I’ve never really been out of shape, though there have certainly been times in my life when I’m more or less in shape. The best was probably the semester when I was commuting on my bike, running and doing yoga with a couple girl friends, and climbing and swimming with my brother.

Since then I’ve also never been full on scrawny, though again, never really buff either. My girlfriend has complained a few times about how she wishes I was a bit bigger/buffer than I am now. This finally got to me, and I decided to do a little something about it.

I also have never really been into lifting weights, so I honestly have no idea how to bulk up. Which is why I decided to go with P90X. It’s basically a dvd program designed to get you into bad ass shape. It’s combined with a diet program, though I’m not really following that, mostly because I’m lazy about doing all the cooking only for myself. I am keeping the basic food type portions in mind when eating, and so trying to eat a lot more protein (including protein powder), and less carbs (which is tough because of all the white rice [which is a pretty worthless carb] here).

A couple weeks ago I wasn’t able to start because my bands hadn’t yet arrived (I chose not to get weights as they’re a) expensive, and b) big and bulky in my little apartment), so I did a couple of the DVDs just to check it out. Yoga kicked my ass, as did Ab Ripper X, but Kenpo wasn’t so bad.

But finally this last week my bands arrived and so I kicked it into hard gear.

Day 1 (Monday): It was a holiday so I didn’t get my swim in, but just started with Chest and Back. Tons of pushups and pullups (my band set has a cool bar attachment, so while I’ve got it hanging from the door, the bands clip to a bar which, I think, better simulates pullups). At the start he says to pace yourself, which I thought I did. Only around 20 pushups per set. But by round 2 I was already D.U.N. done. My pecks were sore for about two days after that.

Day 2: Yoga. Nothing really special here, as I’d done it before. Still kicked my ass, but I’m getting better. Though since I was still sore I didn’t do a pushup with each salutation.

Day 3: Morning swim & evening Shoulders and Arms. Here for a few of the moves weights over bands would definitely be useful. The bands were annoying stretching and pulling against my skin. Especially when under my bare feet and being pulled up.

Day 4: Plyometrics. As before, this one is a pain in the ass! And I feel bad doing it because I’m jumping all over the place, and hope I’m not disturbing my downstairs neighbor (also landlord) too much. But I wait till at least 8am to start, so I think that’s a legit time.

Day 5: Morning swim & evening Legs and Back. This one is fun because it’s a lot of body weight stuff (since I don’t have weights). For the pullups I added an extra band, so they got up to over 40kg of force, and went along with everything. Not too too tough, but still certainly not easy.

Day 6: Kenpo. Fun and not bad. My martial arts training makes this one a little easier. Did this and then ran to to the pool for some SCUBA practice.

Day 7 (Sunday): No P90X, but I did still workout training with the Korean Freedive Team.

I know that following the diet would produce better results. Really, the biggest challenge for me is just to eat more. I made myself eat a whole pizza after Legs and Back on Friday, just because I need calories.

I also only have about six weeks before summer vacation, so I wont be able to finish completely. I’ll decide when I get back if I want to start over, or continue (but I will be back). So bad timing on the start, but it’s still better than nothing.

This week is my last week of swimming for a while since my schedule will be changing. But swimming and P90X is probably a bit intense anyway. Lets see how the week treats me.