right? So today, being Saturday we decided to wake up early enough that we could still sleep in but she would still be asleep making it easier for us to workout. Okay so we didn’t quite get up at 4:00 because that would totally be crazy, but we did manage to get out of bed at 6:00 and it helped. I was hoping this morning that it would be one of the shorter, less-challenging workouts (as if there are any less-challenging workouts in the second phase). I thought, hey if it’s “Power Intervals 2” my happy butt will still get kicked a great deal but it will only get kicked for 35 minutes. To my disappointment (at first) the workout was the one I dread the most, “Total Strength and Endurance” followed by 15 minutes of “Merciless Abs” for a total of a 60 minute workout. I perspired like crazy but I was able to do ALL of the workout YIPEE! And so was Joseph! Even the “Renegade Rows.” At one point I turned to Joseph and said “I need lighter weights I think” to which he asked if I was able to do it all with the current weights and yes, I am, it’s a challenge but I can do it. So Joseph reminded me that it’s “supposed” to be challenging.

So how do I feel? Physically I feel amazing. Almost all the flab from my belly is gone, and yes I still have a little more to go. What I am starting to notice at this phase is how much firmer my muscles feel, I thought I was imagining it, but Joseph mentioned this morning how he felt firmness all over and so do I. Although it is an “abs” program, Rev Abs actually works every single muscle in your body. I don’t know about you but I have never in my life seen anyone with amazing abs and fat or flabbiness somewhere in their body, so it’s no surprise that this program was designed in a way to get amazing abs while strengthening and tightening everything else.

What’s next? Insanity and by Insanity I mean the workout program, not that I’m going to go Insane, although people look at me funny when I say I wake up at 4:00 am to workout everyday but I do what I need to do for my fitness because that makes me healthier and my family needs a healthy mommy and wife. I know it seems weird to say it but when you don’t put yourself first, you certainly cannot be there when your family needs you. My patience is almost non-existent when I don’t workout, why? Because working out releases stress, gives you feel-good endorphins, energy and the ability to focus when needed.

If you don’t like to workout it’s probably because you haven’t found a way to have fun with it. Why suffer about fitness? The best advice anyone gave me is “have fun” and I do. I like RevAbs because it has some dance moves and Capoeira. I like P90X because Tony Horton is hilarious and the workouts to me are fun. If neither one of these workouts seem fun to you, take a look at the other workouts that Beachbody offers by clicking on my links or looking at my online store on Facebook. I promise you that there is something for everyone even you, if you need help choosing which program you’ll like best, drop me a message and I’ll help you choose. You will get me to be your coach and support you on your journey to fitness for free.

My strength has greatly improved for sure, but not only has it improved, my clothes are fitting looser. I put some jeans on that I had not been able to wear for about a year and not only did they fit, they were loose around the waist and the belly. Speaking of belly, it has shrunk and I am now sure that even if I don’t reach my weight goal by the end of the program, I am going to be in such fantastic shape, that the number on the scale won’t matter. That was the point of working out anyway. I sometimes forget that muscle weighs more than fat so as long as I have a flat belly, I’m happy.

Day 48 we did my favorite workout – Kenpo X. I worked out harder to get my heart rate up, and I was able to… but not as high as when I first started. It only got up to 168, which is 11 short from my maximum heart rate for my age and the interesting thing is that I was covered in sweat from head to toes and YES I was working harder!! I love this program, everything about it is great. This is not a regular program where you don’t see results, this is an amazing program where you start to see results very quickly IF you stick to it. I think the reason a lot of people don’t like to workout is because 1) it takes time, 2) many times we don’t know what we’re doing (it happened to me too) and we don’t get the results we want. There has not been one exercise routine that has not left me covered in sweat, everything from the resistance training (weights) to the cardio exercises have and the results are showing! I LOVE IT!!

I giggle when I hear someone say “I don’t workout because I have no energy,” or my favorite: “It takes too long and I have no time…” so why do I giggle about it? Because I can relate. I’m a mom, my toddler needs my TOTAL attention when I’m with her, I am also in school full-time (online getting a degree in English literature that requires a lot of writing… I am just finishing up a 6,000 word essay that is due this weekend,) I also work full time, sometimes even up to 60 hours a week. If it weren’t because of my husband who helps me get my daughter ready for pre-school in the morning and sometimes prepares lunch or breakfast (he’s an AMAZING cook so we take turns cooking), I wouldn’t be able to do it all. But truth be told, this is my health we’re talking about. I need the energy I get from exercise to be able to do everything I do. So guess what? Even if I “feel” like I don’t have the time, I SCHEDULE it and I do it.

A friend a long time ago said to me that she doesn’t workout because she doesn’t like to sweat. Well, sweating is my favorite part of working out. So is the soreness of a good workout. There is a difference though from being sore from working out and another very different is pain from having done too much too fast. The latter is dangerous because you can suffer an injury that may stop you all together from working out. You should never workout to the point where you get nauseous (yes I say it again), nor should you workout until you feel pain and, there is no need to absolutely finish the whole DVD the first time you do it. There’s time, ease into the exercises, do as much as you can while keeping GOOD FORM that’s what’s important. Doing the best you can like Tony Horton says, doesn’t mean that you should push yourself to exhaustion and bad form, it means doing the BEST you can, pushing yourself as far as it’s safe to push yourself while keeping good form to avoid injury.

I have always been very committed to exercising (well almost always without counting the past 3 years). When I had foot surgery at the end of 2001, I would workout with my foot in a cast, I’d do weights with my legs to strengthen them. The funny thing is that my doctor was shocked because although I was supposed to heal in 90 days, my foot healed in 30. So much so, that the cut in the bone he had done, didn’t even show on the X-ray, it was as if the bone was completely new. Six months later, I ran my first 5K completing it in 23 minutes (my best time ever).  But even though this may seem radical and crazy, I was smart about it, I worked out in a way that I made sure I wouldn’t hurt myself. I allowed my body to heal and recover. Even in this case, there was a smart way to workout and it payed off.

So why am I writing this? Because I’ve heard from a couple of people that the P90X caused them to feel nauseous. So to them I say: Don’t quit! Don’t let that get in the way of your fitness… just be smart about your workouts, allow your body to ease into the exercises, don’t do ALL the DVD, do what you can, you don’t have to keep up, remember the people on the DVD are already trained, have been working out for months and many even years, so don’t be arrogant. Arrogance can only cause an injury, be humble and be smart.