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

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 91 - 90)

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 91 - Well, it turns out the scale last week was weigh off.  This week, I tried again and I have lost a couple pounds from 2 weeks ago.  A pound a week, that's not bad but I'd like to see it bumped up a bit.  Still, at a pound a week, I'll be down where I want when it's time for the cruise.

I took the whole day off as a rest day.  Sundays are my rest or X Stretch days.  Tomorrow I start with 3 weeks of hard training again so I thought I'd give my body one last day of complete rest before throwing it into the fire for 21 days.

Me-Me Monday: TV

Borrowed from PTE Rick.

1.  Name 3 bad things about TV.

- Most of the crap on TV is crap.  Okay, I probably don't have the experience necessary to make that judgment call but from the previews of shows I've seen, I'm sticking with my evaluation.  Final answer.

- Commercials.  I would probably watch more TV if there weren't any commercials.  Currently, I watch an hour a week and that's all the commercials that I can stand.  Not only do I feel they are wasting my time, but some I don't understand, and some I just shake my head and wonder if people really buy into the stupidity.

- The average American watches 4 hours of crap and commercials per day.  After work, commute, showers, eating, and sleeping, that seems like all the rest of a person's daily allowance of time.  And they obviously fall for the stupidly materialistic commercials or companies wouldn't make them.

succesMe-Me Monday: Random Stuff

Another meme borrowed from Mrs. Chili (and I remembered to link to her blog this time).

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?

Any of them that charge interest.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
Sad as this may be but I can't remember the last romantic dinner we had.  We had plans for Valentine's Day but that was changed by friends dropping in. 

3. Do you own a guitar?
No.  I was tempted to go buy one just so I could answer yes to this question.

4. Name of your first grade teacher?
You're kidding right.  I can't remember what happened two days ago and I've been to about 14 different schools.  5th or 6th grade was Mr. C.  Cvatanich or something?  Best teacher I ever had.

5. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
Yes but not as a patient.

6. Do you own a piggy bank shaped like a pig?
No.  Mine looks like a large Pepsi can.  A held over idol from my cop days.  Mountain Dew was nectar of the gods but I favored Pepsi. 

7. How many colleges did you attend?
Two, so far.  Many more to come, I'm sure.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 94 - 92)

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 94 - Time is ticking down.  The cool thing is that P90X is designed to work in 90 days and I'll be coming off a recovery week with 3 weeks hard training already done when day 90 arrives.  The first month shows the least in visible results for me.

Looking ahead at the next 3 weeks, I'm going to keep on with the tough training of alternating days of P90X and Turbulence Training but I'm also going to focus on flexibility.  I have done terrible on getting myself to do Yoga or Stretching so that will be my goal.

For those of you starting your own fitness program, adding one thing at a time is a great way to go.  You change one thing about your diet for a week or two and then change another and so on.  Over time, you will find that you are eating much more healthy.  The same holds true for exercise.  If you are just starting, you can do three easy 30 minute workouts in a week or go for a walk.  Do that for a couple of weeks and then add a day or intensity or weight.  These incremental changes really add up.

For me, I focused on strength the first month.  Now that I feel I have that going well, I can focus on doing my flexibility DVDs.  The last phase before the cruise, I'll probably focus on building up my arms because it's something I've always wanted to do.

Ricky T. Teaches Trey To Cuss

Why would he do that?  I don't know.  Trey is only 3 and really doesn't seem to have that many things in his life that are cuss-worthy.

There is one thing though that sets him off just about every time.  He has this Thomas the Train track set up that comes with a kind of bridge set up.  Putting the first track is the hardest part and it often falls before the second piece can be attached to stabilize it. 

When it does, Trey says, "Dammit!"

Some of you may be wondering how Rick pulled this off after spending only a couple of days with Trey a year ago.  In fact, Rick might be wondering that as well.  Lucky for you, I'm going to answer that.

Next week.

What I'm Reading

Tia bought A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and I've been trying to get some reading in on it.  He says that we are at a point in time where humans need to evolve or die.  The ego of humans is causing such dysfunction that we are going to destroy each other as well as our planet.  Can't argue with that. 

I'm interested to read more about what this evolution will entail and how he proposed we do our part in making the change.

I read The Power of Now by the same author several years ago and really enjoyed it.  I didn't put as much effort into following the advice as maybe I should have but I still enjoyed it and I should revisit it.  The Power of Now is geared to helping people live "now" and to let go of regrets from the past and worries from the future.

The other book that I'm reading is World Made by Hand by James Kunstler.  It's a first person fictional account of a guy living after the earth's oil supply is gone.  There is very little electricity and life is much like it was before the discovery of oil.  Most people grow their own food, walk where they need to go, and don't have much contact with people outside their village.  A farm hand has been murdered and no one is going to do anything about it.  A New Faith group has moved into the village and is trying to recruit new members.  There is a guy that seems to be doing very well for himself trying to create a new kind of life for him and the people that work for him, who sound like serfs to me.

I suppose the books go hand in hand.  It could be one or the other.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 96 - 95)

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 96 - I started my day with P90X+ Upper Body. 

There were some interesting exercises in this DVD.  You are hitting the muscles from all sorts of different angles.  I have some suggestions for people are going to give this DVD a shot.

You should watch it one time through before you try it or give yourself extra time to hit pause several times.  You don't want to be trying to squeeze this one in a small time slot the first time you try it. 

I had to watch some of the exercises all the way through and then hit pause and do them myself.  This was especially true of the pull up variations because my pull up bar is not in view of the TV.  I also had to experiment with different dumbbell weights (where are my SelectTechs?) for the exercises.  Instead of doing a certain number of reps, you're going for a certain amount of time.  That meant going lighter for most of the exercises because doing 8 bicep curls is much different than doing 90 seconds of bicep curls.

I really felt good during the day after this workout.  The fact that I'm in my recovery week also probably plays a part in that.  I can tell you that I really needed it.  I will probably make this 3/1 plan the norm for my exercise program.  3 weeks of blasting as hard as I can followed by 1 week of stretching, light weights, yoga, cardio, and resting.  I think it's going to work well for me physically and mentally.

Howie Mandel and Night Ranger (and Boobs)

Last weekend, I did security for Howie Mandel and Night Ranger (hence the title of this post). 

Things were a bit calmer at the Howie show than Carlos Mencia.  In fact, other than the woman 3 seats away from me fondling her breasts while her boyfriend went down on her, the crowd was well behaved.  She obviously liked her boobs touched because even when her boyfriend went to pee or umm, take care of other things caused by watching your girlfriend fondle her breasts or what ever he did while he was gone, she was still fondling her boobs.  Is it Howie's bald head?  I don't know.  I should have asked. 

"Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice that you've been fondling your breasts for 30 minutes.  May I ask what it is that's got your engine going?  I'd like to see if I can bottle and sell it and make a fortune."

Here's a bit that Howie Mandel did at the show.  If you watch it and fondle your breasts, it'll be just like you were there.

Women, did Bobby's voice make you hot?  Clue me in.  Would 3 or 4 daiquiris help?  I really should have asked her.

Success Warrior Diet Program: P90X Journal (Cruise Plan Days 98 - 97)

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 98 - Good gawd!

Let me preface this with a bit of a recap.  Friday and Saturday I was feeling a lot burned out.  Since starting my P90X/P90X+/Turbulence Training insanity, I have really been concentrating on trying to get enough sleep and doing a pretty good job of it.  Five nights a week, I get about 8 hours of sleep.  Friday and Saturday, it's hit and miss somewhere between 3 hours on the worst nights and 6 hours on the good nights.  Thinking sleep was handled, I figured the burned out feeling was from a lack of calories.  I'm not eating like I did with my first round of P90X.  I tried to eat more on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get the calories up.

Let me assure you that not getting enough calories is not the problem.  I guess I can't be totally sure because I don't measure my calorie intake but I do measure my weight each week.  Today completely freaked me out because I have never, ever had this happen to me before.

I gained 7 pounds in one week.

Now, there has to be some kind of mistake.  No one gains 7 pounds in one week.  I stepped off the scale and stepped back on but it read the same thing.  I have gone over it in my head trying to figure out the cause but I can't think of anything so I'm stuck with the fact that I have gained 7 pounds.

I weigh three more pound than I did when my pants and belt were sounding klaxon alarms.  The interesting thing is that my pants aren't tighter and my belt is still on the same notch that it was last week.  There just has to be some kind of freaky mistake somewhere. 

Me-Me Monday: Manly Answers to Manly Questions

Here's a meme specifically made for guys by Mrs. Chili.

1. Boxers? Briefs? Boxer briefs? Thongs? Commando?

Is this a meme or a sleazy chat session?  I answered this one in last week's meme.

2. What’s your fussiest personal care routine?

I trim my pubic hair into different animals each month like the bushes at Disneyland.  This month's mascot is the giraffe.  Hello Mr. Giraffe.

3. Do you have a favorite tool? Power or manual?

Well, the obvious answer is too obvious so my answer is going to be my cordless drill (which could still be the obvious answer, I suppose, for those of you with your minds in the gutter).

4. Can you change your own oil? Do you?

That's a big negatory in both cases.  I have inherited my father's mechanical expertise (none) and added to that my mechanical desire (none) and come up with complete incompetance when it comes to cars.

5. What’s the “manliest” thing you do on a regular basis?

Pee standing up.  In morse code.  Long stream, short stream, long stream.  Short stream, long stream, short stream.  Long stream . . . sorry, need to go drink more before I can continue the message.

6. What’s something “manly” that you never learned how to do?

Change the oil in my car.

7. Do you ever cry? If so, what’s your trigger?

Yes.  Trigger: Clay Walker music.