I'm missing a gene.

I'm missing the workout gene. You know those people who go for a 5 mile run because they "just love to run" ... "it clears their head". Or those people you see in kickboxing class in the front row because they like to admire their muscles in the mirror. I won't even try to comprehend the marathoners and triathletes. I can m-a-y-b-e see why someone might want to run ONE marathon or do A triathlon, just as a "set a goal, want to accomplish it thing" - however those people that do it as a hobby must have that gene I'm missing.

For me, exercise is a chore. For most of my workouts, I'm constantly thinking about how many minutes are left. Or what on my to-do list for the day could I be getting done in that hour. And this morning I was wondering how it is possible to yawn so many time while doing cardio. That just can't be good for your oxygen intake.

For those who have wondered where I've been, after Vegas (and recovering from a crazy work week) I got bronchitis. I should have seen it coming with my lowered immune system and all the creepy crawleys that are on the airplane (and all over my children!)

I'm sure there has been some study done on mice that tells us that we can alter by behavior what we are genetically inclined to be. I'm still holding out hope that I'll become one of those enthusiastic, smiley, workout people that jumps out of bed when I hear my alarm.

I'm b-a-a-a-c-k!

well, after a 10 day departure from P90X, I'm back! I had a long trip to las vegas to sell more SoftSpots - and though I had the best intentions of doing some sort of workout while I was there, my work out clothes are the only thing in my suitcase that came home clean. Long days there and I just couldn't bring myself to wake up early (after bouts of freaking insomnia!) I must have not been drinking enough wine. Anyhoo - this is my second day in my renewed effort to take on p90X, which given my delay, is now P100X. I'm going to try my darndest to not tack on any further days. We are going to Cabo at Christmas so I'm running out of time to complete my "body transformation." I've also abandoned Tony's eating plan - though I'm sure it is great, I think I'm going to stick with weight watchers, which I know works for me. Tony's diet, though uber healthy, left me eating more than I think I need to - - we'll see what happens. I'm still full of jiggle - stronger, but still jiggly so hopefully this next thirty days will start attacking those yucky fat cells. And thank you my loyal blog followers (all seven of you) for not giving up on me even though I'm quite sure the thought crossed your mind!

Moan. Grunt.

I have never let out as many involuntary noises in my life in a 55 minute period than I did last night during the CORE workout. Really, generally speaking I'm just not a grunter and moaner (get your heads out of the gutter.) But if you'd been on the other side of the door last night you would have wondered what was going on. This was my second go at Core so you think it would have been easier, but somehow as the minutes ticked on my muscles got more and more less cooperative.

So when my alarm went off this morning for Day 9, I let out another groan. Not so much because it was early, and I was still tired, but because it literally hurt to roll out of bed (and I have one of those memory foam mattress toppers.) Up the stairs I painfully went to my little room to start the day with Cardio X. Today I feel like I weigh 300 pounds which made even the jumping jacks at the beginning difficult. I was literally shaking the house, so much for being light footed. Luckily I didn't wake the kids which would have really ticked off Chris who was still in bed recovering from his first day of the program.

Wish me luck as I try to tackle Day 10 tomorrow in the morning. Working out at night sucks ... I just have to remind myself when I hear that beeping before the sun is even awake.

Week 1 - Ugh.

So, the good news is I haven't quit before I really got started. (I won't blame anyone if you thought that was the case.) It is just hard to find the time to update this blog - - but I'm committed to it. In some freaky way, I actually think it is making me tie up my sneakers and keep this crazy p90x thing going.

Today is Day 7 of the workout - and though I'm no mathematician I do believe that means I have successfully made it through week 1. Hooray for me! Here's what I've been up to since my last post:
Day 4: Arms/Shoulders/Chest and Ab Ripper
Day 5: Yoga X
Day 6: Legs & Back and Ab Ripper
Day 7: Kenpo X

Day 7 is really supposed to be the "stretching" workout (yes, there is really a DVD for this) but since I missed Day 2 I skipped stretching and made up the other day.

First of all - I'm having trouble walking today. My legs and ass and basically everything from my bra-line down ache. Arms/Shoulders/Chest day wasn't so bad. Mostly because I really didn't use enough weight because I was scared to. Now that I know the workout I'm going to have to "female version of nut-up" and increase the poundage a bit. After you finish the Arms/Shoulders/Chest DVD you are then supposed to pop in the Ab Ripper DVD. Seriously? It did just that, rip my abs. Not into a six pack, but into a " holy F$%! it feels like my abs are ripping."

Then came yoga X. Again, there's the X at the end that I think is meant to intimidate me. And when you pop in the DVD and see it is 90 freaking minutes long, I wanted to quit before I got started. I've done yoga before, it wasn't anything too different than other classes I've taken, but I forget what an amazing workout it is. The last 30 minutes are stretching poses so it turned out not to be as horrible as I thought it would be. Plus, after doing yoga I always feel like a more enlightened person, in a granola kind of way.

Yesterday brought me to Legs & Back ... OOOMMMGGG! I didn't know there was that many variations of lunges. Thank goodness I'm starting to have a fondness for Tony cause if it weren't for his encouragement, I probably would have taken a few extra long water breaks. And as far as the "Back" part of the DVD, back exercises = different variations of pull ups. I can't do a pull up. They do show a modification where you can put a chair under your foot ... but that seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. The other option is looping an exercise band over the bar - which will be my variation moving forward. Seeing as the chin up bar was still in the box and required a bit more assembly than I anticipated, I just did some back exercises with weights while I watched all the muscly monkeys flexing their stuff. I promise I won't slack on this one this week. With all my exhaustion following the insane leg workout, I completely forgot that I was supposed to do Ab Ripper again ...

Today I woke up feeling a bit sore, but not as bad as I thought it would be following my lunge-a-ton. Oh ... but as the day wore on things changed. Then, this afternoon I did Kenpo X, which is basically kickboxing, but a very exhausting form of it. I don't know if the workout itself was super exhausting or the fact that my legs felt like lead from yesterday made it worse. Brace yourself for the minute and a half breaks that they call "breaks" so you get really excited about them but then about 20 seconds into the break you are doing jumping jacks and then plyo jumps. Tony has a great smile, but don't let him fool you, he a tricky one. And since I unintentionally flaked on Ab Ripper yesterday I was determined to ad it to the end of my workout today, but holy moly, I just couldn't. Instead, I popped in a shorter and less intense Ab workout from another exercise DVD. Hey, I get an A for effort, right?

One of the best things about this program is EVERY single DVD engages the core somehow. Which is one of the reasons why I couldn't bring myself to do the Ab Ripper today - even though you don't actually do an Ab workout everyday - there is so much ab work incorporated, your abs are constantly tired.

So, week 1 down - 11 more to go.
Jiggle Status: still jello-like, though I feel muscles I haven't felt in years

Day 2 - Sort of

Well, nothing like a 911 call, ambulance ride and emergency surgery on your 18 month old to derail a new workout. Given the circumstances, I think I qualify for a pass.

So, even though this is really day 3, I'm calling it day 2 since it is only the second day I actually worked out. I guess though I better get back on track with the days or I'm eventually going to have a counting problem considering this whole thing is about a 90day program.

Today was CARDIO X. I think they throw the "X" at the end to make it more scary sounding. I was a wee bit scared as I made my way up the stairs to my workout room but then I turned on the DVD and saw Tony's smiling and encouraging face and said to myself, "Self, you can totally do this, don't let that little X on the DVD sleeve scare you, don't be intimidated by all the muscley, totally inshape people leading the workout. You might be jiggly, but you have guts girl .... plus you can push the pause button if you need to!"

Cardio X consists of yoga, kickboxing, plyometrics and a little core work. I was doing great until the turkey burger I had for dinner started jumping around with me. Ugh. It was a great workout and I love that you switch from exercise to exercise so quickly that you don't really have time to hate the exercise you were just doing. I made it through without my heartrate going overly crazy, though I was sweating bullets.

Tomorrow is arms, shoulders and abs. I'm hoping this DVD doesn't require me to use the pull up bar they said I needed to buy. I know eventually this thing is going to come into play and I'm dreading it. Unless one of their exercises is hanging. I think I can swing that.

Parents, please read!

My workout blog is being interrupted to share with you the details of our frightening ordeal Monday evening. Chris and I were cooking dinner and the kids were just playing in the living room and watching The Wiggles. We noticed Sullivan had something in his mouth (he puts everything in his mouth) and quickly realized it was part of the half-eaten plum he swiped off the kitchen table. We walked over there to scoop it out of his mouth and when we got there it seemed he had sucked the fruit out and the only thing left in his mouth was the skin of the plum. Either right when we took out the skin or immediately there after, he swallowed the pit. He was instantly in distress and right away his lips turned blue for a couple of seconds. His color quickly returned, but his breathing was labored and he was in obvious pain. He was crying (good news) so we knew he was getting air but he was distressed enough that we called 911. The paramedics quickly arrived and even though is vitals were okay, they recommended transport to the hospital via ambulance as we knew the pit was inside somewhere, but didn't know where and it could be sitting dangerously close to completely clogging his windpipe. They wheeled Sulli and I out on the gurney into the ambulance and took us to Childrens Medical Center in Plano. We were taken right in for xrays however since a plum pit is a natural substance they feared it wouldn't show up well on xray. Sulli was hysterical while being pinned down for the xrays and we had to stop halfway through because he started vomiting because he was so upset. We ended up getting through the xrays and went back to our holding room in the ER. While we were waiting, Sullivan became much more relaxed, he stopped crying and his breathing went back to normal. Chris and I thought for sure that the pit made its way to his tummy and our ordeal was over. About that time the ER doctor came in to tell us they confirmed a foreign substance in the xray, though they couldn't tell exactly where it was due to the fact it was a plum pit. They had paged the surgical team and we would be going up for surgery in about an hour. Wow. We of course questioned the doctors since Sulli's demeanor had changed in such a positive way. They agreed they thought the pit had moved somewhere because he sounded different in the stethoscope, however they were insistent that Sulli was still in great danger because they had no way of telling if the pit had moved to the stomach and it could actually be in a more precarious place than it was before. One cough, burp or sudden movement and it could shift and block his airway. Or, it could break up and have parts and pieces in his lungs/airway/esophagus that would eventually cause a bad infection. Before we knew it we were being wheeled to the operating room where they shot a little something up Sulli's nose to relax him and he was out of my arms and off to general anesthetic and surgery. They went through this mouth with a camera and found the plum pit COMPLETELY blocking his esophagus. He had been drooling very bad since he swallowed the pit and I thought it was b/c he had been crying so much, but he literally could not swallow anything, not even his own saliva. Thankfully, his lungs and airways were free from any debris. They plucked the pit out and now I have it as a souvenir of our horribly terrifying experience. My sweet angel was extibated in recovery and was able to sleep for a few hours before the anesthesia wore off. They kept us overnight through mid afternoon yesterday to make sure there were no tears or signs of infection and that he could drink and eat okay. Other than being a bit sleep deprived and not much of an appetite, he is back to normal and as I look in his sparkly blue eyes, I thank God for watching over us and for the gift of Sullivan's life and for the privilege of being his mom.

HERE IS WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE ORDEAL, VERY IMPORTANT INFO:
1. If your child swallows ANYTHING that could be a choking hazard - TAKE THEM TO THE ER. If Sullivan had calmed down at home like he eventually did after the xrays at the hospital, I would have completely assumed the pit made its way to the stomach and he would be fine. If the pit had found its way to the airway, we would have only had seconds before major damage and/or death.
2. Do NOT pat your child on the back to help dislodge. Again, you are creating more of a danger as the object could move further into the airway. Luckily I remembered this from that infant childcare class I took when I was pregnant - but believe me, my instinct made me want to smack him on his back.
3. Do NOT give your child anything to drink to help "get it down." I immediately ran for a juice box thinking that would help - but the 911 operator told me not to give him anything.
4. Do NOT to a "blind sweep" where you stick your finger in your child's mouth hoping to get something out. If you cannot see the object, do not attempt to get it. Or, if you CAN see the object, but it is down far in their throat, again, do not attempt to get it. You will likely push it farther down and make thing worse.
5. I had no idea there was a Childrens Medical Center in Plano, it is at Preston and Hedgecoxe. For those of you who live up north and have any kind of emergency (big or small) with your child, this should be your first stop. All of the ER doctors are trained in pediatrics which can be very different than adults. My ambulance driver told me that they still take major traumas to Childrens Medical in Dallas if they have time (meaning the patient can make it there) - but worse case they will take a child to the Plano location where they can be stabilized and eventually airlifted to Dallas location.
6. I asked the anesthesiologist what they see the most with choking and she said by far they coins are the biggest culprit - however, the most dangerous and deadly is a hotdog. I knew hotdogs were a choking hazard, but I guess I didn't realize just how dangerous they could be. She said to NEVER give your child a full hot dog to eat and when you cut it up, be sure the pieces are small.

We were so very lucky that Sullivan was getting air the entire time. As I sit here nice and calm though it makes me realize that I don't really know what I would have done if his airway had been completely blocked. I do remember a few things from the childcare class I took (like turning them upside down and then hitting them on the back and the Heimlich), though it is all a little fuzzy and this ordeal has reminded me how important it is to take a new CPR class and stay "in the know" on what to do in an emergency.

I pray, pray, pray that none of you ever are put in the scenario where you might need some of this information, but I would be remiss not to share what we learned through our frightening experience. Thanks again to all of you for your prayers, thoughtful messages and love. It meant the world to us.

Day 1

At least my iphone has a pleasant little jingle for the alarm clock ringer tone. If it were like my old alarm clock with the "let me throw you through a window right now ... BEEEP, BEEEP, BEEEP" I might have gone postal (on who or what, I'm not sure seeing it felt like myself and owls and bats were the only things possibly awake at that hour.) I was grumpy when little electronic concierge woke me this morning. I went to bed too late, and for the fourth night in the row, my 18 month old was up in the night due to either teeth or tummy issues, I don't know which. Luckily daddy actually got up with him, though his piercing cry through the monitor kept me awake the whole time anyway.

I did get my grumpy ass out of bed though, put on my tennies (I slept in my workout clothes) and headed upstairs for Day 1 of P90X. I'm doing the "lean" version. This doesn't mean that it consists of less workouts, the order is just different and the focus is a little more on cardio ... for those trying to get, well ... lean. My handbook tells me that I'm supposed to do the Core Synergistics first. There I see Tony Horton's smiley face telling guiding me through "banana rolls", "sphinx push ups", "bow to boats" and "dreya rolls" - all of which I have never heard of and clearly my muscles consider as strangers. I have worked out a lot in my life, and I've never done half of these moves. I can see why they are supposed to work.

I had to refill my water bottle halfway though, but the good news is I completed my first day of P90X - well at least the work out portion. Monday is Costco shopping day with the kids and we always eat in the food court - I'm r-e-a-l-l-y going to miss that piece of extra cheesy cheese pizza today.

Tomorrow is plyometrics. Nothing like a lot of jumping to remind me of my jiggle.