Fit for FLOAT

Today is my birthday.  My day started out with a quote from Ernest Mayers, “Don’t just count your years, make your years count.”  I think that sums up my life philosophy very well.  I have now maintained my  90 pound weight loss for nearly a year and a half.  I have increased my lean muscle and decreased my fat.  And I decreased my waist from 44 inches to 3o inches.  Not bad for a 40 year old.  Now I am off to celebrate this milestone with my family.  I am a truly blessed man.  I do what I love for a living.  And I love what I do for a living.  And in just a few short days I will be in Miami for a great balloon convention.  I hope to see many of you there.  And you can still wish be a belated happy birthday!

Before. At over 260 pounds.

I have lost over ninety pounds and maintained that weight loss for over one year!  On an almost daily basis, people ask me what was my “secret.”  Well, I am finally ready to reveal my secret here.

I think it is part of our nature to try to find a stealth solution to weight loss.  There is a multi million dollar industry that is trying to convince you that their powder, shake, weight, or shake weight is THE SECRET to weight loss.  It amuses me when these products proclaim their own superiority to other products out there.  But it makes me mad when these products claim to be better than natural foods and exercise.  One popular abdominal “gadget” says that you can get better results with their machine in ten minutes than you can spending 30 minutes in the gym.  Then there is this shake that says you would have to eat hundreds of foods to get the same nutrients in just one serving of their shake.  What they do is isolate one nutrient and totally ignore that a food item contains MULTIPLE nutrients and vitamins. 

Let me be clear, I am not here to rain on anyone’s parade.  If the grapefruit, or banana, or low carb diet is working for you, then that is a good thing.  If the Ab Rocker, Gazelle, or Total Gym is your secret, then more power to you.  Or if Slimfast, Shakeit, Vi, or any of dozens of other shakes have helped you drop the pounds, then I am proud of you.  I am just saying that none of those things worked for me.  And yes, I did try quite a bit of different things prior to finally losing weight.

My “secret” to losing weight was to burn more calories than I consumed.  I did this by cutting back on my serving sizes and by exercising regularly.  And here are a couple of other helpfutl hints that helped me along the way.

* Keep a food journal.   This will help you see just how many calories you are consuming.  Plus you are more likely to opt for a 75 calorie apple than a 250 calorie candy bar

* Keep variety in your workout – Keep your muscles working hard and keep yourself out of a boring rut by regularly changing up your exercises. 

* Find something you enjoy doing that burns calories  I discovered that I really like Zumba.  I also enjoy kickboxing and extreme races.  Keep the fun in your fitness regimine and you will stick to it instead of dreading it.

*Water, water, water  … and did I mention water.  Replacing two soft drinks per day with water equals cuts off one pound per week.  And there are lots of other benefits to drinking water.

Keep your eyes on the prize.  I have to keep continually challenging myself.  When I first started, my goal was to NOT hear the Wii Fit game tell me that I was obese.  Now I want to run a half marathon or do 150 consecutive pushups.

Eat the M&M!   Diets that have you eliminate certain food(s) are predisposed to failure.  After a while you start fixating on that which is taboo.  And then you go crazy on a binge.  So when a craving arises have a small serving and enjoy it.  And then move on with your life.

Today. Under 170 pounds.

Have you heard?  FLOAT is going on a diet.  Does this mean that the world class balloon decorator’s convention is trying to drop a few pounds?  Not at all, Steve Jones and Monica Zapata – Rodriguez are presenting a scaled down version of the regular FLOAT November 15 and 16, 2011 in sunny Miami, Florida. 

Don’t worry, the education and instructors are not scaled back.  In fact some of FLOAT’s best instructors from previous years are slated to teach at Diet FLOAT.  Linda Kiss, Steve Jones, and Patty Sorrell  (along with her husband) are already well known from great classes at FLOAT.  Joining them will be Israel Dominguez.

What is scaled back at Diet FLOAT is the number of days.  This balloon seminar is only two days, but it does include a beach party.  Woohoo!  Also scaled back is the number of attendees.  Diet FLOAT caps out at 75 people.  So, don’t wait till the last minute to get registered.   In fact, stop reading this blog right now and get over to the website for FLOAT and register now.  Don’t worry, I will wait on you.  You are not going to believe how inexpensive it is for this balloon seminar.  … Oops stop reading an go now! 

Now, don’t you feel better?   You are going to be one of the fortunate ones learning some great new balloon decoration techniques on a warm Florida beach.  I will be there as well.  This balloon artist is making the trek from Greenville, SC to Miami, FL.  I am hoping that since this is a Diet FLOAT I won’t have near as many helium tanks to haul around!

Diet FLOAT has the same quality of fun as regular FLOAT.

Still doing my daily P90X.   I have maintained a somewhat regular workout schedule during some very irregular times.  Joy Set Entertainment  has been very busy in the last few weeks teaching at camps in North Carolina and South Carolina and doing  a ton of birthday parties all over the Greenville, SC area.  This is in addition to our regular load of balloon twisting and balloon decorating.  Today I want to discuss the cost of the P90X program.

What is the cost of this program: P90X: Tony Horton’s 90-Day Extreme Home Fitness Workout DVD Program will cost you $139.80 on Amazon with free shipping.  Or you can opt to get it for “3 easy payments of $39.95 plus $19.95 shipping and handling” on Beachbody.  Either way it comes out the same.  Of course you will also need  Set of 5 ProSource Premium Latex Resistance Exercise Bands Tubes Cords w/ Door Anchor and Exercise Manual for $27.99.  And a Heavy Duty ProSource Easy Gym Doorway Chin-up Pull-Up Bar at $28.99.  A good set of weights is recommended.  A starter set Cap Barbell 40-Pound Dumbbell Set is going to cost you $48.65.  If you also opt to get the p90X  Recovery Drink that you hear so much about on almost every DVD. P90X Results and Recovery Formula® 30-Day Supply (25 Servings) – Tub will cost you only $56.90.  We are already up to $302.33.  We have not added in the protein bars, the vitamins, the yoga blocks, or the exercise mat.  Add all of those and you will top the $500 mark. 

Wow.  Suddenly my gym membership seems a lot less expensive.  Yes there are ways to save money.  To save some money, consider  the  P90X Peak Results Package.  You can get you started with the program, bands, and recovery drink for $299.00

Of course there are more than just monetary costs with the program.  As noted in the last blog, your average workout in the p90X program is over an hour long.  So this program is a big investment in time.  But like any good investment, it should pay off in the long run. 

I have greatly increased my endurance.  I now can do about double the number of pullups.  And I have also almost doubled the amount of weight that I lift when working out with dumbells.

This Greenville balloon artist did NOT do his workout after this.

Confession time.  P90X is not the best workout for a road trip. I recently did a small gig in Washington DC. Maybe you know the address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  If you are interested, my wife did a blog about our experiences that you can read here.   Anyway, I packed my P90X DVDs and some bands (I didn’t feel like explaining a set of dumbbells and a chin up bar to secret service agents).  But I never got around to doing my scheduled workouts.   After 600 miles from Greenville, SC to DC and numerous traffic jams, the last thing I felt like doing was an hour long back and leg workout.

Which brings us to the point of today’s review,  What happens when real life and P90X collide?   The average P90X workout lasts 55 minutes (plus a 16 minute abdominal workout every few days).  The yoga workout clocks in at one hour and 32 minutes!    I am a busy balloon twister and it is very important for me to make time to take care of my health through regular physical fitness.   But the P90X involves not just me, but the family television as well.  So my choices are to do my workouts EARLY in the morning, LATE at night, or during the afternoon with my kids whining that they can’t rewatch a Spongebob episode that they have already seen seventeen times!   And I would much rather spend time with my family rather than having them watch me sweat (and occassionally groan) during an intense workout.

Secondly in my case I had several days that workouts were not going to be … uh …  easy.  The reality is that you can’t do plyometrics and inflate balloons for a decor job at the same time.  You can’t drive to go entertain at a birthday party and do 30 chinups.  Maybe I should try doing that AT the party next time.  “Okay kids, today we are going to see how many pushups we can do.  All right!  Are you ready to bring it?  Come on Billy, you only did five!” 

So, what did I do?  I did a shortened workout.  I got in some cardio and weight training each day.  But instead of the hour plus and intenisty of P90X, I did about thirty minutes each day.  As soon as I could, I returned to the regular P90X program.  I have polled many P90X users and found a little over half drop out at some point.  The problem is that they seldom start back up.  P90X works.  But any program that someone does consistently for an hour a day, six days a week, for 12 weeks is going to make changes happen.  Accept that you may not always be able to give 100% to any program.  But never settle for no effort at all.  Jump back in!  You can do it!

Congrats to FLOAT producer Steve Jones.  He made a cool balloon sculpture for the WCEBAC.   Maybe I can get him to post some pics on here.  Hope all of you had a blast at the West Coast and get ready for FLOAT in January 2013!