Switching Gears-Starting P90x

My sister's wedding was last Saturday. It was so beautiful. She looked amazing, the venue was elegant, the food was great...just generally perfect. I wore the dress I wanted and looked great too.

Now that I've accomplished my goal, I have been making excuses diet-wise. I've worked so hard to get here, I can't go back. No way, no how.

For me, I need to have a tangible, short term goal to keep me on track and motivated. After some late-night TV viewing, I decided to do P90x. You have to be totally committed and work out an hour a day, 6 days a week for 13 weeks.

A friend of mine loaned me the DVDs, so I'm all ready to go. Counting out the workouts on the calendar, I decided to make Saturday my rest day. That means I start this Sunday! It's going to be a big change for me. I'm going to get up early in the morning during the week to do the workouts before I go to work. On the yoga days, I'm going to my bikram studio. It'll be perfect.

To be honest, I watched a little of the first video and I'm a little intimidated. I understand how they can make their claims, the workouts look HARD. I'm willing to commit so no matter what, working out that much has got to make a big change.

My goal is to look super fantastically hot for my birthday in October. I'll keep you posted.

Hot Yoga

I've been going to hot yoga classes for the past 3 weeks. The classes are 90 minutes long and are challenging but it's been great. You sweat a ton! If anyone is looking for a good place to go, this studio has a full schedule of classes from early until late. Bring towels and water...

Gun Show

So I made my triumphant return to the the gym after almost dying and what-not the past week or so. I still can't reliably breathe through my nose so I decided not to become a human concertina on a cardio machine. weez. cough. weez.

I lifted weights to try to get some strength back. Overall, I feel good about it. For those of you Vegas people, I went to the new Molasky 24 Hour Fitness and really liked it. They just extended their hours until 11 pm Mon-Sat. I think I'm going to make it my new gym since it's conveniently on my way home from work.

Confidence Workout Tunes

Okay, readers. I have a brilliant idea that depends on your help. I want to put together a confidence-building, uplifting workout playlist on my iPod. I got this great idea when I doing cardio last night listening to Mary J. Blige sing Just Fine.

Here's where you come in. I would appreciate suggestions for some good, kick-ass songs to put together a new playlist since I am tired of my current workout playlists. I'm depending on you, fair readers. Don't let me down!

Not Nearly Enough

Like a good girl, went to the gym tonight and used the stationary bike. My knee feels fine but I barely burned any calories. I was exercising pretty hard for 45 minutes and I only burned 250 calories. With the same time on the elliptical I can burn almost 400 calories....

I think I'm going to stick to swimming, but I can't swim every day, so what else should I do? I'll take any suggestions for exercises that are easy on my knee but burn a lot of calories.

Swimming Burns Up the Calories

I'm always on the lookout for the best way to burn calories in the shortest period of time. I'm still wearing Claudia's bodybugg and constantly checking it to see where I can get the biggest bang for my buck so to speak. Well, I have discovered that swimming laps burns a ton of calories. I can actually burn more calories in 45 minutes of swimming than an hour on the elliptical. WOW!

The other great part about swimming is that it is great for your joints. My knee still feels great.

I just have to get myself a hot swim cap and goggles to protect my hair and eyes since I will be a new fixture at the pool at my gym. sooo hot.

Triumphant Return

Last night was my big return to my favorite class at the gym with Lady Hector. Overall, it went well and my knee feels fine and dandy today.

At first, I felt a little awkward doing my own modifications during the squats and leg lunges, but then I looked up. I realized that Lady Hector was gloriously blazing the trail with her own non-sensical crazy modifications. She just doesn't care what people think (or blog). I guess I was wrong about her all along.

Thanks Lady Hector!

Couch Potato No More

While we were at Palms Place on Saturday, my friend convinced me to start training again to run road races. I did five 5k races last year, hurt my knee and have since switched to other exercise. I always liked the races so I am going to try to run the Las Vegas half marathon this December. It will be a very tall order, but I am going to give it my best.

If anyone is interested in training from a basic level, I originally used Cool Running's Couch Potato to 5k running plan. Here's a link: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml.

Good Luck to all you future runners and former couch potatoes!! Come out to Vegas in December to cheer me on. I will definitely need it, even if Elvis makes an appearance.