P90X3 Week 7 Progress - Shout Out to the Mama's!

I wanted to dedicate an entire post to my challengers that are moms. Why? Because being involved in a workout and clean eating program requires prep work and dedication - when you add a child and family into the mix, you are taking the challenge to a whole other level!

One of my challengers has 3 children, one of which is under 2 years old. She is working and managing a business full time along with cooking, cleaning, being a wife and mother. She has found 30 minutes a day to dedicate to exercise and found meals that accommodate the entire family as well. Once she started cooking clean meals she realized how much her children are open to eating different vegetables she was not aware of. Also, her kids love watching the dvds and mimicking Tony Horton. She has really done a great job of working this into her lifestyle and it shows in her results!

Another challenger has a young son - 3 years old, her and her husband are doing the program together - and even workout together sometimes. She told me her 3 year old will hop in and goof around too because he likes to workout with them. She also works full time, but has made this program work with her lifestyle. She was spending money monthly on a gym membership she didn't use, now she is working out at home and gets to spend more time with her family. When you make fitness a family event, you have an accountability partner at home, and this can really motivate and drive you toward success. When one person at home is on board and the other is not, sometimes their eating habits or what they bring into the house can sabotage you.


Now onto their results and victories so far.......

One challenger is 38 years old, she has been doing the program for 6 weeks total. She has been engaged in the group and always follows up on at least a weekly basis. She even took a small vacation and actually packed and planned clean meals for herself and her family, talk about dedication! Here are her results so far - she still has 6 weeks to go and is doing an amazing job!

7 POUNDS LOST

6 3/4 INCHES LOST 

Non-scale victories: She see's strength and muscle definition in her legs and arms. She has seen her confidence come back in areas she has not seen for a few years and her general attitude and mood is better.


My other challenger is 27 years old she is a sweet, fiery :) Brazilian who is an excellent cook, but had to ween herself off of the carbs and rice she was used to eating as the staple of most of her meals. She was small to begin with, but wanted to get healthier. She is 7 weeks into the program, here are her results:

5.4 POUNDS LOST

2 INCHES LOST OFF HER BELLY

Non-scale victories: She said her clothes are fitting better and that she is finally understanding the lifestyle. She is enjoying working out with her husband and hopes to motivate others in her family to do the same.

Fitness can truly be a fun family routine and it teaches your children the importance of nutrition at an early age, something I was not fortunate enough to learn when I was younger. I lived off of Totino's Pizza's and loved the Fun Pack frozen meals. The food I ate was not even real food, it was made of processed, fake ingredients. The turn toward healthy eating with your family was not something prevalent when I was growing up, so it is really encouraging to hear when challengers are incorporating this into their home. The healthy movement for your children's generation starts with what goes on at home. Fitness and health does not have to feel or be selfish - you family will enjoy it and in the future, will thank you for the example you are setting for them.

P90X3 Week 6 Progress

I used to believe the myth that as a woman I should not lift heavy weights, or even lift at all - boy am I glad those thoughts did not stay with me. I used to be the girl on the treadmill, then the elliptical, then the stair master. I needed to burn calories! I figured out very quickly after completing Chalean Extreme, that I needed to lift and go heavy to boost my metabolism and lean out the way I was wanting to. Week 6 involved heavy lifting and my muscles are definitely CONFUSED. Every part of my body was sore at some point this week.  I increased the weights I was using (something my past me would have been hesitant to do), last week I was using 8-10 pound weights, this week I increased to 10-15 pounds. My push up and pull up form have improved significantly and I am able to do 2-3 reps more of each. I got on the scale this week and was absolutely shocked, not by the number on the scale but by the .6% body fat percentage drop from last week. This was a huge victory for me in the fact that it allowed me to throw my old unhealthy - weight loss tactics to the way side, I am seeing first hand that lifting weights does not make you bulky!

I want to go into more detail regarding the workouts in Block 2 for those of you who are still on the fence about whether P90X3 is the right program for you, so here you go:

Day 1: Eccentric Upper
- This 30 minute video involves various pull-ups, push-ups, and exercises that fatigue your triceps, biceps and back . All of the moves are based on slowing down the negative motion of each exercise. For example on the pull bar you would start in the full pull-up position and lower yourself down slowly and then pull-up quickly. Or each push-up you would lower down slowly (3 seconds) and then push up as quickly as possible. Completing the exercises this way allow you to focus on having great form, also eccentric exercises have been credited to challenging muscles up to 30% more than regular exercises which produces much faster results! Every exercise in this video was completed this way, so after this workout my arm muscles were twitching the rest of the day. Killer!

There were 3 types of eccentric push-ups completed in this video. The first was a standard push-up, the second was a military push-up and the third was a staggered push-up.

A military push-up involves keeping the elbows close to the rib-cage, so it targets the triceps much more then a standard push-up.

A staggered push-up involves having one arm graze the ribcage in military style, while the other arm does standard. This requires you to stay very rigid in the core, working your abs. I am still not able to do this completely true to form - hopefully by the end of the the 90 days I can!

Day 2: Triometrics
- This 30 minute video involves 3 levels of one exercise and each is completed for 20 seconds. There are a lot of balance related moves in this exercise. I really liked this program because you had three levels to choose from, let me tell you I was having to do the modified version of each exercise for almost the entire video. I did not want to compromise my form so even doing level 1 or 2 of each move left me very sore. Cannot wait until I can do the whole 30 minutes completing the hardest versions of each move!

Day 3: X3 Yoga-
- Wednesday yoga is something I absolutely look forward to each week. At first, I was unsure if I would want to do yoga each Wednesday, but it really what has helped with my tight muscles. I can stretch and increase my flexibility to create longer -leaner muscles. The routine is NOT easy and I am hoping that one day (in the far future) I can do some of the advanced moves with Tony.

Day 4: Eccentric Lower
- Again this involves focusing on the negative movements but it is all lower body. Squats, forward lunges, side lunges, leg extensions, calf raises, bridges and several other exercises make this video extremely effective. Form is very important in this video to make sure you are not injuring your knees. Bands or weights are used - and you definitely can go heavier here because you are using some of your largest muscles groups.

Day 5: Incinerator
-  The name of this workout says it all! You are going to burn, burn, burn your muscles until you can barely eek out one last rep! The video goes through a sequence of exercises, working opposing muscles groups to exhaustion back-to-back. By the end I could not do another full push-up or pull-up.....burn out!

Day 6: MMX
- This was a fun workout! I was punching, jabbing, kicking and crossing my way into a sweat. This video involved a lot of sprawls so prepare yourself. Sprawling, is like a burpee, except you put your chest all the way to the group and then jump up completely into a standing position. If you like marital arts or MMA fighting you will definitely enjoy this workout.

- Day 7: Rest or Dynamix
I decided to rest this week, but Dynamix essentially is very low impact exercises and mostly stretching type moves that will get your muscles just warm enough to get some deep stretching in.

Onto Week 7!!!