« My Internet Business |Home| Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm »
P90X and Positive Extremes
By karen | May 5, 2008
Back in 2001, I participated in a 90 day fitness program. On my vision board I’ve been looking at a photo of me from that time in a fuchsia pink bikini. I looked pretty good. Yet at the time I was overly critical of myself. I thought I was too this, too that, and I was never happy with the scale.
But now, two babies and 6 “over 40″ birthdays since then and I think “What happened to that lean and fit woman ?” So I put the photo on my vision board and I invited her back. This time I plan to be more loving and accepting of myself.
On May 1, I started a new workout, P90X, yes, the one that is “As Seen on TV”, billed as
“The Most Extreme Home Fitness Training Ever!” My friend from out there in cyberspace, Aaron Potts, from Today is that Day.com is my coach for the program on Beachbody.com.
So far, so good. I’m absolutely loving it. Yes, it is difficult. It is intense. I suppose you could call it extreme. But as a woman who came of age in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and even later, I’ve seen too many extremes when it comes to diet and exercise and if you’re going to go extreme, lean and fit is the positive way to do it.
I’ve seen way too much on the negative side of the extreme scale and I would love to see more healthy attitudes and positive extremes for my own daughters and for all of the women coming of age now.
We used to say “You can never be too rich or too thin”. Now I don’t know about the rich part (I’d be happy to try that out) but I do know about the thin part. That part is a lie, you can be too thin. When your bones are sticking out and you look like death warmed over, you’re too thin. When you are too weak to lift a bag of groceries you are too thin. When your bones break and your heart gives out from lack of nourishment, you are too thin.
Fit, healthy and strong is more beautiful than emaciated any day.
As far as body image goes, every American woman my age has seen at least part of the negative extreme.
I went to college in the 1980’s. A couple of years after I left college I found out that a friend/acquaintance that I knew had died. She died of heart failure. It was not just a freak thing, there was nothing at all natural about it. It was essentially self-inflicted. Her heart failure was caused by anorexia. She literally starved herself to death. She was 23 years old.
Just a few years back, I was talking with some friends at my gym. My friend, J, was laughing and telling us a story of her college days. We were all laughing and joking, yet it really wasn’t funny. She said that when she was in college she was on the “Skittle” diet. She and 3 of her friends would take one skittle and cut it into 4 pieces and that is all that they would allow themselves to eat all day. That is extreme. That is stupid. But the really ironic thing is that all of us there had a similar story, some better, some worse. We just didn’t always have such a colorful meal that it was based around. We had all struggled to achieve that airbrushed perfection that we grew up with in the media. I suppose at the time it never occurred to us that the ideal we were reaching for was just an illusion and that all we really needed to do was reach for our best and realize that it was all part of the journey of life and we would never get it done.
So there are workouts that are deemed extreme. P90X may be considered extreme by some. Running a marathon or participating in a triathlon may be considered extreme. Doing Yoga in a room heated to 105 degrees feels extreme (been there, done that…yes, extreme). But they are healthy extremes, life affirming extremes. Extremes that you cannot accomplish without sufficient and healthy fuel and that is the kind of extreme that I want in my life. That is the kind of extreme I want my daughters to reach for when they want extreme.
And now I’m off to refuel. I’ll let you know how the P90X goes.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Topics: Personal Development, Living the Power, Real Life |
May 6th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Karen,
Your incredibly healthy ATTITUDE is going to be the real fuel for the incredibly healthy BODY that you are building with P90X. Even this early in the game, I can already see that you are looking at this entire thing from both the proper mental perspective, as well as the proper physical perspective.
This is a great post, and it was born of a great state of mind. You’re doing awesome, Karen, and it is going to be great crossing the P90X finish line with you!
May 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Thank you Aaron. I really am enjoying every second of it…am loving the “feel good” sore that comes from working it (got to enjoy that now because I know from past experience that it goes away for me)
off to do legs and back and AbRipper….
May 6th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Karen, this is a lovely article. It’s so important that we find balance in our lives. Sometimes going to extremes is the only way to find it. The important thing is that we learn from them. =)
Jonathan
May 6th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Thanks Jonathan,
Yes, sometimes I think we want that “rush” of an extreme…it’s just better when it is a life-affirming extreme!
I appreciate you stopping by and your comment!
Thank you.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Sometimes it’s only after we’ve experienced the extremes that we know how to find the best path for ourselves. Best of success with this program Karen!
May 6th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Good luck with it Karen with ya man Aaron on your case I feel sure there’ll be no slacking allowed even if you wanted to
Keep us posted because I’m starting to add a few pounds and I’m at the gym 4 or 5 times per week. Maybe I need something more extreme!
May 6th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I’ve not witnessed many eating disorder cases here in Singapore, while I was growing up. I’m in my 30s. Still, it’s interesting to reading about what you’ve been through in terms of dieting issues when you were younger.
Great sharing! Enjoyed your article for its candidness. Good luck on th P90X!
Evelyn
May 6th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
thank you Kenneth and Tim,
I’ll post an occasional update…really just want to enjoy the journey.
Evelyn,
that is wonderful that eating disorders are uncommon in Singapore…They have been quite prevalent here, I’ve known many with full-blown
disorders and many others that probably came too close to the edge. It is a rather sad commentary.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:14 am
It’s fantastic to see such a positive attitude. I think our sense of body image is incredibly distorted and we have very little concept of what it means to be healthy. I will admit here that I’m extreme too - I do 1-2 hours of pilates a day, which some people would think is extreme! I think as long as you’re enjoying it, and you develop a program that is full of variety and fun, then that’ll keep you healthy for life. Or so says my PT.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I think as long as you enjoy it and it nourishes your soul and your spirit then it’s okay. We all want to be healthy for life don’t we?
I would love to see my daughters (and of course all the other little girls in the world!) grow up with a healthy body image
May 8th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Karen as an extreme personality I thank you for allowing me to look at extremes in a good and healthy way. Our bodies know when enough is enough and we can tell if we are listening. I’m on a relatively new quest of fitness myself right now. When I visit the gym today I’ll think of your extreme example and give it an extra push.
Thanks for the pink bikini visual.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thank you Tom! The pink bikini visual comment made me laugh and it made me happy!
At my age of 46 I don’t often think of things like that anymore and it was fun to think about!
Give it an extra push…it will feel great and life-affirming!
May 12th, 2008 at 8:58 am
This is a great post, and true of so many of us who are now in our forties.
I know when I was 15, I went on my first “diet”–I could not eat anything with more than 100 calories in it, and whatever I ate could not add up to more than 500 calories per day.
Even though I am 5′3″ tall and weighed 105 pounds at my lightest, I always thought I looked fat.
I won’t tell you what I weigh now (let’s just say more than that!), but I find my comfort level in this older body and with the way I look is much higher than when I was truly “thin”. And “dieting” for me has become more about being healthy than about seeing a certain number on the scale. Weight loss has become almost an added bonus of having a healthy body.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Thank you Jeniffer,
Yes, it seems that women our age really struggled with that diet mentality.
Now I just eat healthfully, rarely step on the scale (I made a commitment early on that my daughters would never see me step on a scale!
and I really enjoy working out and exercising- always have but now I focus on the joy and pleasure of it rather than the calorie/fat burning aspects!