Chronicles: Alan B. Rowley II - Success Warrior - ECoach - P90X

Manic Movie Monday

Yes, I'm well aware that I'm still running a day behind.  Deal with it.  Also be warned that some of these might include spoilers.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've watched quite a few movies.  I have a NetFlix subscription that was a gift from Cherise plus people lend me movies, out of pity I think.  I don't go to movies and I don't watch TV and so therefore, my life is seen as lacking.  As such, people lend me DVDs to complete my life.  Here's what I've watched and a quick blurb about each.

Transformers - This one was lent to me because the special effects are cool as this girl is hot.  It took Trey and I about a week watching a scene or two a day to get through the movie.  There were some funny bits but it couldn't hold my interest.  The only reason that I made it all the way through eventually was because Trey liked the robots.  He still talks about the scorpion robot.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 31 - 29)

Disclaimer: P90X is tough and you should be in decent shape before going all out using this system.  You could certainly use P90X to get fit but listen to your body and only do what you can.  This is *my* journal and I do not advocate that anyone do what I'm doing.  Some of it is probably very foolish and you should do your own research and/or consult with a doctor before doing crazy stuff like this.

Day 31 - P90X Chest and Back followed by P90X Ab Ripper X to start the day.

In the afternoon was Turbo Jam 20 Minute Cardio.

In the evening was a couple hours of karate.

Walking: 3.27 miles.

Snippet Saturday

I started writing this on Saturday so in my mind it still counts as a Snippet Saturday post.  To those of you that will criticize this (PTE Rick), I'll give my standard reply.  "Bite Me!"

Cruel and Unusual Punishment - Benton County Jail is starving their inmates by supplying them with a meager 3,000 calories a day.  At least, that's what Broderick Laswell is claiming.  He has lost more than 100 pounds since being incarcerated and is all the way down to 308 pounds.  He claims that it's starvation and insists that he isn't exercising to lose weight.  He has filed a lawsuit.

He'd hate life on the outside.  I average 2,700 calories a day and exercise for a couple hours every day.  I'd probably gain weight if I ate 3,000 calories a day and didn't exercise but who would want to do that?

Broderick Laswell would.

Thanks to PTE Rick for sending me the link for this article.

My Trip to the City

So we went to the city on Wednesday for a bit of birthday shopping for Trey.  Tia says that he's spoiled but I say that he's well taken care of.  There is a difference, you know.  Anyway, we got him some video games, some movies, a year supply of Pepsi, and a 55 gallon tub of Cheese Doodles.  He should be indoors and sedentary the entire summer.

Just kidding.  I can't tell you what we really got him because he's a pretty kid and might check my blog to find out.  I will say that all of them will require quite an expenditure of energy and he should have a great summer.

We were cruising along and it was quiet.  No one was talking and the radio was turned down low.  I was watching the prisoners trim trees along a frontage road when I had a feeling.  You ever have someone try as hard as possible to not be noticed and all that effort ended up sending out a "notice me" vibe?  That's what happened and it was coming from my wife.  I pulled my attention from the chain gang and that's when I heard the barely audible song on the radio.  Roxanne by The Police.

Tia hates that song.  Well, that's not quite true.  The song itself is fine.  It's the fact that every time that it comes on, her husband sings along like Eddie Murphy from 48 hours.

I suppose I can't blame her for hoping I wouldn't notice.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 40 - 32)

Disclaimer: P90X is tough and you should be in decent shape before going all out using this system.  You could certainly use P90X to get fit but listen to your body and only do what you can.  This is *my* journal and I do not advocate that anyone do what I'm doing.  Some of it is probably very foolish and you should do your own research and/or consult with a doctor before doing crazy stuff like this.

This is going to have to be a quick and dirty update.  Sometimes quick and dirty is better than nothing.

Day 40 - P90X Legs and Back followed by Ab Ripper X.

Walking: 3.37 miles.

Day 39 - I started the day by spending 30 minutes alternating between wide grip pull-ups and curls.  I'm working on my push-ups, pull-ups, and bicep strength for the rest of this phase then I'll probably have to focus in more on the push-ups until September.

I followed that up with Bryan Kest's Power Yoga Energize. 

Walking: 2.63 miles.

People who take more than 6,000 steps a day tend to be leaner.  For April, my daily average steps was 9,849.  How cool is that?  Once again, I'd like to thank PTE Rick for the sweet pedometer.

What's Up With Success Warrior?

He's still working, exercising, kenpo-ing, exercising, coaching, exercising, eating right, exercising, and trying to get enough sleep.

What this is going to mean for now is a scaling back on blogging.  Scaling back meaning dropping the SWB blog for a while and aiming for a post a day for Chronicles.

Chronicles will still, uh, chronicle my fitness journey and the other days will likely be a mish-mash of topics.  What ever strikes my fancy for the day and probably covering several things per post like the Snippet Saturday posts.

Today, Tia and I are going to the city to see if we can help pull this country out of the recession by buying birthday presents for Trey. 

No, we didn't get our "rebate" from King George yet.  We won't be using that to help with the recession.  That's going toward paying off my car.  Other than the mortgage, we should be debt free in June.  July at the latest.

Speaking of the mortgage, I called my credit union to see what kind of rate I could get on a refi*.  Not a whole lot better than what I have now.  What the hell?  Uncle Ben is selling fiat money at bargain basement prices.  You'd think my credit union could pass some of that savings on to me.

Tomorrow, I'll update my P90X Journal and maybe on Friday I'll have an interesting story from today's little outing.  It seems like something funny or interesting happens when we go into town.  I think the reason for that is the fact that I don't get out much so anything beyond my front lawn is interesting or humorous.

Have a great day!

I'm Not Sure What I Can Say About This One

The little rhyming commentary pretty much says it all.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 42 - 41)

Disclaimer: P90X is tough and you should be in decent shape before going all out using this system.  You could certainly use P90X to get fit but listen to your body and only do what you can.  This is *my* journal and I do not advocate that anyone do what I'm doing.  Some of it is probably very foolish and you should do your own research and/or consult with a doctor before doing crazy stuff like this.

Day 42 - As I reported in the last P90X Journal post, I lost 2 pounds during my recovery week.  I didn't expect that because until the week before, I haven't lost much weight and because I increased the number of calories that I ate during the recovery week.  I've decided to increase my calories to that level for my weight lifting weeks and increase calories again during the next recovery week to see what happens.  I don't care about losing weight during the recovery weeks.  The idea is to recover.  To let the muscles heal from the weight lifting and to eat enough to allow the process to go without hindrance.

4 more pounds and I'll be the lightest that I've been in who knows how many years.  I was at 188 last year before I got hit in the throat with a stick during karate practice.  I'm at 191 now.  I don't think I look as good as I did last year but I'll take a picture when I hit 187 and let you decide.

I started the day with P90X Plyometrics X.  I still can't get air born the whole time but I sure like this workout.  On the Mary Katherines, I do the easiest version so that I can catch my breath.  You can do the same thing during P90X+ Interval Plus.  Instead of bumping up the intensity every 20 seconds, every once in a while you can do the whole minute at the lowest intensity if you need to.  It's still a cardio workout if you keep on moving, panting, and sweating.  You don't have to keep up with Tony Horton and the kids.

After Plyo X, I drank my P90X recovery drink and then mowed the lawn.  I'm one of those crazy people that would mow the lawn for fun.  Years ago, my mower broke down.  I traded my services as a lawn mower for the use of a lawn mower from Milan.  I borrowed his mower to mow my lawn and then when I got back to his house with the mower, I mowed his lawn.  He hated mowing his lawn so it was a perfect deal.  I bought the gas and did the work and he drank margaritas while sitting in the shade.  Okay, he didn't really drink margaritas but it was still a good deal.

Around noon, I did P90X X Stretch before I got too tired.  I only got 4 hours of sleep so if I waited too long, I knew that it wouldn't happen.  I've been really trying to get the yoga and stretching in during this new plan so I did it before fatigue would sap my motivation.  I am getting more flexible.  There are a couple of poses that I do that are drastically different than when I started.  Who knows, in another year, I might be one of those freaks that can do 100 push ups and the splits.  Yeah, not likely, but I'm going to be working in that direction anyway.

I am absolutely loving White Flood and Anabolic Halo.  I ordered some more because I'm going to keep taking this stuff for a while.  I'm losing weight but I'm getting more definition.  What ever is happening is good and I want to keep it going.  I'm convinced that these two products along with the P90X Recovery Drink are helping me make the change.  There are other factors, to be sure, but since I've started to take these products, I've seen noticeable changes.  Call me superstitious but if it's working, I'm going to keep doing it.

Walking: 3.61 miles.

Me-Me Monday: 5 Things I Like

Today's meme is from Take 5 Tuesday:

5 of your favorite words -

Interesting question.  It's one of the reasons why I chose this meme.  I've never given any thought to any favorite words.

"Dude" will have to be one.  I use it a lot in my comedic blogs and comments.

"Definitely" is something that I type up a lot.  I seldom took a stand before blogging but I find myself doing it more and more.  There are some things that just are.

"Girl" will need to be on the list.  It's what I call Tia when it's just me and her.

I'll throw "Spartacus" onto the list for similar reasons.  I've been calling Trey Spartacus since before he was born.  I used to talk to him through the stomach wall.

Allow me to go off on a tangent here while I'm thinking about that time of his life.  He used to get the hiccups a lot before he was born.  It was the funniest thing to see Tia's stomach bounce over and over when he hiccuped.  I can't help but smile when he gets the hiccups now because of the memories.

"Dammit!"  It's my cuss word.  I don't use profanity except for this word.  Sometimes as a joke and sometimes for real.  Tia and Trey have picked up on it and both of them say it.  That's may end up being my legacy.

"Dammit!  Here lies Success Warrior."

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 45 - 43)

Disclaimer: P90X is tough and you should be in decent shape before going all out using this system.  You could certainly use P90X to get fit but listen to your body and only do what you can.  This is *my* journal and I do not advocate that anyone do what I'm doing.  Some of it is probably very foolish and you should do your own research and/or consult with a doctor before doing crazy stuff like this.

Day 45 - P90X+ Total Body Plus.  You do work your whole body too because you're doing some pretty bizarre stuff.  Things like curls while standing on one leg.

You're obviously working your biceps but your also working the leg that your standing on and your abs as you try to keep everything under control while you lift and lower the weights. 

I was thinking about Yoga X and my comment about how long it is.  I have read numerous accounts of people who have done half in the morning and the other half in the evening.  I just wanted to throw that option out there for people. 

If you're using P90X as part of a lifelong health aid, you don't have to do it exactly as outlined.  You can modify things to fit your life.  If you don't have 90 minutes to spend all at once doing yoga (or if you don't *want* to), you can certainly do 45 minutes when you wake up and the other 45 minutes before you go to bed.  I won't say there aren't any rules but I will say that the rules allow for a lot of flexibility.  Flexibility is a good thing when talking about Yoga X, in more ways than one.

At work, I learned that the guy that challenged me to a push up contest in September has doubled his max already.  That was quick.  I've decided to quit alternating P90X with Turbulence Training workouts within the same week and go with a different plan that will have more push ups in it.  Sport specific training, if you will.  I'm still not going to focus solely on the push ups but just add in a couple days where I do a bunch of extra push ups.  I'm going to stick with my cycle of 2 weeks of weights with 1 week of recovery.  The two weeks of weights will change after each recovery week to keep the muscle confusion going.  I've set up a 12 week plan.  It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

When I got home from work, I did the Turbo Jam 20 Minute workout with the weighted gloves.  Thursdays I keep it shorter because I have karate.

I've started exercising in karate class.  Today we did 45 minutes of cardio and body weight exercises.  We'll probably work our way up to an hour.  I have to spend time teaching them the moves I want them to do.  When they know it all, we'll be able to pick up the pace plus get in a few extra circuits.  We focused on legs and triceps tonight. 

They're going to need to work out on their own as well.  Once a week probably isn't going to do a whole lot.  Anything is better than nothing but people should probably  workout  vigorously at least 3 hours a week.

Walking: 3.97 miles.