Boom!

Have you ever had one of those moments,  be it a penny dropping or a bulldozer smashing through the walls of your mind.  Suddenly something changes or just makes sense,  and boom! It's done.

Just had one of those right this very second.  Like a plane hitting an air pocket and dropping a thousand feet in a few seconds.

A void appears,  consuming you,  taking your thoughts both rational and fictional,  and tearing them into tiny pieces. Uncertainty looms,  confusion arrives,  and your mind works overtime to try and regain control.

Mental and emotional free fall sets in,  and you are along for the ride.  Simple thoughts now become complex and confusing,  the most mundane task seems like a chore.  How could this all happen so fast?

Sometimes references in life can trigger you to draw parallels to your own business,  be they fictional,  or factual. First hand or a tale told by another,  they are all relevant when your mind makes that connection. 

Helpless,  the fall is over,  you have survived it,  but are lost,  in  a strange place,  no idea where you are,  where to go to seek out the normality you crave so badly now. Searching  the deepest corners of your mind,  trying to find the reference you need to make sense of it all,  and to get back to your crazy life you call reality.

Strength,  lacking in it,  you dig deep,  a smile,  a thought,  just something to give you the strength you need right now,  right this second to take control again,  become the master of your own destiny once more,  and shake free from  the reigns which have guided you to this place.

Rise....  From the ground,  collecting yourself,  gathering your thoughts,  drawing up your battle plan to once again be that person.

Welcome to the inner workings of my mind.  Another epic mistake,  a misunderstanding or simply over reaching? The question need not be answered,  but the lesson must be learned.

Night night.

Is this Australia?

Surely it must be, I have dug SO deep today working out that I feel like I have gone right through the earths core. Sure got hot enough in the process, let me tell you!

So how are you guys doing? I know some of the readers are currently in workout programs, mainly Insanity and P90X. Are you giving it everything you have? Go hard, or go home is my favourite motto at the moment, purely because it says my views on training in just one line.

Going hard doesn't mean the heaviest and most reps in the world, more than everyone else. It simply means challenge yourself. When your mind says no more, defy it. When you think you are done, dig for one more rep of whatever it is you are doing. In short Train to failure, not failure to train. Being exhausted at the end is the goal, not being able to finish the last rep is a good sign.

For me, the recent doubling up of routines is really starting to show through. Pushing for every last rep, at a rate if almost every 12 hours really does put a drain on the body, but damn it feels good IF you can maintain the regime. The evening workouts with Chantal are a day or 2 behind mine, which means repetition here and there. Choosing which to commit 100% to, and which to tag along on is important. I would be doing Plyo tonight, but my program has Yoga in the morning, so I will just be taking it easy tonight.

My biggest challenge is nutrition, which I am still trying to get the right balance on. I'm getting there though, and the results are very obvious now, which I love. Added to the P90X is approx 10 miles of dog walks @ 4mph. Broken into 2 blocks, they give me the extra cardio I crave to wear me out.

Can you tell I'm loving this routine yet?
Right, I better eat and work. Have a great and positive day people :)
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When the odds are stacked...

Don't give up, just keep trying. Its not over til the fat lady sings, so there is no point in quitting until time is up.
Over the weekend following a food treat my old friend Gout raised its ugly head. Making walking painful, let alone jumping, lunges and fighting stances. But instead of deciding it wasn't possible to carry on, I saw a challenge ahead and decided that it was time to fight harder, not retreat and admit defeat.
Thankfully the training schedule allowed for me to take it easy on my feet. Saturday was Kenpo, on not easy on the feet but better than Plyo for sure, so I managed to navigate my way through that. Then training with the girlfriend and hitting back and legs also. Taking it easier on things that would hurt my foot.
So here I am Monday, ready to give it my all again, and of course the routine again allows me to take the strain away from my feet. Chest and Back today. Avoiding the dog walks, not wanting to aggravate my foot any more than I have to, and save myself for Plyometrics tomorrow instead.
So how was todays session. One word says it all really, amazing. Not for any other reason than digging so deep, for a moment I thought Tony was talking in an Aussie accent. Deeper than ever before, and finally returning to a training ethos I have missed for years. Train to failure. Regardless of the movement, keep going until the body physically screams out and CANNOT do another single rep at all. Collapsing with push-ups, arms giving way on pull ups, and so on.
Todays words of wisdom are simple.
Train to failure NOT failure to train. If you can only manage 5 of what everyone else is doing 20 of, DO IT... Just make them good, clean, and your best ever. Keep going til your BODY says stop, not your mind thinking you can't do any more. Challenge yourself, and defy your mind and negative beliefs.
YOU can do it, if YOU want to!
Right now I'm sitting on the train in the sunshine, reflecting positivity, thinking the best thoughts of my life, and embracing life. My body feels great and alive, my mind is looking for the next challenge.
Speaking of challenges, I have realised I am in sync with the guys of Jaces Warriors, and as they start their 90 day challenge today, I am on the same page of workouts as them. Determined to jump back in with them all on Week4, I find myself rushing towards the finish line on my own challenge, and racing towards the team challenge start line.
With Clare and Carly starting with the group this week I have even more fire inside of me. As more and more friends jump onboard the P90Xpress, I realise how positive and amazing it all is, and am inspired by their drive to take the challenge on like I did.
What's down the line, well, as well as joining the group challenge in a few weeks time, I kinda feel I could take my nutrition a little more seriously, and am interested to see what differences that can make to my results on the next round. Time will tell, and watch this space. In the meantime I have not forgotten my interest in Tai Chi, and am still finding a way to fund and start Tai Cheng at the end of my first round on P90X.
In 8 weeks or so I jet off to Florida, so what better motivation to be in the form of my life. I can do this, YOU can do this. So what are we waiting for, Bring It people X style!
Big things lay ahead, and I for one am stoked!
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Its Week 3 already!

And I'm on fire. I am addicted to P90X like no ones business, and as I sit here writing this, I can just feel a surge of energy inside of me bursting to get out, the drive to do something active and physical is insane.

The dieting has been going on for a few weeks longer now, and the change in me is something quite crazy. Weight loss is happening, and at a nice steady rate now. While the initial loss was quite rapid, now through choosing carefully, and maintaining a fair calorific intake, I have managed to slow the loss to a crawl. A pound here and there, rather than a whole bunch of weight a week. Not to say that rapid loss isn't a good thing, when I did Lighter Life I was thankful to get all the excess weight off me in one quick hit. But this time around is different. Both my goals, and my methods are very different.

Ketosis is an amazing and quite natural occurrence in the body, but not one I would call upon too many times in my life. This new approach for me is about fitness, flexibility and lifestyle, rather than BMI and target weights. When I started this time around I was approx 245-250lbs, feeling the strain a little, and really wanted to shed some weight while building on my weaknesses. A few weeks into the dieting I heard about and took up the P90X challenge, and my god I'm glad I did.

Week 1 was without a doubt a very sharp learning curve, and by Week 2 I was starting to understand the commitment that P90X would require. By the end of that week I was sure this was what I wanted to do, and now here in Week 3 I really cant get enough of it. Finding myself almost in a state of exercise deprivation, and with the urge to do more with my day.
I love that feeling of 'I just worked out'. The tired muscles, the slight ache, and energised feeling that you get when you call on your body for more energy. The following morning, that tightness, and the reminder that you trained as hard as you could the day before. Without a shadow of a doubt my 2 favourites of the Weeks 1-3 routine are Arms, and Plyometrics. The reasons are quite simple, they feel the best and have the highest impact on my body. However the most surprising one for me, and I have to say pretty pleasing too has to be Yoga.

Yoga is something I have wanted to do for years, but as part of a routine, not as a stand alone exercise, and thanks to P90X, there it is, right in the middle of my workout week. Balance, posture and core strength are all hit, and far harder than I ever realised yoga could. The most pleasing part for me has to be flexibility though. Never have I challenged myself like this, but it is something I have always craved. Being able to bend in directions I never knew I could. Its a strange feeling, that after just a couple of weeks I am already enjoying the freedom of movement I have found, and the stiffness that always seemed to possess me has gone. That's not to say there are not still some aches and pains around my body.... My god there are !

So all together, a lower calorie, low fat and carb intake, and I have to say a somewhat limited and sparse diet, put with a decent increase in general cardio exercise with the dogs (6-10 miles daily), and the introduction of P90X 6 days a week, that's one heck of a sudden change of lifestyle. A change that is both positive, and quite simply life changing to me. When I started out with my tag of #Fit4Forty it was always serious for me. However I didn't realise how tightly it would grip me, and how much drive i would find within myself to come this far, let alone to still feel SO motivated at this point.

Seeing ab muscles starting to appear, realising that definition is back in my arms, and feeling the tightness in my bum and legs like I have never done before are not things I was expecting. However all of them drive me on further, and challenge me to find out just how far I can go with this all. Wondering how much further I can go, how much definition I can get out of my body is a real driving force with me now. never have I been particularly vain about my body, but today I can quite honestly say vanity is taking me over, just a little bit.

So here I am right now, Day 2 in Week 3 of a pretty gruelling yet somehow rewarding program, and all I can say right now is, if you don't have a proper routine, you NEED P90X in your life.

I cant wait to post up some progress pictures, and more info on how I am doing.
What I can say for now is, 2 trouser sizes dropped almost now, and approx 30lbs. I am reaching my first proper weight goal of 220lbs, and from there I will consider if I want to lose much more weight in itself, or if the physical gains of P90X will start to cancel out the fat loss with increased muscle bulk and tone. Time will tell. For now, at just 1lb away from the goal, my intention is to just consider 220 my ceiling, and aim to stay below it. If more weight is lost, so be it, but if I start to gain again I will just need to be sure its for the right reasons. 220lbs is my new mooring post, and I shall try and stick around that the best I can.

Roll on the next 10+ weeks, and keep reading, one day I might write something interesting.
For more info and updates, I can be found on Twitter @therealslimsnaz