I’ve come to realize how my mental and emotional state impacts how I exercise. When I’m happy and energetic I feel like I can do ANYTHING!!! Like running a ridiculous amount. I’m also great at motivating myself to start exercising and continuing to exercise. Other times, when I’m depressed and/or tired, I don’t even want to exercise. It takes me forever to start and when I finally push myself to start exercising, I can’t keep myself going even though I know I can do it. Once I was running a 5.5 K route and I just stopped around 3 K. I knew I could physically complete it because I’ve done it before but I was tired and depressed and I just didn’t want to do anymore. So I stopped and walked back home.

The past few weeks have been up and down and I can see how this affects my exercising schedule. Around my birthday a few weeks ago, I was so happy and excited because there were so many things going on. Even though I wanted to, I didn’t have much time to exercise but I did a little and it went really, really well. But the past bit has been the complete opposite. Once when I did the ever-dreaded Plyometrics from P90x, I had to really push myself to start it and then I didn’t even want to do it. I thought about stopping so many times and had to take more breaks than usual. At least near the end I figured I already did 40 mins of this, so I better just finish the last 20 mins. Lately I’ve been stressed, tired and depressed over my new teaching job and occasionally over this guy I’m dating. This guy can make me so incredibly happy sometimes (and I can jog a lot!) but he can also make me depressed and frustrated.

I hate being in a “down” state. And not only does it affect the quantity and quality of exercising I do but also my eating habits. I don’t eat as healthily and regularly. These are times when I’ll binge eat chocolate and Nutella late at night. Overall I just become messed up. When my mental and emotional state is bad I also become physically “bad” as I don’t exercise as much or eat as well.  Overall I just become crappy and that sucks.

1. I used to only be able to do push-ups from my knees. Now I can do push-ups from my toes! I can’t do many. . . maybe 4 or so. . . put I can do some and that is AWESOME!!!
2. I am lifting heavier weights in almost all areas. I use the lateral pull-down machine instead of doing pull-ups and I’ve increased that weight in both the wide pull-ups and the normal pull-ups/chin-ups. I can also lift more for selected shoulder, chest and bicep exercises. I can also do a couple more chair dips than before.
3. I’m running further than I ever have before. About 6.2 K. I think that’s mostly due to increasing my leg muscles and Plyometrics. Plyometrics is killer but it sure does work your legs and cardio.
4. I can make it a bit further through certain videos and don’t have to modify as much. For example, in Plyometrics for some of the moves I wouldn’t touch all the way to the floor and just put my hands to my shins but now I’ve started to put my hands all the way to the floor. It becomes a lot more intense in the legs but I can do it.

I’m really happy about all of these but I wish I did look thinner and more toned. I think that it’s my diet that’s keeping me back which is why I’m trying to increase my protein and decrease carbs, sugars and fat. Hopefully it’ll work. . .

Chest & Shoulders & Triceps – A circuit of chest, shoulders and triceps exercises. They decided to up the chest workouts from “doable” to “crazy”. Gone are the “normal” push-ups from Phase 1 and instead they introduce more difficult ones such as push-ups where your hands are beside your chest instead of under your shoulders or 1-handed push-ups. The shoulders and triceps exercises have some exercises from Phase 1 and some new ones. Some are slightly more difficult but not too bad. Overall, there is definitely some hurting going on the next day. . .

Plyometrics – Oh Plyometrics. . . here you are again. . . This is one of my least favourite workouts but also the most intense. This time around I don’t have to modify as much as in Phase 1 and I can generally make it through better than before. The amount of sweat it not pretty. This is the only workout I do in just a sports bra (as opposed to wearing a sports bra and t-shirt). My back becomes covered in sweat and my ponytail reaches my back. Thus partway through the workout my ponytail starts getting pretty wet. Then through capillary action (or something similar to that), sweat moves up my ponytail so more and more gets wet. By the end of the workout, not only is m, Bay body dripping sweat so is my hair.

Back & Biceps – They decided to split up the arms and pair up chest with shoulders and triceps and biceps with back. This isn’t a killer workout but it does a good job working the biceps. Near the end my biceps are hurting and I have to work hard to lift up those weights. Back exercises are relatively the same involving mainly various types of pull-ups and weight exercises.  One new pull-up is the “Corn Cob Pull-up” and it’s hard. It’s very awkward to do it on the lateral pull-down machine but I do my best.

Yoga X – Although I dread plyometrics, the workout that is the hardest for me and my other least favourite is yoga. I generally enjoy yoga but this is above what I’d consider my “beginner yoga level” and there hasn’t been much improvement on my end compared to Phase 1. It involves a lot of strength for the first 45 mins and then flexibility for the last bit. I’m not that strong nor am I flexible so it’s difficult. What I do like about yoga is the stretching. I feel wonderful after I stretch. Tony always says, “Do your best and forget the rest”. That applies for all of the workouts but for me I apply it most to Yoga X because it’s so hard for me.

Legs & Back – This is the same workout from Phase 1. I don’t really have anything to add to this from last time. It’d be nice to have something different for the legs as they have something different for all the other muscles but guess they didn’t want to do that or didn’t have the time to make another. Who knows. . . But it is a good workout any my legs hurt. The wall squats and the one-legged wall squat are painful!

Kenpo X – I actually don’t do this workout and replaced it with running. Although Kenpo X probably does a better job working all parts of your body compared to running, I needed to keep my running up and  knew I had to do it by replacing one cardio exercise with another. I didn’t replace Plyometrics because it’s a much better workout. I also think this is not an accurate name, “Kenpo X”. It’s really cardio kickboxing and not kenpo at all. I think they probably just named it that to sound cooler.

I’m almost done Phase 2 and then on to Phase 3! One day I’ll do a breakdown of the specific exercise in P90X. At least I hope so

Since I’m in the 2nd month of P90X I’ve noticed that I’m definitely stronger but I don’t look any different. I don’t look more toned and don’t seem to have lost the fat that I’d like to drop a dress/pant size. (More into future goals later). Since I exercise almost everyday I can only conclude from this that it must be my diet that is contributing to this. I eat a fairly balanced diet but I sometimes have  unhealthy binges at 10pm on foods like rice cakes, chips, Twizzlers, etc – very unhealthy and high carb and fat foods at the worst time of the day.

High Protein Foods = YAY!

Lots of carbs, sugars and fat = Boo!

I talked about changing my diet over with Unofficial Fitness Consultant and she suggested I change my diet to increase my protein intake and decrease my carbohydrate and sugar levels. I eat too much carbs and sugars and not enough protein. Protein is necessary to repair/build muscles and if I don’t have as much then I can’t repair/build enough muscle. More protein will also help me because I’ll feel satiated and not have those late night cravings and binges. I’ve decided to heed her advice and make small changes every week and see if I notice any results in the next month. I was considering joining Weight Watchers but this way I save money so I’ll try this for a month or 2 and see how it goes.

The changes I’ve made thus far are (1) Having a protein drink post-workout and (2) Including more protein in my breakfast. Up to an hour after working out is the prime time to repair/build muscle. Having protein and a bit of carbs to help that out is a great idea. Since protein powders don’t taste all that great I usually mix it with some fruit. I have one almost every time I work out. For breakfast I used to have some yogurt, a piece of fruit and toast with peanut butter. Now I’ve switched it to steel oats with fruit and yogurt or an egg with toast and yogurt or a piece of fruit.

My next step is to have one of my meals a day be a salad with a good source of protein in it. I haven’t figured out how to do this yet but I will at some point. If you have any good recipes please let me know!

Around mid-April 2010 I recovered from a  horrible pneumonia. I also started a new job until the end of June. Finally I was teaching and as a result I had minimal to no time to do much of anything, including exercising. I know, everyone says “I have no time” but if you’ve ever been a new teacher thrown in the middle of a semester with no resources while trying to do a good job, you’ll know there literally isn’t any time.

In fitness news:

• I completed a beginner belly dance class. If I’m able to I hope to take Level II in the fall.
• After recovering from my pneumonia, I restarted the 100 Push-Ups program which I previously stopped when I went to China and then became sick. I made it to Week 4, Day 2 where I stopped to start P90x again.
• Due to lack of time while teaching I tried 10 Minute Trainer. Each day there are 1 – 3 workouts of approximately 10 mins each (usually a bit more with warm-up and cool down) available depending on how much time you have. I did that for a bit but then stopped because I was just too busy. Yes, even for the 10 mins it required, I just couldn’t or didn’t want to do it.
• After that I started P90X for the 2nd time and I’m still on it! I have made some modifications – I don’t necessarily workout 6 – 7 times a week, it’s more like 4 – 6 times a week. I also replaced Kenpo X with running to keep my running up.
• As a result of starting P90X I run approximately once a week. I’m still doing pretty good as P90X increases fitness levels in all areas, including running. Right now I can run about 5.7 K in just under 40 mins which isn’t too bad at all.

Hi again to everyone and thanks for reading! Stay fit and healthy   Here’s a cute hamster as a welcome back picture! I love hamsters and this one is SO CUTE!

I spoke too soon with my last post about starting to run outdoors again and getting back to the P90X program. About 2 days after writing that post I got sick AGAIN.

I had this horrible high fever, chills, coughing, vomiting, abdominal pain and was extremely weak. I could hardly walk to my bathroom and even taking a cab to a walk-in clinic a block away was difficult. When I went to the walk-in clinic for the first time my temperature dropped to 39.8°C. Initially the walk-in clinic doctor said I had the flu and I treated it as such – Tylenol to keep my fever down, cough syrup, Gravol to settle my stomach so I wouldn’t throw up every 20 mins and the clinic doctor gave me Tamiflu. But from there things just got worse.

To shorten the story, I felt like I was dying and ended up going to the emergency room at the Toronto General Hospital. In addition to an examination I had some blood work done, was put on an IV because I was dehydrated and had a chest x-ray. Approximately 5 hours later I was diagnosed with an pneumonia and given antibiotics. I went home to rest and here I am. Recovering.

Flu and pneumonia symptoms are very similar except I think pneumonia symptoms were more severe since I’ve had the flu before. I don’t know if anyone who reads this (Actually, I don’t even know if anyone regularly reads this blog) has had an pneumonia before but the worst days were AWFUL. Even when those days passed I was still bed ridden and it was so difficult to breathe. I can completely understand how some people die from pneumonias because I was so bad and I’m fairly young and healthy. I don’t know if I was close to dying (probably not) but I felt like I was going to die on the bad days. I don’t remember experiencing ANYTHING that awful EVER before in my life and I never want to again.

It’ll probably take me another week before I start exercising again and when I do it’ll be at a very low intensity level. So much for running and P90X. All my muscle has been wasting away and I haven’t been eating much. Obviously my cardio output has decreased and who knows when my lungs will have fully recovered. The main thing is I don’t want to overexert myself and damage my lungs or relapse  as the lungs are a pretty important organ! I’ll just have to take it slow and do what I can. Once I figure something out I’ll post it.

Important lesson: Keep healthy. No matter what you do be smart and take the time to rest your body.

March 18, 2010 was a beautiful, sunny and warm day with a light breeze. The temperature was probably about 16°C outside. This was the first day I ran outside in 2010 and it was pretty nice. Although I didn’t run very well I’m glad the temperature is warming up.

I was a little disappointed in myself for performing so badly but I think it’s probably because I haven’t exercised for the past 3 weeks. I just came back from a  2 week trip to China where most of it was spent sitting on a bus or plane, eating way too much food, walking and sleeping. The week before I left for China I was sick and spent the week resting to get better. I didn’t want to push myself too hard in case I became more sick and couldn’t go to China.

Knowing I might not be able to run as far as I used to run, I set a  shorter goal for my first outdoors run of 2010, 4.2K, and completed that in about 30 mins but had to walk for 2 stretches. Looking at my previous times from October 2009 I used to run 4.2K in about 29 mins. Thus to run the same distance, with walking stretches and lights, in almost the same time, I can conclude that my running pace is probably faster than whatever is was in October 2009. I’ve happy with any improvement and since that looks like improvement to me – yay!

Now that I’m back from China and Spring is here it’s time to start running again and get back to P90X. Let’s GO!

I was following P90X pretty well for the first 2.5 weeks but I’ve now stopped because I’m a little sick. I’m not super sick but I know enough that it could get worse if I push myself too far. It’s been 4 days since I last exercised and it sucks. I feel like I’m losing my motivation and my figure. I have done some light Wii Fit exercising but it’s definitely nothing like P90X. Though I know that in my current condition I’d just end up having repetitive coughing fits and have trouble breathing. Additionally, I’m going on a trip for about 2 weeks in a week so I won’t be exercising then. This is a long deviation from the prescribed P90X routine.

I was hoping to finish Phase 1 of P90X before I left but it’s impossible now. I’ll be lucky if I finish Week 3 before I leave. When I get back I’m not sure if I should start where I left off or start from the first week again. Bah. Being sick sucks and I have no idea what to do from now on. I hope I get better soon though. . .

If anyone has any advice about exercising or not exercising when sick please let me know. I honestly have no idea.

I found that the first week was more of an introduction to the different workouts and some were definitely more difficult than others. I might not have picked the appropriate weights but that gave me a better idea of what I needed to do the next week. Week 2 is when things really start. I know what’s going on and I’m ready for it. Here’s my review of the different workouts thus far.

Plyometrics - Tony calls this the “X” in “P90X” and it is freaking hard. My lower body hurts like crazy the next day. I’ve never done jump training before and thus can’t jump high so I’ve modified a lot of the moves to reduce the impact. Be prepared to sweat buckets. This is probably the most intense cardio workout I’ve had since I can remember.

Yoga X – Even though Plyo X is insane I actually found Yoga X to be the most difficult even though I have beginner yoga experience. Around 45 mins of this workout are sun salutations moving poses and thus there are a lot of planks. My upper body can’t handle that much so I had to break a lot. Yoga is a great workout because it covers a lot – strength training, core work, stretching, balance, etc.



Shoulders & Arms – This one is a pretty standard workout. It goes through many different exercises that cover shoulders-biceps-triceps for about 4 sets. I think this is well thought out as the circuit lets you exercise the same muscles multiple times, maximizing the number of reps.  Depending what I was doing the weights I used ranged from 5 lbs to 12 lbs.



Legs & Back – The first week I didn’t add any weights for legs and used exercise bands for back. I found this wasn’t enough resistance. The second week I added weights and used the lateral pull-down machine which was much better. Ideally I’d use an assisted pull-up machine but I don’t have that right now. Like Shoulders & Arms, this workout alternates between legs and back exercises so at the end you’ve completed a lot of reps.



Kenpo X - This workout is similar to the many cardio kickboxing classes I’ve taken. It’s not as good of a cardio workout as Plyo but it raises your heart rate. Because I’m able to get a workout without feeling like I’m going to die and because sometimes I like to punch and kick, I’d rank this as my favourite workout. Though I wouldn’t mind burning a few more calories. . .



Overall P90X is pretty brutal. It’s a huge time commitment and the workouts are difficult. What I do like is the variety of workouts and that Tony is pretty entertaining. I stopped Slim in 6 because it was too boring doing the same thing everyday. I’m going to keep up with P90X until the end of the first month. If I don’t see any improvements at that time I’ll probably stop the program and try something else but if I do see improvements in my appearance, then on to the second month!

Adult Female BMR Calcuation
655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
OR
655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in yrs)

Adult Male BMR Calculation
66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)
OR
66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5.0 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in yrs)

To find your RDI, multiply your BMR value (found in the above calculation) by your activity level. You can find out how hard you’re working out using a heart-rate monitor or you can use these generic values.

• Sedentary (no exercise, sit at a desk most of the day): BMR x 120 percent (ie. an extra 20% on top of the BMR)
• Light Activity (no exercise, on feet during the day, eg. shop work): BMR x 130 percent
• Moderately Active (exercise 3 or more days a week for 30 minutes or more): BMR x 140 percent
• Highly Active (exercise 5 or more days a week for 30 minutes or more): BMR x 150 percent

My BMR calculation is:

655 + (4.3 x 140) + (4.7 x 67) – (4.7 x 25)

=655 + 602 + 314.9 – 117.5

=1454.4

My BMR is 1454.4. I’d consider myself moderately active (even though I exercise everyday) therefore I multiply 145.4 by my activity percent (remember to cover the percent to a decimal number!) and I get:

1454.4 x 1.4 = 2036.16 or 2036 calories.

Thus to maintain my current weight I should eat about 2000 calories a day. To lose weight I will have to either exercise more, intake fewer calories or do a combination of both.

To lose 1lb of fat you need to reduce your caloric intake by 3500 calories. It’d be impossible to do this in one day or even a few days but you can do it over a week or two. If you eat 500 calories fewer or burn off 500 calories more per day, then over a week you’ll lose one pound. You could also aim for reducing your calories by 250 calories/day and lose half a pound per week.

The reason I’m probably maintaining my current weight is because I eat around 2500 calories a day and with exercise it is reduced to about 2000 thus maintaining my current body weight. Since I don’t want to exercise anymore I’ll have to change my diet to lose weight.

*Source: This post from the blog The Office Diet – Healthy Living for Busy People