DAY 5: With a little help from my friends and P90X!

It's so weird how things start out.
A couple of months ago, I felt I needed to walk Karly a bit more than 10 to 15 minutes in the mornings so he calms down a bit and rests peacefully as I work in the office. I started elongating the walks a bit more here and there. Next thing I know my buddy picks up on it and gets hyper every morning at around 7 (now at 7:15 sharp), sits in front of my bed and starts poking my shoulder with his muzzle – as in "come ooon we gotta go out on our daily walk/run". If I happened to be in a very deep sleep, after exhaustive poking, he puts his front legs on the bed then prepares himself for Operation "Lick-Michel's-face-till-he-jumps-out–of-bed" which he extremely rarely gets to put in action anymore because I've learned never to ignore his pleas – the hard way. And this includes SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS – don't forget, there's no such thing as a "week-end" for a dog.

Which brings us now to Day 5. I enjoyed the idea of touring Achrafieh with Karly, especially after the adventure we had yesterday. The flexy leash I use gives him a 5 meter leeway so he can be around me without getting stuck to me. It makes it easier to run and go crazy without both of us feeling confined.
We did Jeitawi till SNA – litterally on the other side of Achrafieh and back in around an hour. But because of the music I found myself sprinting like this Friends episode where phoebe joggs with Rachel. You want a tip from someone with half a brain? Just run like a kid. Run like these cartoon characters in Miyasaki movies. You cannot imagine how Liberating that is. Add to that singing from the top of your lungs (not to do in Sursock because of extreme negative repsonse) and running with a companion that really doesn't give a flying fuck about norm, etiquette and the human "society" as a whole and that run will just make your day, BIGTIME!


You can find a longer vid here. I now understand her I guess, it doesn't mean that that's how I run ... or is it?! ;)

Stuff I got for the training, Resistance cables and ball are Sara's.

So the day passed by, filled with work and meetings as always but I still managed to go to Nahr el Kaleb and picked up P90X from Anis Sfeir. He warned me that I had a couple of ebooks that I had to read before starting out – one on dieting and the other about the training – and that I had to get some gear before: a pull-up bar, a mat, push up handles, resistance cables. The training REALLY wasn't easy apparently. I got really excited and head out directly to Mike Sport and got most of the equipment I needed – couldn't find resistance cables. I got so excited I even got goggles and a nose blocker, just in case I decided to pay the pool another visit with Milos! It all cost around 100$, with the mat costing alone 50 (which really pissed me off: "heydé lal yoga ou mni7a lal daher" PFFF! MY ASS!! It's a stupid sfinjé!).

While heading back I got a facebook message: it was a tip on another diet book to read sent from Bruno Diab, an old SCHOOL friend of mine that I haven't seen for literally 7 to 8 years! Apparently, Bruno read about the blog on facebook and checked it out. To add his two cents he recommended  "Je ne sais pas maigrir" written by Dukan, which I directly got from Librairie Antoine for 14000 L.L. (9$).
From what I got out of it, the diet described was divided in 4 stages, and relies mostly on high Protein foods, meats, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy; and some vegetables.

Carrot juice! Grapefruit is amazing for chopping down fat btw.

Bruno had lost apparently 4.5kgs from the first 5 days – only on stage 1 of the diet, and dropped 21kgs in 7 weeks!! Reading that book if of utmost priority, I'll update you with my findings. In the mean time, yes, I'll follow a more protein oriented diet, with fresh/steamed/grilled vegetables, dairy and fruit.

Got home – my mom's for now till next week – and checked out the Training pdf. It's not that complicated. It explains that P90X relies on confusing the muscles by changing exercises so the body doesn't adapt and keeps on getting leaner and developing endurance; it requires you to take a fit test (which I didn't do yet) and write down where your level is at in terms of for instance, how many push ups or pull ups you can do...etc; it encourages you to write down your progress to enable to see how you've developed and obviously set goals for the coming training session.

Sara joined me at that point, we were going to start our first P90X training: CHEST AND BACK!!
The pull up bar apparently (for the back training) could directly be fixed on any average rectangle door; but apparently my mom doesn't have AVERAGE doors in the house. NONE! We couldn't start with the chest/back program and switched to Shoulders/Arms.

The program consisted of following Tony Horton and his team. The exercises followed each other with barely time to take a break. Everyone was supposed to set his repetition goals and do them; and pause the DVD if we felt we needed a break.
I have to admit, I'm really NOT in shape. I barely could get till the end of the training and couldn't complete the bonus round, nor the "Ab ripper X" program which follows Shoulder/Arms.
I lay down exhausted on my mat and literally felt like I was going to faint. Sara sat down for a minute to rest and just instantly started snoring. P90X was EXTREME!

By the way, Ramzi, a friend of mine, called from the states (!) to tell me about a program that's apparently even BETTER than P90X! It's called something like Madness, Crazyness or something. I'll ask him again about it and get back to you.

I realized that I had to supplement myself if I wanted to continue the program. Don't forget I HAVE to walk Karly in the morning so it's like adding 7 extra Cardio sessions a week! I'll rely on the old Animal Pack multi-vitamins I used to use in the bodybuilding days, plus Whey protein shake to keep my nutrient level stable. I had used a product that I really swear by for giving you CRAZY energy for bodybuilding (and design overnights). It is called NO-XPLODE and is litterally like slurping down 4 Redbulls! ... I'll go without it for now. You know, there are some people å-la-Milos that swear by just relying on ONLY food and NO SUPPLEMENTS to train. I might have considered that I guess if I wasn't literally KILLING MYSELF in this training, I really don't know how they do it. I need to recuperate. As long as I'm relying on ONLY vitamins and supplements and nothing "more", my conscience is clear.

Till tomorrow guys,

HAOUUUUU!!!