P90X For Everyone – Diamonds of Gold

Hello friends and family! Susan and I have just completed our first round of P90X. The results are absolutely amazing. I honestly went from the worst shape of my life to the best in just 90 days. I was out of shape and now I am fit and healthy. Susan went from thin and healthy, to super fit. With a 7 month old baby, she is in the best shape of her life. We really gave it our all, never missed a workout, and stuck to the nutrition plan. We are both so happy with the results.

As happy as I am with my current level of fitness, I really want to do another round of P90X to take everything to another level. I’m inviting everyone to join me. I’m starting my second round of P90X on Saturday April 14^th. If you’re at all interested please let me know and I’ll be glad to help you get started. I can share all of my weekly menus with you, share my biggest challenges, tell you my favorite protein bars, and help encourage you throughout. You can start the same day I do, before me, after me or whenever. If you start with me, you’ll be done mid July with plenty of summer left to show off the goods.

Susan and I really enjoyed every step of this program. Yes P90X is very difficult, but the results cannot be denied. After 90 days, there are still several exercises I can’t do or can only do a few times. You can modify and work your way to meet your goals. Susan started by doing all of her push-ups on her knees, but she doesn’t need to do that anymore. I started doing most of my pull-ups while standing on a chair. On the last back workout I did 105 pull-ups/chin-ups in an hour workout without even thinking about using a chair.  P90X is not a gimmick or filled with empty promises. P90X is a great exercise program and a very healthy nutrition plan.   This is not a weight loss plan or a plan for body builders. It is a plan for fitness.  If you would like to start P90X please let me know. You can join my group that I unofficially call “Diamonds of Gold” which is a name you’ll only understand after day 3 of your workouts.

The Workouts: The part of P90X most people think about first are the workouts. These are pretty intense workouts at a pretty good pace. Each day you do something different. Three days a week you have resistance training, once a week you do yoga, once a week you do Kenpo (cardio kickboxing), one day a week you do plyometrics (the mother of all that is P90X), and on the seventh day you can rest or do X Stretch. I always did X Stretch to make sure I was going the extra mile. Yes you do a lot of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and jumping.  If you’re thinking “I can’t do push-ups or pull-ups” then you can modify. Remember I went from 8 pull-ups to over 100 in an hour. Modify, Modify, Modify. Tony will show you easier and harder versions of just about every exercise. Watch the infomercial, a guy was 370 pounds when he started. Do you think he was knocking out 15 pull-ups per set?

The menu: Our P90x week was Saturday-Friday. Every Friday I would set up the menu for the following weeks. Every day for 13 weeks, nearly 100% of the food I ate was accounted for in my own preplanned nutrition plan. P90X supplies two nutrition plan options. It will provide a meal plan covering each and every meal each and every day. Each meal has a recipe and instructions and an accurate count of your daily nutrition requirements. If you do not have a job, love to cook for hours a day, and have a rather large food budget, by all means get to cooking Tony Horton style. The other option is a little bit more manageable in my opinion. The website will give you a list of the nutritional needs you should meet each and every day. For example, Phase One (the first part) Level 2 (depending on your current weight) eats 7 servings of protein and 4 servings of vegetables per day (plus other requirements). The website also provides a list of samples to meet these needs, for example 3oz of chicken counts as a serving of protein. I have created my own menu following these requirements as closely as I can. I’m sure you would want to make adjustments for you taste and convenience, but it’s not a bad start.

Commitment: More important than the workouts or the nutrition, is your commitment. P90X is not promising anything new. Exercise and diet. Well, extreme workouts and strict diet. The difference in success and lack of success all lies in your commitment. If you want to maximize your results you have to give it 100%. Susan and I did our workouts at 6am before Reagan would wake up, or during a nap, or even starting a workout at 9, 10, or 11 at night. I would pass on desserts, a cold beer, and even stayed on diet at my own Super Bowl party.  The mental commitment is by far the hardest part.

What you’ll need:

P90X

Pull-up bar – you can find at any Big 5 or other sporting goods store

Resistance Bands – We use a set of three from Target for $29.99. The only problem is you have switch the handles all the time.

Yoga mat – Any Target or sporting goods store

You may also want:

Push-up Stands

Weights

Yoga Block

Yoga Strap

The menus I created

P90X is awesome. We feel great, have tons of energy, and can’t wait to push ourselves through Round II.

Happy Birthday Mom

On one of the coolest birth dates ever, 4/4/44, Gladys and Arvie Laituri welcomed my mom into the world. I’m so thankful for every day I ever spent with my mother, but birthdays in our house were always extra special. I still feel guilty about the time I made my mom a birthday present and hid it under my bed. Because I was such a messy little kid I lost it. I was crawling under my bed when I heard the family singing “Happy Birthday” and I gave up hope. I never did find that drawing. I also remember a year when I asked if I could put the icing on Mom’s birthday cake (which she of course made herself). As I was finishing the final touches Josh came up and said something like “Nice job Terry, Happy Brithday Mom.” I had missed spelled it. Damn. It was the thought that counts right Mom? 

I know I know, I have a problem with only remembering the negatives, but here are a couple of good ones. When I was about 13 or so I planned a surprise party for Mom at her favorite restaurant, Tony Roma’s. It wasn’t anything extravagant, just the family and the Shearers. She probably knew what was going on, but it was a nice birthday for her anyway. A few years ago I planned a picnic for Mom in Forest Falls, another favorite spot for Mom. It was cold with snow and ice everywhere. The snow looked pretty hard packed so we decided to take a little hike. The “snow” was really a shell of frozen ice. When you applied pressure the ice would break sending your foot 6 inches closer to the ground. Now if you’re a young person with any leg strength or balance you just pull you foot out and take another step. If you’re Mom, you fall over. Then you get up, take another step and fall over again. I would feel bad making fun of my dearly departed mother, but she was laughing harder than any of us. This is where Steve offered one of his great one-liners “Instead of Forest Falls, we should call this place Grandma Falls.” We had a nice little picnic. I wanted to take care of everything for the picnic but Mom couldn’t handle that so I think I put her in charge of drinks and chips. When I arrived to pick her up she somehow managed to stay up half the night preparing her drink and chip assortment, had two ice chest full of every beverage a human could need, 5 bags of chips (for 5 people), deviled eggs, plus bags of plates, cups, tablecloths, and flatware, just in case I forgot. 

Last year Mom’s birthday arrived a few days after she moved into the hospital. We were finally getting an idea of the severity of the situation and dark clouds loomed overhead. Nevertheless, we busted in Mom’s hospital room with balloons, flowers, presents, red velvet cupcakes, and the classic Snodgrass Family “Happy Birthday” sign. Mom was sitting up, talking, laughing, and for a few brief moments we weren’t surrounded by the grayness of hospitals, cancer, pain, medication, and fear. We were home. We were the loving, loud, laughing, silly, caring, and special family Mom had worked her life to create. 

On Mom’s birthday I’m so appreciative for all the gifts she ever gave me, but none more than her love and the family she brought me into. I’m so thankful for my siblings and their families. I’m thankful Brenda, Steve, Susan, and Reagan were able to join me up in “Grandma Falls” on Sunday. For the feeling of Mom in my heart every day, I am thankful.  Happy Birthday Mom.