Our New CRAZY Fitness Routine And Why It Is Working SO Well!

So, since I announced in my "Lent and Turning 30" article that Joel and I have taken on P90x3, folks have been asking about our progress.  I figured every few weeks or so I'll give you an update to satisfy your potential curiosity and to help keep me motivated to stick with both the workouts and the blog.  I also posted some pics of our home-made gym!  It's not pretty down there people.  We work out hard next to a Thomas Train table, a ball pit and MOUNTAINS of baby clothes but it works!  We are 14 days into our P90x3 journey and MAN I am so glad we have taken this on!  We took our Fit Test on March 3rd and began Day 1 on March 4th.  In the 14 days we have had plenty of opportunity to quit and have resisted. And though rising at the hour of 4:30 a.m. seemed like a recipe for disaster when we started this, I can say I don't think I will ever go back to being a night owl.

Welcome to our 4:30 a.m. meeting place!  

So, I'm not posting measurements or weights or anything like that (I have no balls) but I can honestly say we are already seeing improvements over here!  I was skeptical about a 30 minute routine but, WOW!  How much can you sweat in 1/2 an hour?  A whole frigin' lot!  I'm improving already in weight I can handle and reps I can complete "to failure" (when your body gives up not your mind).  We have been bombarded in these last 2 weeks with chances to give up on this and have it end up just like every other "vow" we've made to health and fitness in the past but we have persevered.  Joel has had at least one late night each week that keeps us up past our new bed time of 9:30p.m.  We have skipped the following morning's 4:30 wake up call and done the workout at night. This is not optimal for 2 reasons.  1) working out at night is awful for us.  Especially because we are home.  It is ALL WE CAN DO to drag ourselves out of bed (where we relax with our boys every single night before bed reading books or watching a movie) and down to our freezing basement to work out for 1/2 an hour!  It is also awful because usually working out at night means we skip all the other "necessary things" that need to be done in a night:  dishes, load of laundry etc.  By the time the workout is done and we've showered it's most definitely 9:00/9:30 at night and in order to not get into a horrible cycle of missing our a.m. workouts, we skip the chores, head to bed and get up at 4:30 the next day.  2) It is awful not having a full 24 hours to recover from one of these workouts.  There are sessions in this program that make my muscles shake most of the day.  If I hold a glass of water straight out in front of my face at LUNCH TIME my arm is shaking STILL after the workout at 4:30 a.m.!  Doubling-up is not ideal.  The rest is important.  But we do it when we need to stay on track.  If anything, it motivates us to keep it slow and steady, be on time and be efficient in using our time, because we know how awful it is to work out AFTER a long, exhausting day and then to have to work out just 8 or so hours later, just as hard.

On top of a few late nights, we have been battling illness.  I was knocked out with a cold the first weekend and managed to get that nasty "being stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly and vomiting everything...like, EVERYTHING" stomach flu this past weekend.  We didn't miss any workouts because of the cold but I felt awful nonetheless.  The stomach flu, however, royally messed up this past week for me.  We had already skipped Friday morning's early workout because of a super late night for Joel (like, past midnight).  We intended on doing it Friday night to catch up and then working out Saturday night instead of the morning to give us the rest time.  Well,  Friday night we ended up in our bed with the boys and we woke up at 11:00p.m. to everyone sprawled in different corners, snoring, drooling etc. We moved the boys and said, "Yup!  Back to bed!"  So our new plan was to do Friday's workout on Saturday and not have a rest day on Sunday.  Well, Saturday began the flu for me.  Joel stuck to his plan and got his workouts in Saturday and Sunday.  I missed both and decided not to stress about "catching up" but to just get back to it on Monday.  I subbed out the Monday morning workout for one I know is more challenging and will get back to early morning wake up with Joel on Tuesday and we'll be on the same workout.  This is progress in and of itself in my eyes because a year ago, I'd have quit by now saying "see, it just never works!"  Well, life happens. It's not about perfect execution. It's about adaptation and perseverance. It's also been an important committment between the two of us that if one of us skips and the other IS CAPABLE of working out, that they still stick to it.  This has helped motivate the other (me thus far) to get back to it because Joel is on track.  NOT TO COMPETE but to maintain our progress together.

Adaptation and Perseverance NOT perfection.

Lastly, I want to talk about the 4:30 wake-up time.  This seemed absolutely unattainable for me when we first started talking about wanting to workout more but struggling to find a time or times that worked for our schedule.  How did we really arrive at 4:30 a.m.?  I'll explain.  Joel leaves for work every morning by 6a.m. He arrives home between 6 and 6:30.  His commute is usually 4 parts into Cambridge:  he drives to the Littleton train station to catch the early Express Train into Porter Square.  There, he catches the Red Line to Kendall Square where he walks a few blocks to work.  As of late, he has been driving straight into Alewife from home and skipping the Commuter Rail.  This doesn't really save him much time but it gives him the flexibility to take meetings "on the road" for his drive home instead of just staying late at the office and being home after the boys are in bed.  He can't be on the phone on the Commuter Rail having a meeting but he can in his car.
Our routine prior to March 3rd was that he rose at 5a.m. to get ready and left by 6.  I slept until he left for work and I would either get up on my own or usually one of the boys was up anyway and I started my day. We both work our asses off all day long to re-congregate at the dinner table for 6/6:30 p.m.  We scoff down dinner until 7 when we give the boys baths and then get them ready for 8:00p.m. bed time.  From there, we clean the kitchen, fold a load of laundry, watch 18 episodes of Breaking Bad, fight, eat oreos, play candy crush...you know, the stuff real married people do!  Our bed time was 11p.m.
We tried breaking up our gym times and each of us getting in workouts different nights of the week.  This posed several problems.  Joel's routine is highly inconsistent.  And because the Devil is real, his late nights almost always fell on what were my nights to get out.  Then I didn't want to give up Target nights or date nights to catch up on workouts and before you knew it we had 1 night a week where ONE of us could work out.  Asenine.  For lack of real articulation of the issue here I'll just say that it just doesn't work at night. After a 12-13 hour day to ask 2 parents (1 who is done with the kids and the other who is feeling deprived of them, both who are feeling the heaviness of too much time apart every day) to separate an additional 1-2 hours of the night is unreasonable.  We would fight more and felt worse in this routine.  I constantly felt tired and was convinced that lack of sleep was my issue.  "I'm not getting a full 8 hours!" I would say.  Well, I'm still not getting 8 hours.  And I can tell you the energy has skyrocketted!
We now wake at 4:30 a.m.  We are dressed and downstairs by 4:45.  We workout until 5:15 or so.  From there we shower, and drink our first coffee of the day together.  The boys have yet to wake up while we're doing this routine.  Granted we are all the way downstairs in our basement but often the shower  would wake them when Joel was getting ready alone.  Somehow, this has not happened to us yet.  We have this entire hour and 1/2 to ourselves.  No kids, nothing but us, our goals and some time for conversation after we reach them.  It has given me everything I WANTED in the night routine...just in the morning.  At night, we still scoff down dinner from 6-7 then do baths and sit with the boys until 8 when they are ready for bed.  But we are more motivated to get right up after they go down to get those dishes and laundry done.  The sooner the chores are done, the sooner we can hit the sack and rise for another early day.  If we are super ambitious, one of us will tackle the dishes and kitchen alone while the other is doing baths so when the boys are ready for bed we have an hour to chill out ourselves at night still.  Again, I can't really articulate why, but this doesn't always happen.  Sometimes I want to sit in the bathroom with the three of them while the boys are in the tub so I can just TALK TO AN ADULT!  And that postpones dishes and laundry until later.  
I have been so thrilled with the new 4:30 wake up time.  I honestly, can't imagine ever going back!  Granted I was sick this weekend, but I slept in this morning (saved my workout for nap time) and I felt awful all morning!  I wasn't showered, I was extra slow moving, I wasn't hungry so I skipped breakfast....this list goes on.  Waking at 4:30 and getting that workout done gets me up, awake, moving, showered and fed before my kids are awake!  I've realized how important the "fed" part here is too.  In the morning, alone, I have the time to feed myself.  When I'm feeding my kids I just never remember that I exist and need sustenance!  Usually, I get them fed (a usually very healthy well balanced meal mind you!), then after I clean up after them, get them settled on an activity and finally get to re-microwave my coffee I go "crap! I never ate breakfast!" Which usually turns into a granola bar.  Not.  Sustaining.  When I can eat a full breakfast without distraction, I do it better.

You work with what you've got.  And what we've got is an
old t.v., some space on a work bench and a video
baby monitor! 

I think I said it in my original article and I'll say it again:  I'm entering a time in my life where I feel like I"m done complaining about the things that don't work and just figuring out what needs to give in order to make it work.  OR reassesing whether that particular thing needs to be valuable to me or if I'm giving it value because others do or I think I should.  I know the difference between the things I really would love to have the time and money for in my life but probably don't really need and the things I should be making the time for and spending money on. My physical condition and health are right at the top.  Enough is enough with the reasons I can't do it.  And this isn't just about "weight loss" folks!  I'm not an overweight woman. But I'm educated and wise enough to know that I am not living at my optimal level of health.  I have some atrocious eating habits and am insulted by the decline in my strength and flexibility over the years.  I know that these things will only worsen with time and it's important to do whatever I can do to assist in the quality of my life while I'm blessed with it.  It's also important to me that my kids learn what healthy living is not through a book or this long, hard process of trying to train themselves into it as adults.  I want to model it for them so they grow up modeling healthy behaviors and finding friends and partners who do the same.  This is bigger than weight loss or bathing suits. This is truly a lifestyle change.  We've all heard it over and over and over again.  For some reason, this is the year it's hitting us and we're running with it!