Confessions of a Tea-Addicted Geek

My fitness journey actually began around August 1999. That’s when I got my own apartment a few months after graduating from college and began to not only cook my own meals, but eliminated all bread, pasta, rice, and sugar. The result was a twenty pound drop, but I had more than eighty pounds to go. I had gained seventy-five of those pounds my last two years of college. Stress, bad eating habits, numerous food intolerances, and a general lack of knowing how to eat contributed to this gain. At that point finding size 14 business suits that fit me were hard. I was beginning to dip into the “women’s” clothing department, a known euphemism for the plus sizes. When I was in high school, I typically wore either a size 6 or 8. Needless to say, not being able to fit into my clothing and generally feeling bad about how I looked made me determined to get the weight off for good.

It took me a year, but I learned along the way not only how to eat, but what foods to avoid, what exercises worked for me, and how to exercise in a way that you didn’t plateau. I did yoga, aerobics, worked out on the ellipical, and went out dancing for a good 3-4 hours of what amounted to HIIT (high intensity interval training) to various goth and industrial tunes every Friday night. The end result was going from a size 16 to a size 2, and I weighed in at 120 lbs. I have before and after pictures of me at that time. I still remember going to the mall with my parents when they visited, glancing in the mirrors and wondering who the girl was dressed in similar clothes to me. I did this for months. After losing over 100 pounds, I had NO idea what I looked like anymore and my mind hadn’t caught up to the reality. I literally didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

I maintained that weight loss and kept in shape for about a decade afterward. Then life changes hit, my jobs began to take more out of me and after buying a home I couldn’t afford my usual yoga/Aikido/Tai Chi workouts that kept me together. Over time some of the weight began to creep back and before I knew it I had thirty pounds to lose.

In March ’10 I joined up with Beachbody with the intent of putting this all behind me. I signed up as a coach, which enabled me to not only get a discount on the products I bought but earn enough money on the side to pay for them–and eventually get certification as a fitness trainer. My first exercise program was Slim in 6, which I later paired with Hip Hop Abs. Afterward I did a round of Brazil Butt Lift, which gave me the core work I desperately needed–and the beginnings of ab definition as a result. My goal at that point was to get in good enough shape for the Insanity exercise program, which involved a series of intense HIIT workouts and was NOT for the timid. I started getting into running and tacked on yoga. After this plus a round of the 60 day Insanity program, I was all of ten pounds away from my weight loss goal. I was so pumped I decided to do a hybrid of P90X and Insanity, which worked out well for me.

Then the winter hit, and the holidays came. I had less time for the workouts and on top of which, the allergy-induced asthma that is the bane of my health kicked in mightily with the cold, dry weather and sinus infections kept happening on a regular basis. The end result was not only gaining back the weight I had lost but I did it in half the time it took to lose it.

Needless to say, I was not easily discouraged. The following year I began the TurboFire program and started to watch my diet better. With continuous tweaks (and a few false starts due to additional sinus infections), I eventually dropped ten pounds. Then I decided it was time to go back to my nutritional roots, and cut out the bread, pasta, rice, and sugar. I upped my protein intake and started eating more vegetables and far less fruit. I stopped eating out with my coworkers and brought in a bento box to hold my work lunches in order to maintain portion control.

The end result combined with exercise was awesome. I’m happy to say that I’m now down twenty-four of the thirty pounds, and am all of six pounds away from my fitness goal. Six! But I want to get there and both be and look healthier than I was. Back in the day I was a cardio maven and didn’t do much in the way of weight lifting and muscle gain. My time with Beachbody has taught me about the holy fitness trinity of cardio, strength training, and yoga: you truly need all three to build a good, well-rounded exercise program.

There are a lot of lessons I’ve learned along the way: how to make a huge fitness goal succeed, how it can fail, how you can put the weight back on after and what it takes to get back on track. And now that I’m so close to my goal I can smell it, I’m now ready to hold off on the cardio and start developing some good, lean, sexycurvy muscle–and finally fit into the last 8 or so jeans that don’t yet fit me.

My 90 days of classic P90X starts today. I’m beginning by posting my “after diet/TurboFire, pre-P90X” pictures to share with you all and look back on in comparison with the results I get when I’m done. And if this whole thing works out, I’ll chronicle my adventures with P90X2 when it comes out in Dec. I’ve already pre-ordered it, and can’t wait to get it.

As a side note, if people viewing this have done P90X and wish to give P90X2 a shot, here’s some useful info. If you buy it from my site, you get the following:

• * Free shipping
• * Two bonus workouts
• * No payment until it ships in Dec
• * Automatic entry into the P90X2 sweepstakes to win prizes

See my site at TeaAddictedGeek.com for more details. Once you’re there, just click on the P90X2 picture on the upper right. Note to fellow vegans: among the meal plans they’ll be including in the program will be one for us. I CAN’T WAIT.

All that aside, here are my official “post diet/TurboFire, pre-P90X” pictures:

I wore no makeup, didn’t suck it in–this is the real deal, no glamour shots here. I’m including it here mostly as a personal record, to remind myself of how far I’ve come and once I get to the point I want to be at, a comparison of where I was beforehand. It’s a good practice to do when you’re in the process of making fitness goals.

I’m about to go into my fitness room (which is my basement but hey, it works) and go push play. It all starts from there. I’ll report on my official day one afterward, and you’ll all get to find out if this P90X stuff is just hype or if it really works.

See you when I’m done!

Back in my college days a combination of stress, digestive problems, and bad eating habits put on about seventy-five pounds on my body. I spent the year after graduating losing it plus an additional twenty-five and kept most of it off for the past decade. I’ve been asked all sorts of questions ranging to what foods did I eat, what exercises I did, and of course the main, super #1 question: how did I do it?

My reply was simple: “Healthy diet and exercise.” Unfortunately as simple as this reply was, it’s not so simple. Most people don’t know what constitutes as a “healthy diet” and if you work long hours in front of the computer as I do, you don’t always have time to exercise let alone know what to eat properly! And isn’t healthier food more expensive than fast food? Besides, who has time to cook?

Then there’s the other problem: if you succeed in losing weight and getting into shape, how do you maintain it? Did you know that 80% of people who lose weight gain it back and then some in less than two years? That’s because their diet program taught them how to diet, but not how to keep it off.

Here’s the sad fact of life and how our bodies work: if you need to lose 5-10 pounds, that’s a diet. For 20 or more, that’s a lifestyle change. You will never be able to go back to eating fast food, drinking soda, and eating bad on a regular basis. Does it mean you can never enjoy those foods again? No, but it does mean you need to continue to be moderate, treat your body right, and stay active or the weight will come back on.

I speak from sorry experience. I kept the weight off as long as I kept active. This didn’t mean excessive quantities of exercise daily, but it did mean a good 30-45 min about 3-5 days per week of doing some form of fitness activity. The moment I became inactive, some of the weight slowly began to creep back on. Working 80 hours a week as a computer programmer did NOT help, and eating less just meant my body got used to eating less: I lost no weight and gained nothing from it.

People these days are too busy. They want a magic bullet, whether it’s surgery or pills. But these are the facts: if you want it badly, you have to work for it. The good news is that you don’t need an expensive gym membership; there are plenty of really good exercises out there that only take ten minutes! There are even smaller things you can do: take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, park your car further away from your place of work or train stop, or even do some of these great desk workouts while at the office.

I’m not your standard fitness nut. I hang out with friends online, play computer games, am a software engineer, yadda yadda. But from it all I gained a bad back, loads of stress, and you can imagine the rest. But what I’m doing is not impossible in spite of all that. I’m happy to say that I’ve been on a fitness program for almost a month now and fitting into jeans I haven’t been able to wear in months. I’m not starving myself, I lost inches and pounds in the first two weeks, and I haven’t suffered any injuries. In fact, I feel great afterwards! And I drink plenty of green tea, for a tea addict must always have tea.

I’m currently on the Slim in 6 program from this website here. The exercises range from 10-60 minutes, and there are a bunch of them on there. I also use other programs; if you’re super busy, give the Ten Minute Trainer a try. If you like to dance, try the Hip Hop Abs. I just ordered them and looking forward to the workouts! The membership fee is seriously inexpensive and cheaper than a gym, and my basement/exercise room never closes.

Why am I posting this? A sales pitch? A sadistic streak? The desire to get a blog post up after two months of inactivity following the floods in MA which sadly affected my own basement? No. It’s because like a lot of people, I know what it’s like to struggle to figure out how to work in taking care of myself with the rest of my life–and there are times when it seems impossible to be able to do both. It’s totally not. If I can give at least one other person a peace of mind and the chance to wear their favorite pair of jeans again, it’ll give me something to smile about. Seriously.

If you think you can’t due to xyz, just think of this: I lost 100 lbs and kept it 80% of it off for almost a decade. I’m a software engineer and sit on my ass most of the day. I have allergy-induced asthma, so I know about working around health issues. Because I’m a vegan, I know about dieting on restrictive diets either by choice, health, or both.

Besides, if you sign up for one of these programs on my website, you get a tea-addicted geek as your coach! If nothing else, it’d be fun and a rather unique experience. Imagine getting fitness tips from someone who speaks C#, enjoys RPGs, agonizes over not having enough time for World of Warcraft, and likes to gab about the first Doctor Who episode which just aired from season 1/5/fnarg. And speaking of which, I need to write a review of the newest adventure starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan….