JustSilence

Focus T25 Day 21 (Total Body)

277 calories

Barely made it.

Week 5 begins. And it was a disaster. The break from the program really did a number on my endurance. I was unable to keep up with the planks and jogged instead. My punches were weak at the end. All in all, I did a terrible job.

I had been contemplating earlier whether to repeat the Alpha stage at the end of the five weeks. After today’s performance, I’m leaning that way. If the Beta program builds on this one, then I’m going to be in trouble. If I’m barely making it through the Alpha stage, then it’s probably not worth it to continue to Beta.

So after this week, I plan to restart Alpha.

About this blog, it’s largely for me to put my thoughts down to track progress. But I also thought it would be helpful for those beginning the program to read what it’s like for a regular guy to start the program. I suspect, through 5 weeks, you’ll probably get the gist of it, so I’m not sure if I’m going to continue with giving daily updates, especially when I’m restarting the Alpha program. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. And then I’ll have to make another decision in about six weeks when I will be ready for the Beta program.

Focus T25 Day 21 (Speed)

308 calories

Barely made it.

This was to be day two of the double day Saturday, but I was beat from the previous routine. I had just come back from vacation and spent time catching up with work. Plus, it was the beginning of the school year and we were just getting our schedules in order. The end result was that I put off continuing with the T25 program for about a week and a half more than I should have.

I was unmotivated and I realized that I cannot say to myself, “I’ll do it in the evening” because I won’t. Thus, I’m forcing myself to work out in the mornings. And that’s tough sometimes because I’m not a morning person.

Anyway, this was the second day back from a long break from the T25 program and it didn’t go so well. I was clock watching the entire time, and it actually felt like yesterday’s routine went more smoothly, even though the Abs routine is the most difficult for me.

Going by the calories burned, it was in line with my previous efforts, but I always aim for improvement. Unfortunately, the long break was too much to overcome. It’s very important to commit to the workout schedule.

Focus T25 Day 20 (Abs)

240 calories

Barely made it+.

Back from vacation and back into the groove. After a couple of weeks without doing the T25 program, I thought I’d be pathetic at it. I was, but not as bad as had thought, well, for this routine. I actually felt pretty good and, while not being able to keep up, I wasn’t discouraged by the ‘V’ exercises. In fact, after I finished the routine, I thought, “Was that it?” Granted, it was tough, but it wasn’t as tough as the memory of it prior to my vacation.

This was day one of the double-day Saturday, but it really took a lot out of me, so I saved the second routine for the next day.

Focus T25 Day 19 (Total Body)

288 calories

Barely made it+.

Midway through, I was feeling really good about this workout. I felt that I was working hard and keeping up. Twelve minutes in and I was nailing it! But of course it wouldn’t be so easy. It’s the spider lunges that get me every time, and follow that with the pushups. I should know better than to get too confident about this routine.

At a certain point, I basically hit a wall and couldn’t get my act together. Once I got to the burnout stage, I was beat. Now, even though I was tired, I did what I could to continue, and at the end of the routine, I was feeling pretty good about my effort.

Then I checked the Fitbit data and I couldn’t believe it. I had a better workout on Tuesday when I felt I did horrible! That’s very frustrating. I don’t know what’s going on.

While I’m going to try to get in double day Friday tomorrow night, I have a feeling that this may be my last workout for a while. I’ll be in a hotel tomorrow and then camping for the next week. While I won’t be doing any T25 during that time, I hope I can make up for it in hiking.

Focus T25 Day 18 (Lower)

280 calories

Barely made it+.

I felt good after this workout. I’ve always had trouble with the lunges. There is a sequence that goes something like this: Narrow lunge (L), Wide lung (L), Lunge Pulse (L), Lunge hold (L), and then the right leg. So I can do the narrow and wide fine. And, for the first time, I could do the full lunge pulse without standing up. Granted, I did stand for a second or two between the pulse and the hold, but that’s further than I’d ever done before. (Typically, I’d stand up once or twice per exercise.)

Granted, the right side was tougher and I have to stand up from the lunge position in the middle and at the end of each of the right pulse and lunge, but whatever, I’m still proud of my progress.

I had to tone it down a bit because it was late at night. While this one doesn’t require a lot of jumping, it does have the calf hops, so I didn’t jump as quickly as I normally would. The whole pace was slowed down a bit.

As for the Fitbit data, it was timed (00:28:44) and recorded properly, but for some reason the graph goes on for eight hours. Don’t know why that is. It’s unfortunate because I can’t compare this graph to the others.

Focus T25 Day 17 (Total Body)

297 calories

Barely made it-.

I didn’t think I could do any worse that last week, when I said I regressed. Well, it felt like I regressed even more. I was beat and could not keep up at all.

Terrible. Terrible. I’ve had a choice of when to do these workouts, either early in the morning or in the late afternoon. I’ve been opting for the late afternoon, and I think that may contribute to my poor performances. The mornings are cool, while the afternoons are hot, with the sun coming in through the windows.

I can’t blame it all on that, though. The bright side, I suppose is that as bad as I felt I did, the Fitbit pretty much matched the previous Total Body workouts.

Focus T25 Day 16 (Cardio)

315 calories

Nailed it-.

I’m now most familiar with the cardio workout. I can’t say that I truly nailed it because I still have a little trouble on the pivot lunge hops. While I may be getting a little better, I still can’t do all the hops without losing my balance.

In the three full weeks of journaling the T25 program here, I have yet to mention my progress as it pertains to weight. Again, I don’t feel like I’m overweight, and few others would either, but I’m in the upper range of what I’m comfortable with. So after three weeks, I’m down just shy of four pounds. However,  my weight can vary by a few pounds depending on the day of the week. This is on the lower range of even that, so I’m happy with the progress.

I have also neglected to mention the nutrition plan that comes with the Focus T25 program. Of course to get the full benefit of the program, one would follow the nutrition plan as well. I’m not an expert, but I strongly suspect that the six pack abs in the “after” pictures are 90% due to the 1,100 cal/day meal program and only 10% from the actual exercises.

Anyway, I’m a rebel, though, and am currently following my own plan. Which means that I haven’t changed my eating behavior. I’ve been considering it, and will probably do something at the end of the Alpha cycle, that is when I finally decide whether to repeat the Alpha or go to the Beta cycle.

Focus T25 Day 15b (Abs)

270 calories

Barely made it.

It’s official. The Abs workout is the most difficult of all the Alpha cycle workout. It’s now surpassed Speed 1.0. Perhaps at the end of next week, I’ll rank them in level of difficulty.

I would not consider this a successful day. Earlier, I mentioned my dissatisfaction with the Total Body workout. I knew I would have trouble with the Abs as well, especially considering my past history, and sure enough, it was a killer.

Today marks the first time I made it through the Abs workout with the Fitbit working properly. On both previous occasions, I forgot to start the Fitbit so I don’t have accurate data. This will be the baseline for future comparisons.

Perhaps it’s because of my long legs and torso, but the plank exercises are especially tough and I’m still have a lot of trouble with the ‘V’ exercises.

In two weeks, I’m supposed to graduate from the Alpha cycle to the Beta cycle. I don’t see that happening as I’m still struggling so much with this Abs routine. Even though I still have a long way to go, I’m already considering redoing the Alpha cycle before moving on to the Beta cycle. I need to be confident that I can nail every routine since this is the foundation for future workouts.

Focus T25 Day 15a (Total Body)

307 calories

Barely made it.

Again, double day Sunday. Closing out the week with the Total Body workout followed by the abs. I was especially tired today and was slogging through even the jabs, which I never had a problem with.

And don’t even ask how I did on the plank walks or the pikes. Horrible. I regressed, it was so bad. I noticed that the Fitbit data was pretty similar to Day 7, so I guess it wasn’t too bad.

Next up is the Abs workout, which,  now that I got the hang of Speed 1.0, is the most difficult, in my opinion. Wish me luck.

Focus T25 Day 14 (Cardio)

310 calories

Nailed it-.

I did the cardio workout in the morning, about eight hours after last night’s lower body. Surprisingly, I only needed to make two modification — one during the pivot lunge + touch floor, and the on your mark + up downs. Other than that, I felt like I nailed the routine.

The modification for the pivot lunge + touch floor may be explained by last night’s heavy lower body workout. But the on your mark + up downs? On a normal day, I can nail that one.

But I was just beat by that time. What’s interesting is that 12 minutes into it, I thought, “I got this!” I was keeping up with everything. Six minutes left and I was checking the clock every few seconds. At three minutes left, I thought about stopping. But quickly realized that I could do three minutes so I pushed myself even more.

Done and nailed it (well, mostly).