Team Beachbody Guest

To start, let me say this: I’ve had plenty of wake up calls in my life that should have been as effective as hitting my head with a shovel, but they weren’t. In 2006, my older brother Chris passed away. RIP my brother! He was very large, larger than I was; and I am going to go out on a limb and say much more out of shape than I was as well. He was only 30 years old.

For years before that, my dad has had health problems. He was an avid smoker and drinker all of his life; as well as quite hefty. He has finally quit smoking within the last 10 years, but continues to drink. He has had multiple heart attacks, and the doctors believe he has had many tiny heart attacks in his sleep. He is a very lucky man to still be alive. He’s needed multiple bypasses and surgeries for his heart and health problems. He’s on so many medications as well as having diabetes now. The doctors first gave him maybe 6 months to live, and that was years ago.

My mother, also a large woman but didn’t have many of the health problems except for diabetes. She chose to go the gastric bypass route and originally lost over 100 pounds. She gained about 30 back when she had shoulder surgery and couldn’t do much of anything but sit around. She’s again losing those pounds.

To put it bluntly, most of my family, no matter what side or their relation to me, isn’t fit.

My boss was looking into fitness programs and brought up P90X as a possibility. She as well was looking to get in shape. Well, I don’t like to jump into things and it looked a little rough. She said it was made so you could modify things to your bodies capabilities. She was absolutely right there, but I wanted to research reviews and other things about it first; so I did. I’m glad I did just that, because I found Power 90, the precursor to P90X. It’s a wonderful program for burning fat, it truly is. You’ll get results without eating right, but they won’t be extraordinary like they possibly could be if you were.

When I started this journey, it literally is a journey, I weighed 327 pounds. I was hoping, HOPING, that I could maybe get close to 300 or even below with a little luck after my first 90 days. Well, I’m here to say, as I just passed day 60, that I now weigh about 280 pounds.

Power 90 isn’t a diet. People are always telling me, “When you lose weight that fast on a diet, you usually gain it all back.” Well, I’m not on a diet and I don’t know how many times I have to tell people that. It’s a fitness program that makes a strong suggestion that you eat better. Truth be told, if you think about it, my personal opinion is that BeachBody is just reinforcing the ages old routine of “Exercise and Eating Right” is the way to a healthy life. But as an out of shape country, we need somebody to show us what that is again.

For me, another thing that I’ve said time and time again is, I can go to a gym no problem. I can hop on a treadmill, do jumping jacks, lift weights, or anything you ask of me. The problem isn’t that I can’t do it, the problem is I don’t know HOW to do it. I don’t know what I’m doing, when I should switch exercises, how many I should do, what weight I should use, what the proper form is, etc… I need that guidance, as do a lot of other people I’ve talked to in the wonderful BeachBody community. The forums/message boards are an amazing place to get the support and help you need if your coach isn’t enough. Your coach may not know exactly what you’re going through, but I guarantee you someone in those forums knows.

I’ll catch up with you next time I have something to say. In the mean time, keep pushing play!