The Maan Plateaus!

So here I am on Day 54, I've lost 14 pounds so far, 8 inches off my waist, and my percent body fat according to my fancy-schmancy scale is 31.2....good results, right? But not when you figure that at Day 30 I had lost 12 pounds, 6 and half inches off my waist and had a % body fat of 32% even. And there is no question that I am not overeating...my caloric intake daily is capping out around 2500...which is 500 less than the recommended amount for P90X and 900 less than laid out in my nutrition timing book. As far as the weight is concerned, I don't really care that much, I can feel lots of muscles in places that I had just goo before, and the inches don't bother me much either, I am still getting sliimer and getting into pants further and further into my past...it's that damned fat % number that is sticking in my craw. I feel like there is no way my % can be that high considering how little saturated fat I am eating and my calorie count. If I have 31% right now, I must have had well over 45% when I started, because I am so much trimmer now...tell you what, I'll just keep pushing play and do my best...how does that sound? Every measurement is another means to pissing me off so I go to the envelope on every workout...VIVA LA X!

My Yoda X Skullcap

Ok, so after six sessions of Chaturanga'ing through a pool of my own sweat on my mat, I finally found a solution ...I cannot wear a hat during Yoga because it falls off too much, so I have adopted a tight skullcap like the kind you would wear under a motorcycle helmet. It works very well also, I only saturated it and started dripping onto the mat during the Warrior 3 Vinyasa, which, for you non-X types out there reading this, is almost the last set of very hard sweat inducing postures in the Yoga X workout, with the rest being balance postures and stretching which are just hard as shit, but don't make you sweat all that much.

I have actually contemplated starting my own message board thread called the 'Wet Hat Club' for all those people who bring it so hard that they saturate a full baseball cap and then start dripping from it by the end of the workout. I would put a picture of the hat I wore after each workout on the thread post with the hat on a hook while it was dripping after the workout. Would that be cool or what!

The Deal on Fitday

Went to a website on the recommendation of Scott Rupp (aka NHBuckeye) called fitday.com. Basically this is a tool you can use to track your daily calories and fat/carb/protein intake, and there's a bunch of other stuff on there, too. There is also a version that they sell that can be directly downloaded onto your computer and has more tools. Looks good so far, the only painful part of it is that the foods database is not great, so I am having to input a lot of my commonly consumed foods in manually to make sure my numbers come out right. I am not even sure how these percentages are supposed to shake out, I'll have to ask Scott, but it looks like it will definitely keep me honest on calorie count, something that is harder to do using just the portion approach on the P90X nutrtion plan.

As a side note, I did end up going out to dinner with Mrs. Maan after all, I had water, a glass of Chianti and a plate that consisted of a lightly breaded chicken breast, roasted vegetables, goat cheese and a reasonable topping of a tomato cream sauce. The lightly breaded part took me by surprise, I actually went 'oh, shit' when I saw that it was breaded because I thought it would be baked or grilled...this is getting weirder by the day....

Working on my PhD in Buffness

So I was reading through a MDB message board thread two days ago and chanced upon a post where the poster was explaining how she bought a book called Nutrient Timing that explains how and when you should eat if you are in a training regimen (a category which I would have to say the X falls into) so that you can optimize your results for weight loss, building lean muscle tissue, mass buildup and breaking plateaus. What was being described was so complex that I couldn't really get this gist of it (yeah, that's right, ME!), so I felt compelled to buy the book. Once I get through it I will followup and let everyone know the verdict on it.

The other night, my mother-in-law exclaimed that she had started getting a two-pack, and then she was going to work on the fourpack next. At this point I would settle for a backpack. I have a long way to go before I am in the category of a guy having any kind of pack, but I know one thing...I'm on the road.

Happy V-day!

Pushed to a new low weight this morning, the scale teased me quavering between 212.8 and 213, but laughed at me and settled in on 213. Considering my 45 goal is 210, I am right on schedule. I bought this green tea fat burner to go along with my supplements because it had some stuff that the P90X pill set had in it, and ever since then, I seem to be losing weight at a faster clip, i.e. I was at 217ish at the beginning of Phase 2, which was a 8 pound loss over thirty days, and now I have lost another 5 pounds over the last ten days. So I am gonna read the tea leaves and stick with it....no pun intended...it is definitely weird to be going through a Valentine's day and not downing one pink, red or white peanut M&M or heart shaped Reese's peanut butter cup....weird....

I have tickets to the show...THE GUN SHOW

And you are invited, P90X compatriot...I have put out a call to all the folks that I have chanced upon during my time in the X, and we will have quite the posse heading to the GUN SHOW at 8:30PM EST. Have your tickets ready, please, do not stand up until the ride has come to a complete stop, and thank you for visting us here at MAAN MEETS X!

Top Ten ways you know you have been sucked into the P90X Vortex

10. Your recycling bin has had all the beer bottles replaced with water bottles

9. When you say "Do your best and" your kids finish your sentence with "forget the rest"

8. The highlight of your day is an 8 oz glass of 1% chocolate milk or recovery drink with a creatine shake chaser

7. You know that if your steering wheel moved around you must be in a clown car or something

6. You give yourself a four out of five on your self diet rating because you had regular taco cheese on your salad instead of light taco cheese.

5. You don't suffocate when you go to plough from shoulder stand

4. You start coaching others on the message boards as if you were Tony Horton himself

3. You have half a case of coke in your pantry that has been there collecting dust since you started and the only reason you haven't thrown it away is in case you have guests.

2. You know that if someone is REALLY flexible, then they make Gumby look like the Tin Man.

1. You've memorized the names of all the "kids"

Week 5- Settling into the groove

Well, week 1 of Phase 2 is down, and things continue to get better...I still have a lot of fire to get down into the cave and get after it, I'm not at all tempted to eat crap yet (except I really wish I could go out for a Valentine's dinner, not willing to go off the beaten path with my food groups yet), and the pounds and inches continue to melt away...I'm very close to being able to wear my "Jeans I bought when I worked out all the way home from cruise" target pants. I have so many pairs even tighter than those, though, that I am more than capable of keeping the motivational level high. Mrs. Maan is a little pissed that she hasn't lost any weight although she is the most athletic looking I have seen her look in quite some time. So tonite we embark on another Chest, Shoulders and Chest so it should be gorilla city tomorrow. Hopefully I don't have to reach too far over my head tomorrow or turn the steering wheel too far. You think I'm kidding.

Bought a new scale

So I finally got sick and tired of my scale reading my weight the exact same at night and in the morning so I saw a body impedence scale at Costco and decided to snap it up. It measures not only weight but body fat (it actually outs a small charge through your body and based on your age and height it calculates the electrical resistance of your body! This blew my mind, apparently muscle conducts electricity much better than fat so it can detemine your muscle mass from the return current....), bone mass, body water percentage, and lean muscle mass percentage. Unfortunately for me it came back with 32% body fat, which is still pretty bad. I am not going to challenge the results but rather use the number as a motivational tool since it should go down now that I have a reference point. Good news is that I was right, the old scale is messed up. The new scale reads me all the way down to 216, so a loss of 9 pounds on top of the muscle gain...not too shabby...or flabby, should I say...I am actually in large shirts now vs. the necessity due to my hump to wear extra large...now THAT is a good feeling...

Last night did the Yoga X, which I have now affectionately nicknamed YODA X. That is because I feel like sometimes Master Yoda is looking at me while I am balancing in a one hand handstand and making a rock float in the air using the force all at the same time. It is that hard. I would say like Ab Ripper that, in the words of T Hort, I hate it...but I love it.....

30 days--DONE!

So that's it, the first 30 workout days are complete...I can say that I am pleased, and I will be updating this post with pics so you can tell me what you think, Wopner.....

Bring it on, Phase 2

Ok, I swear I'm going to put some pictures in here, and I'll try to put a new one in every two weeks....fresh off the assihilation that was the Pats in the Super Bowl, I am now free from the chains of the perfect season that so dominated my every thought and I can get super psycho crazy about the X now. I think I may have actually strained my Triceps picking up my daughter's Dora pit chair and slamming it into the ground after the 'three guys with a grip on Manning's jersey escape to circus catch by Tyree (Who??) on top of his head'. It's really tight and there's a little pain in it...either way, we will see how bad it is tonite during Chest, Shoulders and Triceps.

Back on track

Ok, so now that both myself and Mrs. Maan are both virus free, we have decided to pick up where she left off, and started Stretch X last night. Good news through the setback is that my weight is regularly down around 8 pounds from the start. Of course my wicked awesome boys in blue, the Pats, are playing in the Bowl Sunday, so there will definitely be a temptation to kick back a few brews and let the diet fly out the proverbial window. I feel confident that I can resist as it will be just us the fam watching the game. We just booked a trip to Disney Cruiselines for next January, and I keep getting that wistful look in my eyes of this muscle ripped Sullymaan walking around the Disney Wonder and shocking the crap out of family I haven't seen in a few years...that should keep that beer in the fridge....