Freedom Isn't Free

This has been a transformative year.

I ended another relationship (that's a whole other blog), put my house on the market, lost 45 pounds of fat, and have gained about 5 pounds of lean muscle.  In short, I finally made the decision to take control of my life.  It certainly hasn't been easy - some things have been sad and others joyous and all represent some kind of loss, even sacrifice (see below).  But it's been a journey and the journey is what's important.  I know myself better now than I ever have before.  Despite all of that, I have learned that I have so much more to learn (deep, eh?).

The word freedom has so many connotations for so many people.  Most people think of either "America" or "an escape from something else" (a vacation is freedom from work, a later curfew is freedom for a teenager, etc.).  At least that's what I used to think of when I saw or heard the word.  But over this year my view of that word has changed.  

Freedom is so much more than an escape from something else.  Freedom to me now is something that I must earn through sacrifice, discipline, and hard work.  

• Sacrifice, of course, is giving up something good now (sitting in front of the TV for hours eating delicious nachos) for something great later (six pack abs and no GRD).  
• Discipline is the self-control required to make that decision between hitting play on Die Hard 3 and hitting play on an exercise video.  
• Hard work, naturally, is doing more than just showing up for the workout - it's pushing every set to failure, holding every yoga posture as deep and long as possible, cranking every cardio workout to 11 on a 10 scale, pushing hard through the plateaus and lactic acid burn, and following the diet plan to the letter.

And if you think about it, this concept of freedom can be applied to all other areas of a person's life:  social, financial, artistic, spiritual, in one's career, etc.  A good example is the person who can play the piano.  At any time this person can sit down behind a piano, play music, entertain, and make themselves and others around them feel the full range of emotions that only playing and listening to music can provide.  But this person is not "gifted" or "naturally talented" with the ability to play the piano.  Nobody is.  This person first of all had to like the piano enough to want to learn to play it, and then had to earn whatever level of proficiency they have with the instrument.  If we use the good old "pushups" analogy, the pianist had to sacrifice their time, discipline themselves to show up to practice and learning sessions, and do the hard work necessary to be able to do just 20 piano pushups.  More than that, the pianist can't go from zero to 100 piano pushups without earning every single pushup from 1 to 99 in between.  Professional musicians and successful recording artists have made the sacrifices and disciplined themselves to do the hard work necessary to do 1000, even 10,000 piano pushups.  

Now, apply that to one's career.  What would it take to achieve 1,000 career "pushups?"  10,000?  One's love life?  Tired of not dating much or always ending up in dead-end relationships with people you aren't very compatible with?  Look inward and see how many relationship pushups you are capable of right now.  Same goes for money and every other aspect of an individual human's life.

Philosophical and motivational musings aside, most of you are here to see what I have done with P90X so let's get to the good stuff!

I took just one "after" photo this morning, right when I rolled out of bed (so I still look a little sleepy).  I considered doing a big chest and arms workout before taking the photos so I would be all pumped up (I pick up about an inch of pump on my biceps, typically) but I decided to just show my actual gains.  Before we get to that, let's start with my first picture from near the beginning:

 

I was not a happy camper in this photo.  In fact, I was mad.  Mad at myself for letting things get so far out of line with how I wanted to live my life.  I decided that I had to start at the bottom and work my way up.  Buying P90 and following the program was the very first step in this journey.  I weighed 190 here, but I had started dieting about 2 months before and was at 205 when I decided I was done being overweight and out of shape.  Yeah, I lost 15 pounds just by changing my eating habits.  Diet is that important.  Working out doesn't mean a person can eat whatever they want because they'll burn it off - that's a myth.  A strict and clean diet is even more important to a person who works out.  Some people don't like that idea, but that's why they call it sacrifice.  Eating pizza whenever one wants to is not freedom.  The flavor of food is not it's value.  The purpose of food is to fuel the body, nothing more.  Can I eat stuff that tastes good?  Absolutely everything I eat tastes good.  Can I eat pizza?  Sure, but I just don't do it very often because the gastric distress it causes is not worth the flavor.  But moving on...

 

90 days later, I am a much happier person and honestly would be content to stay here.  But I am looking for so much more than contentment in my life.

Fast forward another 90 days (we're up to 180 days of focused fitness and 240 overall).  Finally, this morning I am truly in the best shape of my life after P90X.  The sacrifice and hard work is paying off with the incredible freedom that only a high level of physical fitness can provide.  Look at it this way:  I am not only protecting myself from injury and disease, I am building an insurance plan that will produce a dividend of high quality middle-age and senior years, and more of them.  Freedom for a person who is in good shape is the ability to get out and do fun physical things and try new sports.  You actually want to get out and see what you can do with your new body.

It's been a long road and I have felt it physically and emotionally every step of the way.  I have earned every pushup and pullup.  And I am not even close to being done.  Round Two of P90X will start after I do one or two more recovery weeks (I haven't decided yet).  My goal is to do two more rounds of P90X (probably going to have to add in some P90X+ in there to stave off repetition), pick up about 10 pounds of lean muscle (optimistically), and then see where I'm at.  So this is going to be more than a year of transformation and after that, it will be maintaining what I have.  I will leave that open, of course, because my goals may change in 6 months - maybe I want to add 20 more pounds of muscle instead of just 10.  Who knows?  Right now it's 10 by April.

I will do my post-90 day fit test tomorrow morning and post the results.  I don't have a scale here so I will just guess I am probably right around the same weight I was when I began P90X.  I will say that I checked my body fat this morning and I have lost about a percentage point from when I started (it's around 8-8.5%, give or take).  Can't get much lower than that, and who would want to?

You know what the best thing about all of this is?  Being in shape just feels really, really good in every way imaginable.  All of the time.

That's freedom.

Comments

[James]

Congratulations on your transformation. You look great buddy. You're one of my main sources of inspiration in my own transformation. A real person with a real blog showing real results.

[tamsen from tiny in 90]

THANK YOU for leaving your comment on our site, and THANK YOU for detailing your incredible saga on your blog. You've done two things at least, but definitely not at most: You've left living, visual proof of what can happen when you go from numb to invigorated - who isn't struggling with that right now?! (calling up "sharpen the saw" from 7 Habits is a perfect way to relate that.) but you've also re-inspired me, reminding me why i jumped into P90X in the first place. It's one of the few programs that is a promise of real potential, made real through a personal decision to act, made day after day without fail. "Die Hard 3" vs. P90X? perfect analogy. Contratulations, I am very happy for you, and celebrate your success. and - sorry to be cheesy - but WAY TO BRING IT!

[Kr]

You have to be my hero. Can you please email me telling me how you manage with the fifer scissors? I'm in relatively good shape but I can't seem to straighten my legs out at all .. did this come in time for you? I'll be visiting this site for inspiration and jealous-motivation a lot more now!

[Tai Chi Monkey Girl]

Wow, super transformation. You look great. I'm on my 39th day, first round. I'm not very big on following any diet plans, but I'm sort of gaging my protein/carb/fat percentages in a macro kind of way. Not really counting anything, basically just eyeballing it. So, maybe my results will not match up to yours, but I really feel content about my 30 day result. I have accepted that my choice in my diet approach may result in less than average transformation, so be it. Nevertheless, transformation will occur, it just may take me longer than most P90Xers.

I also started a blog to help me keep advancing forward. My blog is at http://taichigirlie.blogspot.com/. It would be nice if you and your friends could check up on me once in a while.

Thanks,
Tai Chi Monkey Girl

[Prophet]

Thanks, everybody, for your support. To be honest, I am scared to go back to the way I was before because it took so much work to get here. As I said in previous posts, I had lost a bunch of the weight I gained when I quit smoking a few years ago - then slowly it crept back on. I didn't have as much to lose this time. Of course, I have never been in this great a shape before either! I don't want to do it all over again and I don't want to be a burden on my family when I get old so I am sticking with good fitness and diet for the long haul.

Fifer scissors: Dude, if you can't straighten them when they're all the way up, then raise them as high as you can while keeping them straight. Then just suck it up and don't let them drop until You. Absolutely. Can. Not. Keep. Them. Up. That burn isn't going to kill you so you have to do it until they fail, right through the pain. That's how I did it. My legs aren't completely straight, but they are just shy of being locked out. Also, don't skip X Stretch and make sure you are bringing it in Yoga and in a few weeks you'll blast through Fifer Scissors strong and proud.

Tai Chi Monkey Girl! Great site and great results so far, by the way. However, I have sad news for you: diet is about 60% of the equation and if you ever want to get into that little cocktail dress again, you might reconsider the Nutrition Guide. Cardio is 20% and resistance is the other 20%. You will be strong and able to sprint up ten flights of stairs on P90X, but you will look mostly the same if you don't discipline yourself on the diet. I hope I don't sound harsh, but it's the truth and diet was the BIGGEST thing I had the most trouble with (dang, I loves me some pizza and beer and carbs and carbs and steak and chinese food and on and on). Maybe just follow the diet book strictly for this 90 days only and then see how you feel later? Eyeballing your diet is like eyeballing your finances - there will be some surprises at the end of the month.. ;-] You will find that a nice clean diet makes you feel really good and there won't be any anxiety in the back of your mind about not truly getting the results you really secretly want. Just try it.. Diet is probably the biggest thing. Also, as you get stronger and start to feel those new little muscles popping out in interesting places, you will want to SEE them, too!

For everybody else, it's just a matter of "how much do you want it" and "are you willing to make the sacrifices to get what you want?" I want being in good shape more than I want sitting in front of the tv when I could be working out or sitting on a bar stool or going through a drive thru. But that's just me, everybody has their own goals.

Be honest with yourself and remember that doing any kind of moderate exercise at least three times a week and keeping to a reasonable and balanced diet will go a long way towards improving your overall health and longevity. And that's what it's all about.

[Prophet]

Oh, and the "sacrifice, discipline, and hard work" paradigm is straight from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," which I so very strongly suggest that everybody read/listen to (I have it on CD and listened to it in the car) if they haven't already. "Sharpen the saw" is Habit 7, which is that you have to have to take care of your tools if you want to be effective at anything. In this case, the "tool" is the human body (Dan, please refrain).

[robert]

Great site! Thanks for all the wonderful information. I had a question about the last pic on your main page. Was that pic taken after your first round of P90x or your second round? I was wondering because you had great results for the first round.

Thanks again,

Rob

[Prophet]

If you are talking about the photo on THIS post, that was taken at the end of my first round of P90X, after doing a round of P90 right before it. If you are talking about the photo on my most recent post September 9, 2010, then no it wasn't, I haven't done P90X in well over a year up to this point. I am currently in the middle of the Men's Health Book of Muscle program, which has zero cardio, and just weighed myself this morning at 171. I'm going to get down to 169 and then alter the diet for maximum mass gain, which in this case will be GOMAD for 30 or 60 days, or until further notice (depending on how it goes).