MilesToGoFromHere.com – Faith, Family & Fitness – Independent BeachBody Coach – P90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire, P90X2

In April of 2010, while I was running my own custom software business I had completed a major deadline and as a reward, my wife decided the best way to reward me would be to rent me a hotel room and get me out of the house (at the time I worked out of our basement) away from all the noise of 2 kids so that I could get a night of completely uninterrupted sleep. I took my laptop and a handful of DVDS (there had been quite a few movies that had hit theaters and then DVD without me seeing them so I had a lot of catching up to do, if you know me you know I am a movie freak). I ended up watching Surrogates with Bruce Willis (it was a decent movie, but that is not the point of this post). Anyways, what ended up happening was that I fell asleep at about 9 o’clock which for me was about 6 hours earlier than I normally went to sleep. The side effect was that because my body was only used to getting 3-6 hours of sleep a night, 3 am rolled around and I was wide awake…I didn’t know what else to do so I flipped on the TV and started flipping channels and there was this one infomercial playing on at least 6 of the channels so I stopped to watch it and was mesmerized…

What ended up happening was I watched the infomercial over and over and over again. I had heard of P90X before and knew that when I had a gym membership, I didn’t go, just using the cable weight training system I had in my basement wasn’t working. I needed something to wake me up because the fat guy that I had become wasn’t me…

It was time for me to stand up and do something about it. So I got a copy of P90X and the necessary equipment and took my first set of pictures.

Here are the first round of pictures that I took:

That was me at 345 pounds…not a pretty site, I tell you…

I have to be honest though, even though I loved P90X, I had a hard time sticking with it because of the crazy hours I kept (I own my own software company and would typically work 14-16 hour days getting only 3-5 hours of sleep a night). I would get about 30 days into the program then a deadline would creep up, I would have to pull a few all-nighters and it would wreck my workout schedule.

At one point, BeachBody had a promotion where they waived the sign up fee to become a coach so in an effort to make myself more accountable, I signed up to be a coach. I figured with a little more skin in the game I would hold myself more accountable, and it worked…for a time…until the next big deadline came up and I had to pull a few all-nighters again…

Finally, I had to say enough was enough and figure out what was important to me, because of some circumstances in my business, it made sense in April of 2011 for my wife and I to step back and take a look at what was important to us and where we wanted to be. For me, I had already defined what my three words for the year were going to be (Faith, Family & Fitness). So we decided that it made sense for me to put my resume out there and look for another job. Within 15 minutes I had a phone call from a recruiter that was hiring for a position that I was a good fit for. Things moved slowly at first, then they picked up very rapidly and in June I found myself in Bartlesville, OK living in an extended stay working for ConocoPhillips. My family moved down in July and we began settling into our new life with my wife as a stay at home mom, me closing shop on our old business contracts, and getting things more in balance than they were before, part of which was starting another round of P90X, of which I just recently finished.

I have been physically active since I was a child, played football for 14 years and have been working out since I was in 7th grade so I know how to work out.  I tried for several years with a gym membership, but I always found reasons not to go even though I was paying almost $100/month for my membership and my wife’s membership. I have even written software for personal trainers to build workouts for their clients so it isn’t that I didn’t know what to do, my life was so out of balance that I couldn’t. Another thing about me is that I am always looking for ways to help people and with BeachBody Coaching I am able to do just that. I had told myself that I needed to be a product of the workouts before I tried selling it to other people and now that I have finished a round of P90X I am in a position to relate my experience (both with BeachBody products and just health and fitness knowledge in general) to you and to help you reach your fitness goals. I am still on my journey, I have lost 30 pounds so far and am looking forward to losing 20 – 30 more. After a few more rounds of P90X are under my belt, I’m looking forward to P90X2 which comes out later this year.

What You Can Do

I would be remiss if I didn’t give you actionable steps to help you along your way, there are 3 possible things that you can do.

1. If you are already using a BeachBody product and want to look at how you can help others and make money doing so by being a coach, click here.
2. If you have never used a BeachBody product before but want to start, click here for the BeachBody Store or on the following links for specific products (P90X or Insanity), with a purchase of a  BeachBody you will be signed up for a free Team BeachBody account with me as your coach.
3. If you are not currently exercising but you are not sure you are ready to jump into exercising just yet, but want to do something you can start with Shakeology which is a meal replacement shake that is delicious and is the healthiest meal you can have all day (made from 70 high quality ingredients). The chocolate flavor scored a 97 out of 100 on FoodFacts.com [[insert shakeology link]]. Click here to buy Shakeology. With a purchase of Shakeology you will also be signed up for a free Team BeachBody account with me as your coach as well.

Please contact me if you have any questions, I would love to know how I can help you reach your fitness goals.

Please note: I am an affiliate provider for Amazon and a Team BeachBody coach so I must make the disclosure that links above are sponsored links and I do make a profit from purchases made through them.

I finished a round of P90X…

For those of you who don’t know me well, let me explain why that is such a profound statement. It isn’t that I don’t like working out, it isn’t that I don’t like P90X, I love working out and I love P90X. What it means is that Mandy and I have been able to make enough changes in our lives that have allowed me to take the time to complete P90X.  I recently (June, 2011) started working at ConocoPhillips in their Bartlesville shared services location. Previously, I had owned my own company Two Miles Solutions, LLC and we lived in Madison, WI. While I still own my own company (I still do custom WordPress plugin and theme development, we have our first commercial theme releasing soon) I am no longer working 12 – 16 hour days like I was before. Previously when I had tried to start a round of P90X (I made 3 attempts prior to this) I would get about 30 days into it and then work deadlines would loom and I would have to stop because when it came to a decision of workout or sleep after/before working 12-16 hour days, sleep always won (as it probably should).  Anyway, that is all behind us and I have been able to focus on my health which is something that I have set out to do for this entire year.

First the numbers:

Note, that I had to take Day 93 measurements and pictures because we were travelling and the original pictures didn’t turn out (too dark, taken in a basement)

Now for where the money is, here are my pictures…

And here is one that combines all angles from Day 0 and Day 93…

Overall, it was a great round. I was still finishing up some work for previous customers so there were days where I had to skip workouts, but I really enjoyed the workouts and the transformation  I am starting to see in my body. I took a week off and just did Cardio X for 3 of the days, then I started a new round on November 1, 2011 and am continuing the journey. I’ll keep you up to date with my progress.

If you are interested in joining me on the journey, you can do so in several ways

Sign up for a free Team BeachBody account with me as your coach (click here)

Buy P90X and sign up for your FREE Team BeachBody account with me as your coach (click here)

If P90X isn’t your thing and you want a more Cardio focused option, Buy Insanity and sign up for your FREE Team BeachBody account with me as your coach (click here)

You’re saying I’m not ready to start an intense workout program like P90X or Insanity, but I need to do something for my nutrition, sign me up for Shakeology (your healthiest meal of the day) BeachBody’s delicious meal replacement shake with over 70 awesome ingredients that got a 97 out of 100 on foodfacts.com, you will get a FREE Team BeachBody account with me as your coach. (click here)

Please note: I am a Team BeachBody coach so I must make the disclosure that links above are sponsored links and I do make a profit from purchases made through them.

If you are familiar with Chris Brogan, you are familiar with the concept of 3 Words for the Year. For those of you not familiar with the concept, instead of coming up with a new year’s resolution every year, Chris Brogan comes up with 3 words for the year. He comes up with those words based on what he wants the focus of the year to be, then bases his decisions throughout the year on those three words and how the decision will affect his focus on those 3 words. What’s interesting is that even though I haven’t blogged about my 3 words yet, I have already told you what they are with the recent redesign of this website. My three words for 2011 (in this order) are:

Things have finally slowed down around the Miles household. A major project I was working on as part of my business Two Miles Solutions, LLC finished up this week and now we are able to scale back the amount of time that I work which means that I have more time to do things I like such as spending time with my family and blog.

For my first blog post, I want to post about my family since it has been so long since I have done so.

Update 11/21/2010: I am now an official Independent BeachBody Coach, so all the relevant links below have been changed to point to my beachbodycoach.com site.

As many of you know, I purchased P90X [my BeachBody Coaching site] and have been on the P90X journey since April 19th, 2010.  Today marks Day 30 of my journey which in the P90X world means that you need to supply pictures.  First, let me say that as you can see from the image on the right, I haven’t been able to be as consistent with the workout as I would have liked.  Between 2 kids, owning my own business, being sick for a week, and traveling for a friend’s wedding I started off really well, but I haven’t been very consistent the last couple weeks.  The sad part is that I really wanted to workout, I just couldn’t.  I have never had a workout regimen that I looked forward to as much as I have looked forward to P90X.  We are currently traveling for a friend’s wedding and on the days I have traveled I have felt not doing my workouts and couldn’t wait to press play.  I worked out in my in-law’s basement today (sorry for the lighting in my 30 day pictures) and it felt great.  So now on to the pictures.

Front:

Back:

Side:

The front and the back pictures don’t really do it justice, but the side shots are where it shows how much I have improved.  I started my journey at 332 pounds and I have lost around 10 pounds total so far.  I have lost 3 inches off my waist (even after 30 days my pants are fitting looser!!!).

Nutrition Plan:
I can’t talk about P90X without talking about the nutrition plan.  I absolutely love it! I have never eaten this much, I am on a 3,000 calorie diet.  If I get hungry it is my own fault (or the fact that my metabolism is in high gear).  I have tried to stay true to the nutrition plan even with everything going on that I have had going on but I will admit, I haven’t followed it completely.  However, I have noticed a few things:

1. I feel great!  Like I said, I have never eaten this much, but I am eating really good, natural foods, and not a lot of carbs (on my current phase I am allowed 1 portion of carbs a day).  I have a ton of energy and just feel better.
2. I can feel it when I deviate from the nutrition plan.  Mostly when I eat more carbs than I should, but if I deviate from the nutrition plan, I am sluggish and just feel altogether gross.
3. I am craving junk food less and less.  This was a major revelation for me.  I haven’t given up soda (one of my biggest vices), but I am needing it less and less.  This also applies to sweets.  Mandy and Caleb will have ice cream every once in awhile and I have no desire to have any whatsoever because I know how it will make me feel if I eat it…and it is not worth it.
4. Before P90X I was starving myself and that is why I was gaining weight.  I am a part of the P90X Fan page on Facebook (an amazing forum for encouragement) and I regularly see people who can’t believe how much food they are supposed to be eating because like me they were used to starving themselves which pushed their bodies into starvation  mode where your body stores everything as fat.

P90x Fan Page on Facebook:
I know they really aren’t called fan pages on Facebook anymore, but that’s what I am going to call it for right now.  If you are doing P90X and are not a part of the P90X Fan page on Facebook you are missing out.  The people on this page are amazing.  They are constantly encouraging each other and pushing each other to do better.

Equipment:
One of the first questions people ask when they consider P90X is what equipment will they need…here is the equipment I use.

• Gold’s Gym 6-Piece Puzzle Mat – I really like these mats…I have duct taped them together by flipping them over and running duct tape down all the seams and absolutely working out on them.
• P90X Pullup Bar – This bar has been tested up to 500 pounds whereas the other ones wouldn’t work for someone my size.
• Gold’s Gym 40 lb Cement Weight Set – I actually have 2 of these sets so that I can switch between weights pretty easily.  On this trip I have weight bands with me, but I haven’t had a workout yet that requires them so I can’t recommend them yet.

Resources:
Besides the official teambeachbody.com site and the P90X Fan page on Facebook, in order to help keep myself accountable, I created a tracking spreadsheet in Excel to help me track my progress.  Check it out.

In my next P90X update (Day 60) I will post a picture of my workout area and why I really have no excuse not to do P90X which has helped me out a ton.  Hopefully, you are encouraged by my progress to the point that you join me on the journey.  BRING IT!!!